Welcome to the World Aiden Titus

Something big arrived in the Porter Family early in the morning on September 29! He's big, he's blonde, and he has kisses all over his chunky cheeks...welcome to the world Aiden Titus Porter! 

He was my second largest baby weighing in at 8 lb 10 oz, his abundance of blonde hair is reminiscent of Cameron, he's the 17th grandchild on the Porter side and the 14th on the Terry side and he came into the world fast and furious like his next-older brother, Spencer. He also completes the Porter basketball team. Summer Olympics 2032, here we come! Now where's a coach?

 

 The Story

The week of my due date my goal was just to stay relaxed and not get fixated on when Aiden might/might not arrive. The "Anything happening in there?!" questions are always well meant (and I totally ask them of other preggos too, it's just too exciting when someone is about to deliver!) but they make me feel like I should have control over something I don't have control over and it makes me tense. My goal was to tune all of that out and for the most part I was successful.

I was able to go on a peaceful walk just about every day that week, listening to the same two talks over and over again to get my mind in the zone: "Behold Thy Mother" by Jeffrey R. Holland and "Are We Not All Mothers" by Sheri Dew. They both sink into my heart when I listen to them, I hope you'll give them a listen yourselves.

 A couple of teasers:

"Bear, borne, carry, deliver. These are powerful, heartening messianic words. They convey help and hope for safe movement from where we are to where we need to be--but cannot get without assistance. These words also connote burden, struggle, and fatigue--words most appropriate in describing the mission of Him who, at unspeakable cost, lifts us up when we have fallen, carries us forward when strength is gone, delivers us safely home when safety seems far beyond our reach.

But can you hear in this language another arena of human endeavor in which we use words like bear and borne, carry and lift, labor and deliver? As Jesus said to John while in the very act of Atonement, so He says to us all, 'Behold thy mother!'"
-Elder Holland

"While we tend to equate motherhood solely with maternity, in the Lord's language, the word mother has layers of meaning. Of all the words they could have chosen to define her role and her essence, both God the Father and Adam called Eve 'the mother of all living'--and they did so before she ever bore a child."
-Sheri Dew

So, it's Friday, September 28. The day before my due date and all my ducks are in a row.

• My angel mother-in-law has arrived armed to shop for groceries, make meals, get kids dressed, take kids on adventures, brush the teeth in four small mouths, read stories, wipe away children's tears, sacrifice sleep, and the list goes on and on and on.
• We have just a few days until Jayce is leaving for a conference.
• I've already been getting consistent contractions for a chunk of time every day.

Bottom line, I'm really hoping little Aiden will be making an appearance within the next 24 hours. Jayce takes me to the hospital and does his own ultra sound because I'm worried about positioning (I know, doctor-wife perks). While we're there we learn that my OB is also there and after some texting back and forth she says she can check me out. She had been looking over medical school applications and was at that "I can't read one more sentence" point, I think.

Turns out I was dilated to a 4 and she was confident I'd be going into labor that night should my membranes be stripped. I was still doubtful, after all I wasn't told I had a cervix of steel for nothin'. 

I start tracking my contractions around 9:20pm when I can tell they are becoming consistent. I don't get consistent contractions until late evening for some reason, don't ask me why! They come every 2-3 minutes for a few hours. By this point my MIL has gone to bed, I lost Jayce to the comfy couch somewhere during A Wrinkle in Time and I'm currently folding laundry while deciding if I feel more like crying or laughing at the end of Steel Magnolias. Sally Field has just started laughing at the ludicrous idea of hitting Shirley MacLaine and I've seen all of my favorite parts. Go to bed and possibly let things fizzle out (that tends to happen when I fall asleep during consistent contractions) or stay up even longer waiting to see if they'll get more painful? It was was 2:00 am when we left for the hospital. Why not, right? I'd been having consistent contractions for hours.

By the time we're in the hospital parking lot I'm needing to pause during contractions. It's not enough to keep me from feeling silly having to be pushed in a wheel chair from the ER to L&D though. I'm still smiling and talking just fine between contractions at this point and the woman checking us into L&D give us the "You're sweet, but this is most likely a false alarm" look. 

I'm only at a five when they check me in triage which has me a little like, "All those contractions earlier and I only went from a 4 to a 5??" Then I start to mentally decline and I'm thinking I have like 24 more hours of labor left and I'm probably going to have to kiss the no-epidural idea goodbye. 

Having already donned the hospital gown, I'm walking from the triage area to my delivery room and trying to calm my brain the heck down about how long things might take. I stop as a contraction hits and there goes my water. My legs, my shoes, the floor. Clean up on aisle four.

I go from a 5 to crowning in 45 brutal minutes and then I'm pushing. I let the nurse know and she tells me, "No, don't! You're not ready yet, you'll tear!" and I'm thinking, "Girlfriend, every fiber of my being is telling me to PUSH, so it's time to push my friend!" She gets someone to come check me and sure enough, my body did not lie. About 3 or 4 pushes later he was out and then they laid this slippery, blonde, crying, warm precious boy on my chest.

So much to say on birth and I don't have time to find the words for more right now, but this was my mantra during my pregnancy and it still rings true for me. I love it.

"Birth is not only about making babies. 

Birth is about making mothers

-strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves 

and know their inner strength." 

-Barbara Katz Rothman

Welcome to the world sweet Aiden Titus. We love you to the moon and back.