Destination: Motherhood – Adventures of Dre

Devin and I had talked for a while about when we would be “ready” to become parents, and then came to the conclusion, we would never wake up one morning and feel ready, rather, we felt “ready enough”.

The decision to become parents wasn’t something we took lightly, we knew it would mean putting ourselves second, and not just for a moment, but for the rest of our lives. I mean it’s even more real now that Hudson is here, but your parents never stop caring or worrying about you for as long as they live, and it was a big decision to stop putting ourselves first. It meant no more late nights in the city, no more subway rides at 4 am where one of us falls asleep, and no more booking a trip to Ireland because the “price was right”, but now being on the other side of it I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

On our trip to Ireland we talked about becoming parents at length and decided it was time to give it a try. One thing I found crazy is that, for most people, you spend your entire adult life trying not to get pregnant, so you don’t necessarily know if you are going to have difficulties or if it is going to be easy. So we said ok let’s “try” but my short window for that month had already past, so although we didn’t bring home a permanent souvenir from Ireland, the next month did not disappoint, and we have a forever memory of our time in New Jersey – Hudson.

I don’t remember the exact date that we found out we were expecting, I remember I was late, but I always was, so it wasn’t anything to be surprised by. But since we were attempting to have a kid I took a test, and the rest is history!

My pregnancy was uneventful, I felt great pretty much the entire time after the first trimester morning sickness passed, and everything went smoothly. I went to 42 weeks because my stubborn little guy thought due dates were silly, and had to be induced into labor. It was a long process, but relatively easy making me feel like I could definitely do it again.

At midnight I checked into the hospital and after they got me hooked up to the IV and monitors, I tried to get some sleep but, it was near impossible. Between the excitement and anticipation that I was about to finally meet my baby and the monitor continuing to slip off my belly causing the nurse to constantly readjust it, there wasn’t much sleep to be had. In the morning I hadn’t moved much so my Doctor broke my water. At that point my contractions were coming hard and fast and non-stop, I was being induced with pitocin, and after enduring them for about an hour I got my epidural. So from about 10 AM till I had Hudson at 11:46 PM I was bedridden.

I tried to sleep during the afternoon, I was exhausted having been up for over 24 hours, but we had so many family members in and out of my room that it wasn’t happening. From the nurses coming in to do their checks and my sisters loudly talking and laughing I got no rest. But finally in the evening I was fully dilated and began to feel the pressure and urge to push. After about 30 minutes of pushing my nurse finally called my doctor to come in, and told me to stop pushing because he was ready to come out. At that point my body was doing it’s thing and even though I wasn’t trying, my body was pushing with every contraction.

My doctor got there and stood back and asked me to give him a push on the next contraction, so I did, and he immediately told me to stop. Hudson was ready to come out and he hadn’t prepped yet. He quickly got on the gown and gloves and his tools and after two quick pushes, Mr. Hudson Alexander made his grand entrance into the world – 11:46 PM on July 22, 2016.