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Hi, my name is Megan. I'm 25 and live in Savannah, Georgia. I had a little boy, Mason Arthur, on January 16th 2008. My boyfriend and I met while we were both serving in the military. I got out of the Army on March 20th 2008 after serving 6 years and doing two tours in Iraq. I loved my job and I miss it very much, but I am thankful that I have the opportunity to be at home to raise my son. Anything else want to know about me, just ask. =D


Birth Story:
I'll start by saying that we didn't know the sex of our baby while I was pregnant (I was convinced it was a girl), and that my BIGGEST fear during pregnancy was that I was going to go to the bathroom on the table while I was pushing HAHA.

My due date was on Tuesday, January 15th 2008. That day, I went to Walmart, went grocery shopping, cleaned my house, and went for a walk around the block after my boyfriend got home from work (trying to jumpstart something; I was DEFINITELY ready to not be pregnant anymore!!). At around 10:00pm, I started feeling what I assume were contractions. They weren't too painful....just uncomfortable; I timed them at about 5 minutes apart. I decided to go to sleep and hopefully make it until the next morning. The hospital was an hour's drive away and I didn't feel like going there in the middle of the night.

At around 8:00am, I woke up and walked to the bathroom. As I was walking, my water broke. I woke up my boyfriend and took a shower (I wish I would've done that the previous night, while I was wide awake timing contractions!). The frequency and intensity of my contractions increased as we made our way to the hospital. Let me just say that I always thought when your water breaks, it just breaks and that's that. Well, in my case anyway, it was more like a steady stream of water coming out over a long period of time. My bathroom floor was wet, my boyfriend's truck seat was wet, the seat of the little cart that picked me up in the hospital parking lot to bring me to the door was wet, and the floor from the hospital bathroom to the bed in triage was wet LOL.

I was going to play it by ear whether or not to have the baby naturally, but as soon as I got to the hospital I started asking for the epidural. They had to make sure I had enough platelets in my blood before they would give it to me and that took FOREVER. Contractions are no joke. That was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. Once I got the epidural though, I couldn't feel them at all. When it came time to push, they had to tell me when I was having a contraction. I could still feel some things, but it wasn't too bad. Because I am in the Army, I only got one ultrasound, at 20 weeks. Therefore, I didn't know how big the baby was going to be. My doctor told me right before I started pushing that "it" was going to be a big baby....nice. I was pushing for a while and not feeling like I was making much progress. The staff put a vacuum on the baby's head so when I pushed and the head came out, the vacuum would hold it in place after I stopped. I remember crying to Mark, saying that I didn't want to do this anymore and that I wasn't making any progress. The doctor had to yell at me a few times to get me to keep going. After 1 and 1/2 hours of pushing, I felt something slide out really fast and, a second later, felt a weight on my chest. I had my eyes closed, so I opened them and saw a little baby. Mark cut the cord and they whisked "it" away to get cleaned and weighed. Since they never announced the gender, I asked Mark what we had, but he was in such a state of shock, he didn't know...even though he just cut the umbilical cord! They told us we had a little boy, which SHOCKED me, but now I wouldn't have it any other way. The only thing I didn't like about the situation is that the doctor KNEW I was going to have a big baby, she even told me so, and she still didn't give me an episiotomy. I ended up getting 2nd degree tearing and it was extremely painful to do anything, even sit up, for days!

P.S. I didn't go to the bathroom while I was pushing :)