My Labor/Delivery Story:
Here are all the gory details of the arrival of my beautiful baby boy! :)
I started having contractions during the middle of the night on Sunday, Feb. 24th. At about 4:30 am, I decided to get up and start timing them because they kept waking me up and I could tell they were getting stronger and closer together. They were averaging about 5 minutes apart but weren't really painful so I figured it would still be a while. I also wasn't sure if I was having braxton hicks, or real contractions. The contractions continued all day and into Sunday night, ranging from about 5-10 minutes apart but were still not very painful, just annoying. At about midnight Monday Feb. 25th, I got out of bed because the contractions were hurting so bad that I wasn't sure if I could walk/talk through them. (they tell you to come to the hospital when your contractions are about 5 minutes apart for an hour, and you can't walk or talk through them). I was able to walk/talk through them, but I had to walk very slowly and it was definitely painful by this point. Monday morning I was STILL having contractions and my doctor's office happened to call at about 9:30 am to remind me of my appointment the following day. I decided since they had called me anyway, I would speak with my doctor's nurse and tell her what was going on since I had been having such intense contractions for so long. She told me to go ahead and come to their office and get checked just to see what was going on. When they checked me at the doctor's office, he said I was dilated 3 1/2- 4 cm and was 100% effaced. He said since obviously the contractions were moving things along, I was in labor and should head to the hospital to have the baby! :) We left the dr. office at about 10:45 and went straight to the hospital. They originally told me they wanted to start me on pitocin to keep the contractions coming, (they had slowed to about 7 minutes apart and they told me when you're dilated to 3 1/2- 4 cm, the contractions should be coming about every 2-4 minutes). I didn't want to instantly be contained to a hospital bed because I wanted to be able to walk the halls and use the hot tub and everything to help progress labor along. They told me they could break my water and then let me walk the halls and if that got the contractions coming closer together, they wouldn't have to put me on pitocin, but if it didn't they would need to use that. They broke my water at 11:45 and I walked the halls for a half hour, they did fetal monitoring, then I walked for another half hour. After the walking/monitoring they checked me again and I was dilated just to a 4 or a little more so they decided to start pitocin. At 3:00 I was dilated to a 5 and feeling some crazy strong contractions so I ordered an epidural. An ETERNITY later, the epidural was FINALLY in place and had started working. They checked me at 4:15, (after the epidural was in, but not working), and I was dilated to a 6. At 4:45, (just 30 mins. later), I was dilated 8 1/2-9 cm. An hour later, they checked me and at first the nurse said I was at a 10 and then she stopped and said, "Oh wait, there's still a TINY rim". At 6:15 they checked me again and I was dilated to a 10 and ready to start pushing! :) At 6:20 they had me start pushing. My doctor came in and said that he had to go help with an emergency c-section but that if he wasn't done there by the time I was ready to deliver, he would scrub out of the c-section and come deliver me. After a little bit of good pushing that was moving things along, the nurse called my doctor to let him know that it wasn't going to be long and to find out how much longer he would be. He said he would only be about 10 more minutes. The nurse then told him she THOUGHT we would have that much time. This is the point when I was freaking out thinking that the nurse would end up delivering my baby. Over 10 minutes later, my doctor called and said that he would be 10-15 MORE minutes. The nurse once again told him that she THOUGHT we would have that long, (although she didn't sound convincing). Then after another over 15 minutes, the nurse called my doctor again and he said once again that it would be about 10-15 MORE minutes. At this point, the nurse took me off of the pitocin so that the contractions would slow down some. She also had me breathe through a bunch of contractions in a row instead of pushing during them like normal. This is NOT an easy thing to do even with an epidural because even though I wasn't pushing, it was like Parker was pushing and trying his hardest to get out but I was blocking him. It was very odd. Anyway, FINALLY my doctor arrived, they hooked me back up to the pitocin and a few pushes later and Parker was born! :) He was born at 8:19 pm, (although he would have been born much sooner if the doctor had been there). He weighed 6 lbs. 14 oz. and was 18 1/2 inches long.
When we left the hospital he weighed 6 lbs. 9 oz. He had a pediatrician appointment Thursday Feb. 29th to check and make sure he still didn't have jaundice and he weighed 6 lbs. 6 oz. The following day, we had a follow up pediatrician appointment and he weighed 6 lbs. 8 1/2 oz. Then yesterday, (March 10th), he had an appointment and he weighed 7 lbs. 13 3/4 oz! He was wearing his clothes for this weighing and he wasn't for the previous weighings but how much can baby clothes weigh. Anyway, judging by that weight gain, I don't think he'll be a little guy for long! He already looks so much bigger than when we brought him home from the hospital. We are loving being parents despite the extreme sleep deprivation. :) My baby boy is the sweetest baby in the whole world!!! :)
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