First of all - happy ONE WEEK to my precious baby boy! It's impossible to believe it's only been one week... seems like he's been here forever. :)
But, in order to properly record the end of this pregnancy, it's time for the story that led to his birthday (before I forget it!).
On Tuesday, June 22, the husband & I went to my regular weekly checkup with the OB. After the usual exam, she pronounced that I'd progressed to 3 cm dilated & 60% effaced (from 2 cm dilated & 50% effaced the previous week at my 37 week checkup), but noted that baby's head was still high. She was pleased with my continual progress, & after hearing that I'd continued to make progress myself, I figured that I had nothing to lose & therefore broached the subject of induction.
Much to our shock, she promptly told us that she felt I was extremely favorable for a successful induction & that if we were interested, she felt there was no reason that she couldn't do an induction the following Monday, June 28. The husband & I quickly tried to pick our jaws up off the floor as we realized that we could be meeting our little one in less than a week, provided that we went ahead with the induction. She picked up the phone, checked in with the hospital's schedule, hung up & filled out the paperwork for the induction. I watched as she estimated baby's current weight (as in, her guess for baby's weight that very day) at 8 lbs 2 oz, completed the Bishop's score chart (landing me solidly at a score of 7), & handed over pen & paper for my signature, reminding us as she did so that if we changed our minds at any point, we were more than welcome to call & cancel the induction. We walked out in a daze, mumbling about calling family to share the info with them. I promptly began to be filled with momma guilt, thinking that I was doing something wrong by wanting to evict the bairn before he/she was really ready, so I turned to the phone & began to call all of the people whose opinions I needed to hear - my own mom, my stepmother, my mother-in-law, & my aunt, whose opinion was particularly of interest given her career as a high-risk labor & delivery nurse. The answer from all of them? A resounding YES in favor of inducing. The husband & I spent the next day debating the pros & cons, finally settling on going through with the induction. The rest of the week? We spent it finishing up errands, enjoying the time as just us, & preparing for the biggest event of our lives thus far.
Monday morning rolled around, & we were off to the hospital bright & early to be checked in for our 8 am start time. At that time, I posted this brief snippet, blissfully clueless as to the long haul that I was really in for. We settled into the L&D room (room 5 - a HUGE corner room in the L&D room), met with the OB (who was originally thinking that I'd need Cytotec to jumpstart my contractions, followed by Pitocin to regulate them & keep them going), & then got my IV inserted & blood pressure cuff attached (which I would quickly tire of - the plastic was so hot & irritating by the end of it all, & its continual inflation every 20 minutes drove me crazy!). A student-midwife & the on-call midwife came in to check me & found that I'd progressed to 4 cm dilated & 75-80% effaced, leading them to declare that Cytotec would NOT be necessary after all & that instead, they were putting in the orders to go straight to Pitocin, which would be gradually built up from a starting level of 2, with increases every half-hour. Baby's head was still at a -3 station at this point, which was not good, but they were optimistic about my progression continuing & bringing baby down, so we forged ahead. By now, it was nearly 10:30, but the show was finally on the road!
The rest of the morning & afternoon passed by in a haze - the Pit drip was upped as promised (in increments of 2 every half-hour) & I made it to 18 before finally feeling contractyions, although they were registering on the monitors regularly. The on-call midwife returned at some point & said that the OB had called & requested that she break my water, which she did, commenting as she did so that there wasn't much fluid there. This definitely boosted contractions - I had ONE bad contraction that shot straight up my spine & wrapped around my right side to my belly button & decided it was time for the epidura. In my eyes, there was no need to sit there in pain, especially when the on-call anesthesiologist was apparently itching to get his hands on me, having heard that I planned on an epi & wanting to get it done before my contractions progressed & made sitting still for that long more difficult (I'd later understand why he was of that belief...). Shockingly enough, I wasn't scared at all about the process of getting the epidural (maybe because I couldn't see any of it happening?), & really thought it was a breeze - the worst pain of it was the anesthesiologist locating the exact spot to insert the epi, but other than that, it was just a bunch of little pricks. Easy as can be, & I was happy as a clam! I settled back in & waited to be checked.
Finally, the OB stopped by in the late afternoon to check me - & found that I was ONLY at 4.5 cm. Say whattttt? I was shocked, to say the least. The positive news was that I'd effaced the rest of the way, but baby's head was still up at -3 station. This was NOT good. She said she'd be back several hours later to check things again, so I sat... & waited... & hoped that things would progress. By the time she came back late in the evening to check me again, I was STILL hanging at 4.5 cm. I felt utterly defeated by this time, especially when they stated that they felt that the reason I'd only made it to 4.5 cm was because baby's head was tipped back rather than chin-to-chest, the way it needed to be for delivery. So, my new nurse (since my first nurse's shift had ended at 7 pm) decided to try flipping me on my side & seeing if that would help get baby's head in the proper position. My nurse admitted that while it didn't always work, it was at least worth a try, so I first went to my left side, then my right... & finally back to sitting upright after they determined that laying on my sides was causing issues with baby's heartrate, as it dropped drastically with each contraction (the lowest I saw was 55 bpm during one particularly prolonged contraction). No thank you!
In the midst of all of this, we discovered I had a "window" in my epi, leading to me being able to feel EVERYTHING in my lower left back. I was in horrific pain from that one little spot... the anesthesiologist returned & gave us a couple options - he could either try to reinsert the epi catheter in hopes of wriggling it enough that the medicine would spread out to cover the window, or he could just remove the entire epi & redo the whole thing. We opted for option A as a first try, giving it a good 45 minutes to work... which it didn't, so my only option was to have the epi reinserted if I wanted to have the help of the epi for delivery. Sitting still for that long was excruciating & I shook like a leaf throughout the whole thing. Bless his heart, the anesthesiologist worked quickly & even gave me the lowest level of a spinal that could be administered, allowing me 30-45 minutes to rest & recoup after getting worn out by contractions. I napped during this time & woke up to an epi that covered everything, thankfully! I also suffered from nausea throughout these hours, & was unable to keep down the water, ice, & popsicles I was allowed to have. Suffice to say, it was not a pretty scene.
My nurse confessed later that at the point that putting me on my sides failed because of baby's heartrate, all she was seeing was a path straight to the OR for a c-section. Luckily, no one mentioned that to the bairn, who suddenly settled into position (well, close enough - baby was still sunny side up, leading to back labor, which was awful) & in the span of less than an hour, I went from 4 cm to 9.5 cm. My nurse came back & we did some practice pushes, then began the looooong process of pushing baby from a -1 station all the way down. It didn't take long until my nurse was telling me she could see hair, then guessing that baby would have a small conehead. That was somewhat decent motivation, but without being able to keep down anything, I was parched, & felt like I was on fire - we had ice packs that my mom & the husband would throw on my forehead, face, & behind my neck between contractions, but they were coming fast & furious at this point, with only a minute or so in between. After an hour of pushing, I was ready to give up - I felt like I wasn't making any progress, despite my mom, husband, & nurse telling me otherwise. I had only seen the OB wander in twice & knew that until she arrived in the room ready to deliver, I wasn't THERE, & that was the only thing I was able to focus on. When they finally pulled out the delivery table with the supplies they needed & the baby's nurse arrived to get the table set up, I began to get a smidgen of hope back that I might make it... & finally, finally, FINALLY, the OB came back, this time ready to deliver. I gave a few more pushes with her, felt the tugging of her pulling, & suddenly heard, "IT'S A BOY!" & looked down to see our son laying on my chest. After nearly 2 hours of pushing, Jacob had arrived at 1:54 am, screaming & kicking.
The first words out of my mouth? Directed at my husband: "See?! I WAS right!" :) He was in shock, my mom was crying, & as for me? Well, I was just so blissed out over being DONE with pushing & delivery that all I could do was grin. No tears, no shock, nothing - just sheer happiness over having managed to deliver this perfect little boy & being finished with the pain. The OB went to work, since I ended up needing an episiotomy, which both my mom & the husband verified was absolutely necessary - & given that we later found out Jacob's head measured in at 15" around, I think it makes sense! They took Jacob over to the table to work on him, calling out that he weighed in at 8 lbs, 10 oz, & thoroughly checking him over before proclaiming everything to be perfect (his APGAR scores were 8/9) & handing him back to us.
We were just so stunned to look at this little person & know that he belonged to US... we sat there & just stared at him for quite a while. Finally, realizing the time & the fact that we had parents, siblings, & friends waiting to meet Jacob, we invited back a few at a time to share him with the world for the first time. Seeing their faces is a sight I will never forget... & having them there to share our joy just made the experience complete. They had waited literally all day for this moment, & we could not have been more grateful to have them there supporting us all along.
Finally, everyone cleared out & headed home, & we were taken to the postpartum room (room 307 - a smaller room than the delivery room, but a private room & just fine nonetheless!), arriving there at 4:30 am. Jacob didn't return to us until 5:30 am, & by that point, I was far too wired to sleep, despite having been up a full 24 hours. Instead, I sat & marveled at the perfect baby we'd been blessed with, hardly able to believe that we could be so lucky. After nine looooong months of waiting, he was finally here. :)
Jacob is 1 week old.
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