Ezra was born July 5 but his due day was July 3, so he was a few days overdue. By the end of the pregnancy, both Megan and I were definitely ready to meet the little guy. Alas, these things take time. Let me give you a blow by blow of what went down on July 5.
12:30am - Megan begins having contractions. I'm definitely asleep.
1:00am - Megan wakes me up to tell me that she's having contractions. We begin going through them together.
3:00am - Megan tells me that she'd rather have me awake and alert later so I should sleep now. I'm far too tired to protest.
6:00am - I'm awake again and we begin the home labor process. This includes a few walks, lots of counter pressure, a bath, and more than one breating exercise.
2:00pm - We decide to go to the hospital. We wanted to do as much from home as possible so the plan was to check in, see how things are progressing, and leave if things weren't going anywhere.
2:30pm - Arrive at the hospital and check in.
3:30pm - We decide that things have progressed enough that we're going to stay. I text all the family members and let them know that it's going down.
4:00pm - We move down to the labor floor at the hospital and labor begins in earnest. This means lots more breathing, a bunch of heat packs, a few walks up and down the hosptal halls, and a lot more counterpressue to combat the back labor.
7:00pm - Women's world cup final starts. I have no problem admitting that I watched the first half while helping Megan through labor. Don't worry, I asked Meg for permission first. =0).
8:00pm - The doctor on call arrives and we move into transitional labor, meaning it's time to start pushing and it's time to have a baby!
8:24pm - Ezra Adam Leong enters the world and we all rejoice.
- The hospital staff was AMAZING! We couldn't have asked for a better nurse or experience. They took our birth plan to heart and were nothing but supportive of us. It was a really great and relatively stress free experience. I was prepared to fight to stick to our birth plan but they were 100% supportive.
- I think one of the reasons they were so supportive was because we were going for a 100% natural birth. There was going to be no epidural. We weren't going to induce labor and we were going to wait as long as possible for the water to break on its own. Apparently only about 5% of the labors at our hospital are done naturally so I think the staff was excited to see if we could do it.
- My wife is an absolute rock star. 20 hours of labor on only 1 hour of sleep without any medications or interventions is nothing short of a miracle. I loved being with her every step of the way. She said I did a good job coaching her, so that's nice too. =0).
- Coaching labor is hard work! The hardest part was definitely the counterpressure, pushing on her hips during a contraction, at least from a physical standpoint. My arms were definitely sore by the end of it. Of course, I'm not complaining, compared to what Megan went through, but still, it was more of a workout than I thought it would be.
- Jesus was with us every step of the way. During contractions, Megan kept reciting Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Every part of our process had the peace and strength of God in it. We were blessed by a great team, a great labor, and a great little boy. Praise Jesus!
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
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