What A Week! He's Here!

So... we have a story for you. On Saturday, October 22 at 11:56 am Daniel James Tudor made his arrival! Just about 5 weeks too soon!

The story... On Friday afternoon I went to the bathroom and thought I lost my mucous plug. So we called the doctor and they shoe-horned me into an apointment around 2:00. The nurse practitioner examined me and said that I was a good 1cm dialted and that the baby was dropped to about -1 (meaning he was in position to be born and in the birth canal. By the time you push, the baby is at station +3). She then decided to put me on the fetal & contractions monitor to make sure the baby was doing okay. So we sat there for about 20-30 minutes watching his heartrate read out on the strip. I also learned that I was contracting regularly, every 2 minutes for about a minute, but I really couldn't feel anything at all. Every once in a while there was a slight, very slight crampy feeling. So the nurse consulted with the doctor and he decided that the baby was handling the contractions well enough and that because we were closer to 3 weeks than 35 they weren't going to try and stop labor. So they sent me home and told me to make sure the carseat was installed. Huh. Well, perhaps I was just stupid or just in serious denial, but I really didn't believe that anything was going to happen at least not for a few days. Mom was in pre-labor with each of us for like a month before we were born and I just really didn't feel like anything was happening. I even forgot to call my doula and let her know about the doctor's appointment. But we did install the carseat, but I was planning on doing that this week anyway. So we went on with our day and I went to work and then we came home and made dinner and went to bed.

Fortunately I didn't stay up too late cause at 1:15 I woke up to go to the bathroom (I REALLY had to pee). Well, when I stood up I felt a little gush and ran to the toilet. I thought I'd lost bladder control in spite of my kegels! But when I got up from the toilet I felt another couple of gushes and realized my water had broken. When I went back in to the bedroom, sure enough, there was a puddle on the mattress and my pillows. Yuck! So I bellowed downstairs to Jim and then we couldn't figure out what to do. I had planned on laboring at home as long as possible, but this was so early, I didn't want to be totally stupid. So we tried to call my doula and she didn't hear either of her phones. I was arguing for going back to sleep, cause I'd wake up later when my contractions really began (oh, yeah, I still wasn't feeling anything!), but Jim, wisely argued for calling the doctor. We did and he sent us to the hospital to put me on antibiotics, standard for pre-term labor. So, we puttered around the house for like an hour and packed some stuff up (I really didn' t want to rush off to the hospital cause I anticipated a long labor). Then we hit the grocery store on the way to the hosptial to get some snacks and juice and a little cash.

We arrived at the hospital around 3:00 am or so and by this time I was beginning to feel my contractions, although they weren't very intense and were kind of erratic. So we labored away for the wee hours, really tired (I tried to lie down and rest between contractionc but it hurt to lie down.. too much pressure), but we sort of managed. When our day nurse came on at 7:00 she did my second pevlic exam and told Jim how much I had dilated (I didn't want to know... the numbers can be very superficial). She also discovered that my cervix was inflamed. A really bad sign because I was just moving from early labor to serious labor at that point, we still ha a ways to go. So she told me I needed to relax more during my contractinos and quit bearing down. Relax is really the wrong word. One should say give over to your body rather than relax because relax is not really possible. It hurts too freaking much to relax. Anyway, I thought, fair enough that I'm not fighting against my body doing it's work, but I know I'm not bearing down (I wasn't in postions conducive to pushing). So she leaves the room and another contraction comes and I throw up again. I'd been throwing up pretty consistently and was getting dehydrated. The lightbulb clicked and I realized we had a probelm. I was 1)dehydrated and couldn't keep liquids down 2)unable to stop vomiting 3)an inflamed cervix early on can harden if one is not able to relax sufficiently to allow the inflammation to go away. The end result, after hours of painful labor is a c-section because vaginal birth becomes impossible. So I told Jim to go get the nurse again. He told her I was throwing up (I couldn't really talk much at this point, cause my focus was too inward) and she hooked me up tp an IV, gave me anti-nausea madication and said the Dr Mormol had suggested Staidol (sp?), a muscle relaxant. I took all three without hesitation. The Staidol knocked me out for about an hour during which time I dilated from 4 cm to 7 cm. I woke up in transition with amazing contaractions ripping through my body. Ripping is the right word . Wow! However, the Staidol hadn't worn off yet so I would wake up with these amazingly intense contractions that were double peaking and lasting forever and then I'd pass out again. Probably helped me get through transition faster because it hadn't worn off. Anyway, transition lasted about two hours, one of which I was still dopey for.

Then came pushing. Oh what a beatiful feeling. I was able to squat for the first few pushes, but the baby was stuck on my pubic bone, so we changed positions to the kind of classic rocked back, half squat/half lying down position and I stayed that way. It didn't feel as effective, but at least he wasn't smashing into my pubic bone. I pushed for 30 to 45 minutes or so and then Daniel was born!

He wasn't doing great when he was born, he was having some difficulty breathing and his heartrate was erratic so they gave him some oxygen and put the heartrate monitors on him and whisked him off to the Special Care Nursery. I got to hold him for about two mintes before he had to go. Jim went with him. His breathing was stabilized before they left the room but his heartrate was still a little questionable so they kept him for a couple of hours in the nursery. Which caused his clood sugars to drop cause he hadn't nursed. Which meant they had to keep him longer after giving him formula. Anyway, he came back to us after 5 hours in Special Care. A good 1 1/2 of which I was able to be with him.

So, that's our birth story. He's been a really jaundiced this week so he's not quite the picute of ealth yet, but we're getting there. He's nursing pretty well and everything else seems good. I feel great. Just had a wee little tear with a couple of stitches, but otherwise I'm good. (The nurses couln't even see the stitches at the hopsital, that's how small the tear was!).

Enjoy the pictures.