Connor James Van Den Berghe

Connor was born April 7, 2013 at about 6:30 PM. He was one week overdue. He was a little guy though, weighing in at 7 lbs. 3 oz.  My water broke early that morning. I had pretty much been up every few hours that night to go to the bathroom anyways when I felt this sudden urge I had to go right now. As soon as I got out of bed I knew my water had broke. Clark was sleeping on the couch so I called out to him. It was about 4:30 AM so he was still a little groggy.  I still remember what he said, "oh! That's exciting."  He then said call the doctor and let me know what you want to do. He then went to our bed and went back to sleep.

I tried going back to sleep, but that wasn't happening. I just went to the couch to hang out. Contractions picked up pretty quickly after that. Clark got out of bed probably around 8:30 or 9 am. I said get in the shower because we need to go to the hospital soon. By about 10:30 AM, we were in the car heading to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Labor was awfully painful. I gained a lot of respect for a lot of women I know. Going in I was epidural all the way :) When the doctor put it in it hurt a little bit, The nurse could tell I was in pain and said Dr. move it. I felt a lot of relief after it was then. A few hours later though it started hurting on my left side a lot more. The doctor came in to adjjust the epidural and give me an extra dose. He then started to explain to me the difference between pressure and pain. I wanted a little bugged but just let him talk. Yes Dr. I'm not stupid. In any case I just kept pushing the button every so often to try and ease the pain. I progressed pretty fast, especially for a first time mom. I started feeling the contractions and a lot of pressure. The nurse checked me and I was at a 10...it was go time.

Pushing was incredibly uncomfortable and awkward...not to mention painful. I kept telling them it was hurting, but they said well...as in there is not much we can do. My upper back and neck started hurting a lot. I thought it was maybe because how I was bending over to push, but learned later the real reason. Upper pain got so bad I didn't know how I could keep pushing. I was also absolutely exhausted and thus my pushing became non existent. After about two some hours, we were at a standstill. The doctor said we have two choices: keep trying or we use forceps to get him out. Both options were crappy in my mind. I asked Clark what he wanted to do and he said I could decide. I couldn't bare the thought of having to keep pushing, so forceps it was.

Baby Connor finally came out, it was incredible. I felt mad chaos everywhere and I was completely zoned. Connor wasn't crying at first so they called in for backup. As soon as they got there though, Connor peed all over them and they said, oh he's ok. I still had no idea what was going on, I just remember a nurse coming to me, patting my shoulder and saying, your baby is fine (that extra backup for 3 minutes cost $700 and I had to pay $250 of that...and they did absolutely nothing).

Everyone kept telling me to look at my baby, but I couldn't. I couldn't move my neck it hurt so bad. It took them a little over an hour to sew me up below, blah! The joy of forceps. They then realized why I was having so much pain above. It was an allergic reaction to the epidural that happens for about 5% of people, awesome. So later they told me that if I wanted to go the epidural route next time, I should talk about different dosage amounts with the anesthesiologist and maybe that won't happen again. The upper pain was worse than the lower pain I felt.

I finally got to hold my baby. It was a bittersweet feeling. I still felt I was in after shock but I was finally holding the little guy who we had been waiting for, for so long. Clark asked if we looked like a Connor and I said yes.