Wade's Birth Story

Wade Samuel Prusse 

Born May 22, 2019 at 6:14 pm, weighing 9 pounds 15 ounces, 22 inches long

(Wade's newborn photo session was taken by Torrie Lynn Photography)

I didn't write a lot or post much on social media about being pregnant with Wade. I probably only took a handful of "pregnancy" photos as well. This pregnancy flew by until my 3rd trimester when I started having pretty severe back pain and could barely move. I kept thinking, man it feels like I have a 12 pound watermelon inside me, but little did I know I basically did! Overall it was a pretty normal pregnancy without any complications (unlike with Gavin) but by the time I was about 35 weeks I was so anxious to have this baby just so I could move again. Since I did have some elevated liver enzymes again this time around my doctor decided it would be best to induce me at 39 weeks. I had wanted to go "naturally" into labor on my own, but looking back I am very grateful that I didn't.

A few weeks ahead of time May 22 was picked as my induction date, but I still was worried I would have complications up until my last OB appointment at 38 weeks. My ante partum hospital stay with Gavin definitely gave me some worries about that. I was told I would get a call as early as 6 am in the morning so the night before we set our alarms nice and early and tried to have everything ready as much as possible. I was so glad we did because at 5:45 labor and delivery called me and asked if we could be there at 7 am and that I was the first one on their list. So we quickly packed up the car and off we went! We live about an hour from the hospital so we had to hurry and drop a sleepy Gavin off at my parents and quickly get to IMC. I definitely was nervous but I felt a lot more confident this time around.

To be honest the day went super smoothly and would be boring to go into too much detail about, until the pushing started. I opted to get an epidural right after my water was broken. At first the epidural didn't block any feeling and I was worried I would have problems with it like I did with Gavin's labor, but the doctor came in again and just told me to push the little button that released more medicine and that did the trick. It was seriously the most perfect epidural. I could still feel and move my legs so I didn't feel like a beached whale the whole time. But I was numb enough to barely feel my contractions all day and not be in any discomfort. After my epidural my sister Rebekah showed up and she and Sam just kept me company as we waited for labor to progress.

My labor actually progressed pretty slowly because of the epidural. My nurse, who was awesome, kept being surprised I wasn't more far along every time she checked me. But I wasn't super worried because it still went a few hours faster than my first labor experience. About an hour before I was ready to push (about 5pm) I started feeling really weak and sick to my stomach. I remember getting very nauseous before I pushed with Gavin so I assumed this meant I was about ready to push, and I was right! They let me sip on a little soda and some crackers to help boost my blood sugar to help give me a little energy to push and settle my stomach. After that, my doctor showed up and we were ready to go!

It was so different than Gavin's labor because my doctor only showed up for the last 10 minutes of pushing but this time around she was there right from the start and it gave me hope that things would be a lot faster. I started pushing around 5:45 pm. It was going really well and after about 25 minutes of pushing I delivered the baby's head but after that is when the quiet uneventful day got very stressful. You could tell there was a sudden shift in the room when my doctors voice changed and she became very urgent for me to push even harder than before. The baby's shoulders had become stuck inside my pelvic bone, which finding out later can be very serious for the baby. If your baby because stuck this way they could break a collar bone, have their airways restricted for too long, and could have long term side affects because of these things. Of course me being on the other end of things, I had no idea any of this was happening. My doctor quickly asked if I was okay with her doing an episiotomy and so of course I said yes. In the moment I felt like something must be wrong and I actually felt like a big failure because I was hoping to not tare at all this time around. I felt like, what is wrong with me? Why can't I push this baby out? With Gavin once the head was out he popped out so fast the doctor could barely catch him. My doctor performed the episiotomy and then things got even more intense. Sam said he was shocked at how hard everyone was pulling on the baby and pulling on me. My sister was coaching me to push while my doctor pulled on the baby and my nurse was pushing pretty intensely on my stomach. Even the nurse who was there for Wade came over to help. I heard my doctor say "call the NICU right away" and my heart just sank. Moments later Wade was born and they laid him on my chest, but he was pretty blue and wasn't making any sound. I patted his back and felt pretty panicked that he was so silent. Maybe 20 seconds later my doctor grabbed him off my chest, clipped the cord herself, and got him to his little warmer. After what felt like forever (but probably all happened in about 1 minute) I heard those amazing cries and his little body became pink and flushed. It was the most relieving feeling.   

While they were working on Wade and my doctor was working on me, everyone kept saying, wow he is a big baby! Once they weighed him he turned out to be a half and ounce shy of 10 pounds. My doctor was shocked because for weeks she had been telling me that she thought he might even be on the small side. I hadn't been measuring any bigger than normal and he didn't feel extra large inside me. It was no wonder I was so uncomfortable for so long, I had such a big baby inside me. My doctor said it was good I agreed to be induced because who knows when I would have gone into labor on my own and by then he would have been so big I probably would have needed a C-Section. After that I felt a lot better about needing an episiotomy. I felt pretty amazing for birthing a 10 pound baby and only having 2nd degree episiotomy in the end. 

After all the excitement calmed down we were able to just spend some quiet time with Wade. He was so sweet and nursed from me right away. I was so grateful everything went as well as it did and that he didn't have to go to the NICU after all. I was so grateful for my amazing nurse and doctor and for all that they did to keep both of us safe.

That night my mom brought Gavin to meet Wade even though it was pretty late at night. It was very sweet. Gavin was in love right away but also his usual crazy self in the hospital room trying to push buttons and pull on my IV cord. So needless to say they didn't stay too long. My sister Rachel also visited us and brought us some much needed food to eat. 

That night we decided on the name Wade Samuel Prusse. I had a few other names in mind but from the moment he was born I kept calling him Wade in my head and so I figured that was the right name for him. One of the nurses really wanted us to name him Hank so we could call him Hank the Tank, and while cute, I declined on Hank.

The first night we managed to get a little sleep. Over all this hospital stay and my whole labor experience was so much easier and better than with Gavin. It made me realized that Gavin's labor and everything that came with it after was a lot harder than I thought it was. The nurses were so amazing and helped us get stretches of sleep. Wade did a great job nursing in the hospital and passed all his blood sugar tests that he had to have because of his size. Maybe it was just from being a mom already but I felt more confident and that everyone at the hospital treated me with more confidence all around, but it made the whole stay very pleasant.

Wade's first bath. He screamed pretty much the whole time until the nurse washed his hair.

Our first photo as a family of four!

After two nights we decided we had stayed long enough and were anxious to go home. I thought it was funny because the nurses and doctor's kept asking how long we wanted to stay and kept saying we could stay a whole other day if we wanted. The hospital must not have been that busy because when Gavin was born I felt like they were trying to get me out of there as fast as possible to free up our room. But we were ready to go home and so after a quick morning of discharge paperwork we were on our way!

After picking up Gavin from my sister's we headed home and the first thing we all did was take naps. It was a good omen to me. Honestly, Wade is such a good baby. We have had some bumps along the way but that seems normal for any baby. We are so happy to have him in our family and I am so grateful that he was safe and healthy when he was born. We love you Wade! Welcome to the world!

Here are a few of my favorite of Wade's newborn photos by Torrie Lynn Photography