As my little man Riley sleeps and big brother Ian is in school, I thought it would be a great time to put to paper Riley's birth story. I'm not sure if I was more nervous about this delivery since I already knew what was coming, or if it put me more at ease since Ian's birth went so smoothly, but I was still scared nonetheless.
I carried Riley super low the whole pregnancy. Ian was low too, but something was just even more uncomfortable with Riley. The first half of my pregnancy was extremely rough. I threw up day and night for almost 23 weeks. Without medicine, it was hard for me to even function. Thank goodness for my doctors office and helping me find the right medicine that worked for me and made sure I had access to it even when my insurance wouldn't cover it. Once that went away, I felt pretty well. I continued crossfitting 3 days per week once I found the medicine that controlled my morning sickness. I am so glad that I did because I think it made huge difference in my delivery. With all of that being said, we planned to induce at 39 weeks on September 1st.
As the evening approached, we had family lined up to watch Ian and family coming in town to meet out little man. We were supposed to be at the hospital at 5AM that morning, but got the call at 4AM that they had tons of people come into triage that night and didn't have a room for us and to check back at 7:30AM. We called in at 7:30 and the story was still the same. We checked in again at 9:30AM and nothing had changed at this time either. We were so anxious because I just wanted to know that Riley was going to be a healthy little baby boy.
We ended up being on call until midnight that night with no luck in getting a room. Luckily my doctor had called another hospital for us and scheduled an induction there for the next morning at 7AM to make sure we were able to deliver that weekend. We got up that morning and headed to the hospital, and we were literally the only patients on the labor and delivery floor. So crazy considering they said they were swamped the day before too! But we were thrilled with the quality of service we received during our stay, so it definitely made up for the stress of the day before.
Anyways, at 8AM when they checked me, I was only 2cm dilated. They started my pitocin drip on a very low dosage and monitored me and Riley for the next 30 minutes before upping the dosage. We both took to it well, and when they checked me an hour later, I was already 4/5cm dilated. As we had already known from my weekly doctors appointments, his head was extremely low, so he was already in great position. Around 9:30AM they came in and broke my water, and you better believe that shortly after I requested my epidural. ;) I got sick once when I was in labor with Ian, but this time I got sick multiple times before (and after) delivery.
Before we knew it I was already 8cm dilated and they were calling my doctor to head over to the hospital. I didn't really have to push that long, but his heart rate did keep dropping with I was pushing. So thankfully, he came pretty quickly and there were no issues when he was delivered, which was a huge relief. At 12:47PM, we welcome Riley Merritt into the world. It was just as beautiful of an experience as I remember it being with Ian. I cried tears of joy when I saw him for the first time and watched Charlie cut the umbilical chord. I will always remember Charlie kissing my forehead and telling me how much he loved me and how proud he was of me. It chokes me up a bit just thinking about it. I could not be more blessed to have him as my partner daily on this parenting journey.
Riley was a perfect 8 pounds 8 ounces and 21.5 inches long. My doctor couldn't believe how big of a boy he was and neither could we (although I joked the last month of pregnancy that he was going to be big based on how much pressure I was feeling!). We were just so happy that he was finally with us and was as healthy as could be. His head full of dark hair got him a lot of attention the whole weekend at the hospital, just like his big brother Ian's did when he was born.
Thank you so much to our doctors, nurses, family and friends for the wonderful care, calls, texts, prayers, meals and words of encouragement throughout our pregnancy and since he's been born. It truly takes a village, and we couldn't be more thankful for ours.
