Russell John

Russell John Haws was born on June 9th, 2017 at 6:32 pm at Baptist Hospital in Miami, Florida. He was 6 pounds, 11 ounces and 20 inches long. And I got an epidural for the delivery---so that's pretty much all the facts, haha!

I had been VERY nervous about how fast I would deliver this baby because I had Molly within an hour of getting to the hospital and did NOT get an epidural in time. I had no need to experience childbirth unmedicated for the THIRD time and so my main goal was to get to the hospital in time for an epidural. That's all that mattered. Any hospital would do. 

We moved to Delray Beach (about two hours north of Miami) on June 2nd/3rd. We packed up the van Friday evening and drove it down and unloaded enough to find beds, and then our new ward helped us unload Saturday morning--sooooo quick too, in about 45 minutes. But then, since we were sharing a moving van, Sterling left for the ENTIRE rest of the Saturday to help them load and unload their stuff. Which meant I was basically left with a house completely full of boxes and no help and not allowed to lift anything. Talk about feeling useless and sooo frustrated at what I needed to be doing. Well, Sterling made it home by about 9pm and we busted out beds, shelves, the entire kitchen, etc. by midnight Saturday night. I spent the rest of the week slowly unpacking and cleaning while Sterling lived in our Miami apartment to finish up his last week of school.

So fast forward to Thursday. I am exhausted and pretty worn out, but feeling really good about life because our house has been unpacked, we'd successfully navigated to the library, the grocery store, the park, and I'd cleaned the entire house except one shower in the main bath (we have this random MASSIVE shower that was really daunting). On Wednesday I had driven BACK to Miami and helped Sterling clean our old apartment and gone to an OB appointment at which time we had found our breech baby boy was HEAD DOWN and we didn't have to schedule a version---yay!!!!! Oh, and I was dilated to a 2/3 then.

So on Thursday I was feeling good about life, feeling like we could get everything in order this week, Sterling could finish up in Miami, and I could have a Father's Day baby (two weeks early--my norm) and life would be perfect. My mom even needed it scheduled that way. BUT THATS NOT WHAT HAPPENED. 

I woke up to contractions early Friday morning at 330am. I'd been having contractions regularly for over three weeks, especially when I went up stairs, or even just got in and out of bed to use the bathroom. So I wasn't too worried. But then I couldn't fall back asleep. And they stayed regular and didn't go away--even when I went downstairs to watch tv in the most comfortable positions I could find. When they stayed five minutes apart for over an hour I started to think through our situation. We'd only been to church once and I didn't feel comfortable asking anyone here in Delray to babysit. Sterling was in Miami, as was the doctor I had seen the entire pregnancy. So...I woke up the kids at 5am and put them in the van and drove to Miami. The entire time unable to get a hold of Sterling. (unbeknownst to me, he'd stayed up to 330am writing a paper and was just not waking up to his phone) LUCKILY, he woke up to his phone when I was about twenty minutes outside of Miami---and a more worried and apologetic husband you never did see, poor guy. By then it was 7am so we felt comfortable MADLY texting all of our old friends trying to find someone to pawn the kids off on. We were hugely blessed that people watched and took care of our kids literally all weekend while Sterling was in school and I was in the hospital---there are not enough thanks to give them! 

My contractions were still every five minutes, feeling a little more painful, but not crazy. Which had me a little worried that maybe all this crazy hoopla was just a false alarm and I should've stayed home. But they admitted me to triage, and they watched my steady contractions. We had a horrible experience in triage---some people are just really awful at their jobs, so a little battered and worse for the wear, they admitted me to labor and delivery at about 10am. 

Unfortunately, the group B strep test they'd done that Wednesday hadn't come back to the office yet, so I had no results, and they had to give me all the rounds of antibiotics just in case. Which meant no one was in any hurry to speed up labor. From the very beginning, at around 11am, a nurse basically said all that we needed to do was break my water and I would be having that baby because my contractions were harder and harder and every 2-3 minutes. But they didn't want to break my water until I got the antibiotics. So they eventually got two bags of those into me with saline solution. Then eventually I got my epidural---yay!!! I was dilated to about a five/six and labor was starting to remind me WAY too much of delivery, and I was very, very happy to have that wonderful epidural. That was afternoon, probably 2 or 3. Then they didn't want to break my water because they had some c-sections to get to first. Well, and because my baby was pre-term at 3 1/2 weeks early, so no one wanted to induce labor by pitocin or anything like that. They were letting me take my sweet time. Which is fine, but I was a little annoyed because my water never breaks on its own, but the minute they break it I start really going into labor. And I was kind of over the sitting in a hospital bed having regular contractions that got pretty painful between bouts of the wonderful epidural being released. 

About 4pm the doctor came in and they got all ready and she said she'd be right back after the next c-section and she'd break my water. And when she did, everything went really fast, just like I thought it would. Russell was born at 6:32. A VERY different labor and delivery than the forty-minute CRAZINESS that was Molly's delivery. But I'll take that epidural and eight hours any day!

Delivery went smoothly--the cord was wrapped twice around his neck (it was all his flip-flopping going breech and around again) and he was VERY blue when he was born, which was a little scary. But they said it wasn't tight, had it off before I had really even noticed, and he pinked right up. 

The delivery nurses were AMAZING. I loved each and every one of them. I wish I could say the same for the postpartum nurses. They said I was the only non c-section and therefore their easiest patient and therefore, easy to forget. Basically thats what they did. Luckily, I was just fine, but man, I'll be happy if I never deliver another baby in South Florida. 

Sterling cut the cord but those pics are a little gruesome. Lets just say the trying-to-be-helpful nurse started taking pictures WELL before I was ready.

Kudos to Sterling for holding everything together over the weekend. Friday night our WONDERFUL friends kept our kids at their house, so he was able to just sleep in the hospital room with me, which was nice because you don't just bounce back to using the bathroom after an epidural like you do with natural child birth (I still wouldn't change it!). And then he had to leave at 5am for an all-day school thing on Saturday. He picked up the kids at 6pm, brought them over to meet the baby, and then drove them ALL THE WAY back to Delray to get a bath, clean clothes, and a nice sleep in their own beds. Then he drove BACK TO MIAMI at 4am on Sunday to drop off the kids, go to a school thing from 7-5, pick up the kids, pick up me, pick up my mom from the airport, and meet us all back in Delray. Whew.

Our first family picture as a family of six.