Rigby Todd Forsyth

Everyone likes a good labor story right?! Well if you don't feel free to keep on keepin' on cause that's what this is.

Rigby Todd Forsyth

I woke up on Tuesday morning at about 3:50 am with contractions, REAL contractions. I laid there for a little while to see if they kept coming and sure enough they did. I got up and went downstairs to watch tv and keep my mind occupied. The contractions never did regulate themselves and timing them was impossible. I'd have one and then not have another one for 10 minutes and then I'd have three in like 5 minutes. I remember them being like that with Porter so I paid more attention to the strength of them than the time between them. At 5:30 they became quite painful and strong so I went upstairs to wake Neil to help me through them. We only sat downstairs for a few minutes before I told him we had actually better get going. The contractions were getting really strong and I could feel a lot of pressure.
We got to the hospital at about 6:30 am and checked in through emergency. The lady asked if she could help me and I said "yeah, I'm in labor." She looked at me and asked how far along I was because she couldn't even tell I was pregnant from the front (hello?!?!) I told her I was due in 5 days and she said she would speed things up. When I got up to the labor and delivery suite and checked in at the desk there the gal had a few questions for me:
"How far apart are your contractions?"
"They aren't regular, I can't time them."
"Did your water break?"
"No."
"Are you bleeding?"
"No."
I'm sure she thought, ok girl, come and we'll listen to your little baby and then we'll send you home because what you are feeling is a little indigestion! We went into a room and she said she just wanted to check the contractions for a while. She put a band on my tummy to measure what was going on in there. She said she'd leave that on for a while and come back to see how I was. She was only gone for a few minutes when I told Neil he had better go find her to check me because I was having a lot of pressure and maybe she didn't believe me but this baby was coming! She came back and checked me and sure enough I was 6 centimeters dilated. She said "Ok! I'll go call the doctor and we'll get a room ready and let's have a baby!" As she was leaving I called to her, "I'm going to want an epidural!" (Yeah, I've got priorities. It saved my life with Porter!) and she just said we'd have to wait for the doctor. I remember at that point turning to Neil and saying there was not time, I wasn't going to be able to get one cause this baby was on it's way.
We got to the delivery suite just before 8:00 am and when the doctor arrived he checked and I was at 7 centimeters so he broke my water to help things along. The contractions were so strong and so incredibly, horribly, ridiculously painful I asked once more about an epidural but the doctor confirmed there wasn't enough time and if I did get one it would probably kick in just in time for me to hold my baby. I thought ok, I've just got to do this then. I moaned and groaned with each contraction and did my best to writhe and breathe through them. I remember telling Neil after I had Porter that it actually wasn't as bad as I had imagined it would be. Well this was far worse than I could ever imagine it to be, HA! Neil coached me and encouraged me and we got through them. When I was at 8 centimeters the nurse told me to lay on my side to help shift baby and move things along. After a few minutes she said "I know the last thing you want to do right now is move but if you could get up to pee that would really help baby come faster." Excuse me?! Get up to pee?! I figured I couldn't be in any more agony and if it would help things get over faster I might as well do it so I got up and almost as soon as I sat down in the bathroom I said, "I'm ready to push!"
I got back to the bed, the doctor checked and said sure enough, go for it! I pushed through a couple contractions and once the head and shoulders were out I kinda stopped pushing. I think I was waiting for the baby to just slip out - that's what Porter did, once his big head was through everything else just fell out, haha. The doctor said "you've got to keep pushing!" and I was like oh, I thought my job was done! So I pushed a couple more times and then he was out. Rigby Todd Forsyth was born March 16th, at 8:44 am, after just about exactly 5 hours of labor and after 7 minutes of pushing, not bad!
I looked down before anyone could say anything and saw that it was a BOY! I had told many people that a girl would be lovely but if I could place an order I'd ask for another boy, and I got him! A brother for Porter, another son, I couldn't be more THRILLED!
The nurses took him away to check him over and kept commenting on what a big baby he was and what a big head he had. Neil and I knew he wasn't as big as Porter but I was anxious to hear his stats. He weighed in at 8 lbs 9 oz, 20 1/2 inches long with a head circumference of 36.5 centimeters. That's still a BIG boy!

The doctor looked him over and told me he was perfect... which of course I already knew.