D Day. Finally!

Well, we elected to induce labor the earliest my Dr. would agree to it. Which was at 39 weeks. March 11th. At 7am J and I checked into the hospital as two, and on March 13th, we went home as 3. The short and quick timeline goes a little like this:

7am check in
10am broke water
1pm epidural
5:29pm delivery

If you want the gory details keep reading.

We checked into the hospital at 7am. the nurse started me on saline and pictocin IV drip right away, as well as hooked me up to monitors to record the heartbeat of the baby and length and time of my contractions. I was still dilated to 3cm when we started, so we elected to walk until the contractions started to get stronger and more frequent. We walked and walked and walked, and still no progress with dilating. Dr. B came in to check me around 10am, and broke my water then. (Supposedly that's supposed to speed things along as well.) It was at that point that J and I knew there was no turning back. Once your water has broken, you have 24 hours to get the baby out or risk infection for mom and baby. So after I ahemmm...."drained" the equipped me with jumbo maxi pad SUPER absorbency and the lovely hospital issue mesh underwear and sent J and I back out to walk some more. The idea behind all the walking is to put more pressure on the back side of my cervix in hopes that this pressure would help the cervix to soften and dilate faster. This walking did help me out a little, as I progressed to 4 - 5cm when we returned to the room. However at that point, the contractions were no longer comfortable (when are they ever?) and I just wanted to sit down to rest for a bit. After the nurse got back from her lunch break I elected to proceed with getting the epidural, which means you are now bed bound for the remainder of labor. But ahhhh the relief. It's quite fun to watch the monitor show you that you're having a contraction and not have any pain or discomfort along with it. Ahhh the wonders of modern medicine. The next few hours of labor were kind of boring. So nothing really to report. Aside from them checking to see how far I'd progressed, not much was really happening. Around 4:30 the Dr. called to see how I was doing. I think she was looking to decide if she was going home after she was done at the clinic or heading over to the hospital. The nurse checked me again and I was at 7cm. My nurse was a very smart woman. Since I had a good epidural where I was still able to move my legs, but not feel the pain she had me get on all fours on the bed so I could be more in a squatting position. This would allow the baby's head to put more pressure on my cervix, and in theory help me to dilate faster. Well, it worked because 20 minutes later I was at 9.5cm and almost ready to push. Once they called the Dr. in I was at 10cm. They had me turn back over onto my back and got the bed ready for delivery.

One thing they asked me this time that they didn't ask me when I delivered R, was if I wanted to watch too. They had a mirror on a stand that they could tilt so I could see what all was happening "down there". It was like my own episode of 'Special Delivery' on the Discovery Channel. When they told me to push with the next contraction, I could see the baby's head. Very freaky, but very cool as well. Then with push #2, we had a torso, and push #3 at 5:29 pm, resulted in our baby boy! They put him up on my chest right away and J was able to cut the cord. He was beautiful. There's something very magic in that moment when you get to meet your baby for the first time.

After that they took him to check his stats, weigh and measure, etc. He weighed in at 8lbs 8oz. Was 21" long, had all 10 fingers and 10 toes, and was crying as expected.

I don't post full names on this blog, but RDK is now the newest member of our family. We have started referring to him as R2. Jer is calling him Deuce. So as you read future posts, he will be referred to as one of those, or possibly just "the boy".

All of us are well, adjusting to our new addition, and we'll try really hard to post more frequently. For now, here's a photo of the little guy ready to com home from the hospital.

Welcome to our family little guy! We're glad to finally bring you home.

-AK

"Any Day Now" x 2.......Really?

“Any day now.” Yes, that was the remark from my Dr. again this week. I guess the words “Any day now” could mean 1 day or 15 days. No telling. Guess this little guy will come when he’s ready.

Now for the technical details: Still at 3cm dilated. Still 50% effaced. No progress over last week. Both the Dr. and J & I were thinking that will all the contractions I’ve been having off and on for the last few days would have meant that we’ve made more physical progress. Apparently not. Dr. did say that the baby’s head was lower in my pelvis than it was last week. (Something I could tell already due to the extra pressure I’ve been feeling in that general vicinity. I walk like you do when you try to walk with a ball between your thighs and not drop it. Sound awkward? It is.)

Dr. said that she would be happy to induce me once I hit week 39 which would be on March 11th. Since I was induced with R, I’d really like to experience going into labor naturally, but I am feeling very ready to have this baby…so we’ll have to weigh all the options once we’re at the 11th and still have no baby.

I’ve been trying a lot of different things that are supposed to help “jump start” labor. Proven and unproven. In the last few days, I’ve:

Eaten 2lbs of fresh pineapple
Tried massage and acupressure on pressure points to cause contractions
Eaten food with lots of hot sauce
Taken Evening Primrose
Walking – a lot more than I had been
What got baby in, is supposed to get baby out (think about it and it’ll make sense)
Warm baths, warm showers

So I suppose if you know of something else I can try, I’d be willing to give it a shot. Leave me a comment and I’ll let you know if it works or not.

Until we hear something different, I guess this is where we stand on updates.
-A