Delivered

First, thank you so much to everyone for your lovely wishes of good luck on my delivery.  It was so wonderful to read all of your messages!

We arrived promptly at 5am on St. Patrick’s Day, with no expectations of what was about to happen. You can read as much as you want in a book, but the experience is uniquely personal.

I was  hooked up to the pitocin drip by about 6am (after a really nasty round with the IV insertion) and didn’t really get much in the way of contractions. My OB arrived at 9am to break my water and jokingly said that she was going to wipe the smile off my face.  She was so not kidding. Having my water broken was easily more painful than anything I dealt with in all of my infertility treatments.  I was coming off the bed in pain.  The pain then triggered a nice crying fit.

Once she managed to nicely wipe the smile off my face, my contractions came on very strong and very fast which really surprised me.  I was in constant pain it seemed. They kept asking me if I wanted my epidural (which I ordered ahead of time – I knew I would want one and once I did, I would not want to wait) and I said no.  I wanted to get a good idea of how I could handle them.  After an hour, I knew I was done and wanted my epidural.  I decided that I had experienced enough to know what they felt like but I didn’t need any more.  Once I had the epidural, though, all was right with the world.

It also managed to speed up my progress – in one hour, I went from 2cm to 9cm.  I thought my nurse was crazy when she told me.  I quickly progressed to the full 10 cm, but unfortunately, Little B was still up pretty high (-1 station).  After being at 10cm for about 2 hours, my OB called and instructed that they had me start to push.  I pushed for an hour and didn’t make any progress.  So, they let me rest for an hour and then we started up again – only, this time, I was put in every conceivable position to push to get him down – truly, the Kama Sutra of Birthing Positions.  After about an hour and a half I managed to get him down and thank goodness for that – I was very close to a c-section.  All of a sudden, there was just a flurry of activity – my OB was getting suited up, Mr. X was holding up my right leg and I was fitted with an oxygen mask to help me get air to Little B while I pushed.

And, Little B was born at 5:59pm! All of a sudden, there was a little alien on my chest looking right at me with beautiful blue eyes and a rather dazed look.  We all wiped him down and I was just overwhelmed.  Mr. X cut the cord and Little B was whisked away to the warmer to be weighed and cleaned.

I, on the other hand, was attacked with a needle and thread by my OB – I managed to get a 2nd degree vaginal tear pushing him out.  They had to give me a boost on my epidural because it hurt so much while she was stitching me up.

So, our little boy arrived in the world in the usual way and is slowly working his way into our hearts.

It’s Time

As we’ve gotten closer to term, I gave some thought to induction but figured that it would only be an option once we get past a due date with no progress.  What I didn’t factor in was the possibility of a not-so-overdue, but rather gargantuan baby.

The estimate from yesterday’s ultrasound was a whopping 8lbs 12 oz.  The doctor did tell me that there is a 20% swing in either direction meaning he could either be on the heavy side of 7lbs or on the really heavy side of 9lbs.  Either way, I say oof.  I may have child-bearing hips, but I don’t know if they are up for the challenge of passing a possibly almost 10 lb bowling ball.  So, we decided to pull the trigger right at 40 weeks before he got any bigger and my chances of a c-section increase.  As it is, my chances are at about 20-30% because of my cervix, which is neither favorable nor unfavorable.

So, tomorrow at 5am, we present ourselves at the hospital for induction.

It’s time.

Slip, Tumble, Plop

We’ve had an unusually rainy winter.  The rain has created a lovely slippery moss-like consistency on our back porch flagstones.  How do I know it was slippery? First hand experience, that’s how.

Last Monday, I went out the back door to let out the dog.  He scampered into the yard and I waddled strolled toward the unexposed portion of the deck.  My right foot went down the step, but I got no traction.  In a split second, my tuckus met flagstone and my back hit step.  I fell like Charlie Brown (without the dramatic run up).  My first concern was Little B. The good news is that I fell completely backwards and the  belly was untouched.  The bad news is that flagstone is pretty unforgiving with absolutely no give.  Luckily, my butt has grown like the state fair – bigger and better each trimester – so I had some pretty good padding to soften the blow.

I was able to get up and went back into the house to let Mr. X know what had happened.  Other than a sore back, I felt fine and I could feel Little B doing his wiggle thing.  But I knew that this had to be reported to the doctor.  Sure enough, the instructions were to head to labor and delivery for monitoring.  Five hours later, four of which were spent being monitored and ultrasounded, we were sent home with the knowledge that Little B was just fine.

We did manage to have a good dry run for the hospital check-in.  Mr. X learned the valuable lesson of what he wants to bring with him and I got a better idea of how the monitoring worked (for example, it’s ok that the nurse doesn’t come in to look at the print out – she has a little monitor at the station).  We became intimately familiar with all of the various beeps and noises.

We also learned that I was 80% effaced and still 1 cm.  Unfortunately, either the nurse had very short fingers or my cervix was playing hide and go seek because it felt like she was digging a tunnel to China to assess me.

Since I am now 39 weeks, we are officially on Labor Watch.  I am surprisingly not anxious about this.  Every one else, though, is going a little stir crazy.  I think it has something to do with the whole “she can blow at any minute!” aspect of the situation.  Apparently, I’ve become a little volcano.  Unfortunately for them, Mr. X and I are both of the opinion that Little B will be a little tardy in his entrance, so we find all of this talk rather amusing.  I’m still resisting the idea of a betting pool on his arrival date, but we can always use the money.

image: lunita lu