When we arrived at the hospital that Sunday morning, I was dilated to a 2…just like when we arrived for Cooper.  I was so relieved to learn that it was not too late to get an Epidural…yay!!  So we got comfy in the most luxurious hospital room I had ever been in.  It was huge!  The bathroom had a massive tub, and was the size of our bedroom at home.  It had a huge bed for Cory to sleep on, where he didn’t have to battle with the bars stabbing him in the back.  We were ready to get the show on the road!

Everything looked good.  I got the Epidural, thank God, and they started me on Pitocin to get things going.  My parents, and Aaron and Berit started heading our way from Iowa, and Dave and Ginny headed back from the Lake.  Soon we would meet our little Crosby!  In my head we had only a few hours until that awesome moment.  The Pitocin would do what it does, and the Epidural would keep me comfortable, the Dr. would check me in a few hours and she would tell me it was time to push.  25 minutes later we would have our beautiful boy in our arms.  Man, that would have been awesome!  I guess it was not supposed to happen that way again.

It had never even entered my brain for one second that I might have to have a C-Section.  Labor with Cooper was long, a few days of  horrible contractions, but overall, not bad.  It is not like I am a small woman, with small hips.  I have no health concerns, and neither did our baby that we knew of.  I had done this before, and with all of the stories you hear about the second being so much quicker, I practically thought he would fly out on his own while I was driving to work or something.

As the hours went by, things were seemingly moving right along.  I was getting pumped full of Pitocin, I was comfortable, I was progressing.  Morning turned into afternoon, and afternoon into evening.  Everyone arrived, and waited…and waited.   I truly thought that things were just fine, and when the Dr. checked me at about 5pm, I was finally dialated to 9 cm.  The time was almost here!!  As everyone waited patiently, the nurse (whom I wasn’t too fond of by the way) said that she thought Crosby was turned.  The Dr. checked, and sure enough the little bugger was facing to one side with his shoulders up and down.  So they had me change my position in bed, moved me all around, on my knees and elbows, on my side…he wouldn’t move.  A few weeks before I had watched “A Baby Story” on TLC, and a woman had the same problem and the Dr’s were able to manipulate her baby to move from the outside.  It looked painful, but worked.  So even with this news, I was completely and blissfully optimistic.

When I asked the Dr if she could just move the baby from the outside, the news was not at all what I had expected.  Evidently that could not be done unless I was dialated to a 10.   Because it seemed that I had stalled out at 9, they couldn’t do it.  She gave me the option of going into a C-Section, or waiting one hour to see if I got to a 10 on my own.  Crosby’s head was down, engaged, and had been there for quite awhile.  The massive amount of Pitocin I had made her worry that my Uterus was working too hard and I could run the risk of having extensive bleeding.  I seriously couldn’t even believe what I was hearing.  How was that even possible?  This was my second kid, and the first was so easy….this couldn’t be happening.

Cory had my mom come into the room.  She had experienced this, and he thought that she would be able to comfort me better.  I don’t know that anything could have comforted me at that time.  I was completely freaked out.  Even typing this right now there are tears welling up in my eyes.  I had never had surgery in my life.  I was so mad.  So mad that I was not going to have the same beautiful experience that I had had with Cooper.  Mad that I was going to have a much harder recovery.  A scar.  A cut through my abdominal muscles – as if it wasn’t hard enough to get even a few muscles back after Cooper, now they would be cut.  To think that I would have to be sitting in an operating room, with a sheet up, and a bunch of strangers looking inside my body.  Having everyone in the room see my baby before me, hold my baby before me.  That I would not be able to have the same connection with my son as I had previously with Cooper.  I was devastated.  I still am I guess.

There was no choice.  The hour came and went and I was not at a 10.  There was no alternative, and things moved so fast the second that realization came about.  People flocked in.  It was like I had lost all control.  Cory suited up.  He told the crew waiting in the lounge what was happening and I was prepped for surgery.  I was moved onto a different bed, brought to a pre-op room to have sheets put on me, and start the proper drugs for the procedure.  It was so cold.  I couldn’t stop my teeth and jaw from chattering.  I don’t know if I was actually cold, or if it was the cold drugs pumping through me, or straight up fear.  Either way, it was uncontrollable.  I was wheeled into the operating room, where a team of people I had never seen before stood in front of trays of cold steel instruments that they were going to use to cut me open.

I remember Cory standing next to me.  Telling me I was going to be ok.  Without his words, his hand holding mine, I honestly think I might have lost it.  I was crying, with tears pooling in my eyes as I laid there.  A large blue sheet in front of me with blood splatters on it.  I thought I was going to throw up, so they gave me anti-nausea medicine.  It seemed like forever, I was laying there just waiting for the moment that I would hear Crosby cry and make every minute of this hell worth it.

And then it happened….I felt the weight of my baby leave my body.  He was finally out.  They rushed him over to the side to clear his lungs.  There was the fear of the Merconium still, so they had to act quickly.  Cory went over to him immediately.  And then I heard him cry.  My baby was ok, he was finally here!  I wish that I could say that from that moment on, the previous few hours just washed away, but they didn’t.  They still haven’t.  I know that someday my beautiful boy Crosby will read this, and I want him to know one thing…it was worth every second!  I will never forget how he came into the world.  I know I am not the only woman on this planet who had to have an emergency C-Section.  I realize that many women have had it WAY worse than I.  I am probably one of the most stubborn people I know.  I had a plan, and this was not in it.  But at the end of it all, when I look past the events of that day and night, there is one thing that will stay with me forever…I gave birth to a gorgeous little human being named Crosby, who made me and our family complete.  It was worth every second!

The “plan” had always been to have another kiddo.  Neither of us wanted to rob Cooper of the joy of a sibling, or ourselves of the experience of having more than one.  After about a year, I started to get the itch for another, but held it in, as we really wanted to give them some space.  Let them have their own identities, spend a good amount of time with Cooper before we brought another one in to steal his time….but after about 1 1/2 years, the itch grew too strong.  Thoughts of my mom came into my head.  There were 4 years between my brother and I, not necessarily by choice, but because Aaron didn’t come as soon as they had hoped.  I was surrounded by friends and coworkers that were having problems getting pregnant, and I was getting nothing but older each month.  I had convinced myself that it would take awhile to get pregnant, and the sooner we started trying, the better.  Well, lets just say we didn’t have any problems getting pregnant.  2 months after “trying”, that little plastic stick showed two lines.  They would turn out to be 2 years and 2 months apart.

I have to say, things were a bit different the second time around.  Things hurt a little more, I gained a bit more weight, I was more tired, more exhausted really.  It might have been because there was a rambunctious 1 1/2 year old running around…or I was just older, or just because it was the second time around.  Because I was officially “old” at 35, and considered high risk because of that fact, we did have a few perks.  We had the full gamut of testing at our disposal.  Extra ultrasounds, genetic testing and screening to ensure there were no problems, and specialists just waiting to help if there were.  At 12 weeks, we had our first ultrasound, which showed our little man with a little bit of a thickening on his neck, which could be a sign of a problem.  We were reassured to wait for the next ultrasound at 20 weeks to see what was going on.  A little bit of a scare.  Luckily, at our 20 week he was shown to be just perfect!

Unlike with Cooper, the ultrasound tech was positive about the fact that he was a BOY!  All boy, no doubt about it this time!  I will admit, that as many times as I have said out loud and in my head that I did not want to have a girl (for fear of having to deal with a little me), I had a brief (sorry Crosby) moment of sadness at the fact that I will never have a girl.  I thought about how I would never coach a daughter how to play softball, or have a wedding for her, or help her navigate her teenage years (YEAH RIGHT!  WASN’T SAD ABOUT THAT AT ALL!).  Cory was great, as usual.  He quickly said, “Well you know that if we were having a girl she would look like me, so it is really for the best.”  That fleeting moment of sadness was over quickly!  We were going to have two boys…the Wiest boys.  Look out world!

As things went on, and I got bigger and bigger, there was a little concern that I might have gestational diabetes.  So after failing the quick 1 hour test I needed to do the 3 hour test (which is made up of 4 blood draws).  I passed with flying colors….both times they made me do it.  I still think it is a way for them to make more money, and they set the criteria super low to make you do additional testing.  Sorry insurance company!  But, I guess at the end of the day, it is good to know that everything was ok and so was he.

One of the biggest differences between my pregnancy with Cooper and this one was that I had to change doctors.  With Cooper I was able to go to a midwife (which came from me wanting a water birth – not even an option that crossed my mind with this one since I had learned that an Epidural is the only way to go).  Although I liked my new Nurse Practitioner, it just wasn’t the same.  The communication was much less, and I felt like the level of genuine concern just wasn’t there.  It was as though because I had been through this before that I should understand everything, and didn’t need my hand held.  I guess some of the blame should go onto me with this since I am a bit stubborn, and really did think I knew everything at the beginning.  However as my hormones kicked in higher, that communication and relationship I had with the midwife really would have been nice.  Just ask Cory about me hitting the median in the hospital parking lot as I left one of my later term appointments, crying, and didn’t even know I did it….unbelievable!  I give Cory a ton of credit for having to deal with me and my hormones with this one!  Glad he has thick skin!

We had our third ultrasound at 40 weeks, when he was supposed to show his face soon.  We begged the tech to tell us how big he was (not the normal thing I guess, but she did it reluctantly).  He was measuring around 8 lbs.  Not small, but not huge either.  I really felt like I needed to know, so I could mentally prepare for the job of getting him out.  I could handle 8 lbs….I thought.

As we got closer to the big day, I had contractions, then they stopped, had contractions, then they stopped.  I stayed home from work on Friday, hoping to walk and get organized and avoid going into labor at work.  It worked, the contractions started.  Then they stopped.  Nothing all day Saturday either.   At the time I thought it was pretty annoying, but looking back it was a good thing.  My cousin Hayley was getting married on Saturday to Cory in Iowa.  This meant that my parents, Aaron and Berit were in Iowa, over 4 hours away.  They were able to go to the wedding and that was a great thing, as I wished that I was able to be there too.

Sunday morning, still no progress, so Cory went fishing with Chad and Gary.  I had some contractions, but with the way things had been going, I wasn’t too concerned, so I just told Cory to have his phone.  He was only 30 minutes away, so no biggie.  Of course, Murphy’s Law, my water broke at about 9 am.  That was something that I hadn’t been through with Cooper, and let me tell you, not at all what I expected.  I did notice that the water wasn’t clear, it was more brown.  Not a good thing.  This meant that there was meconium in the water, or poop.  They say that increases the risk of the baby breathing it in, and having problems after breathing, so it changed the tone a little from there.  I called Cory and told him, and he rushed to get the boat out and get home.  Kim came over and found out that my contractions had increased and there was meconium in the water and kind of increased my concern, rightfully so.  So while we waited, I got the bags in the car, and waited in the garage with a towel to catch the water…nice picture huh?  When Cory pulled up, he jumped in the van, and we were on our way to the Maple Grove Hospital.

I called my parents, Aaron, Alycia, Dave and Ginny on the way to the hospital.  Just hoping that things were going to go fast from here.  But praying that they weren’t going too fast that I would be too late to get an Epidural once we reached the hospital….my greatest fear!  When we pulled up, Cory dropped me off, and I waddled into the hospital with a towel between my legs taking breaks to deal with the contractions along the way.  Cory came in, bags in tow, and we made our way to the Labor and Delivery area.  Unlike the first time around, we hadn’t even been to that area of the hospital and had to ask where to go.  Guess we were not as freaked this time about the unknowns – but it turns out we should have been.