It was quite the exciting holiday season here in I&Y land. Just 1 week after my last post (and 1 day after Thanksgiving), we moved out of our house and into a…charming…little Eichler with lots of…the original finishes. Plywood walls are nice, right? This will be our home until our renovation is complete. But more on that later.
I spent weeks begging this baby not to come early, and he actually obeyed! We celebrated a lovely Christmas as a family of 3. This was the first year that Allie really “got it,” and it was so much fun to watch her experience the magic. But more on that later, too.
After Christmas we had 3 awesome days of family time, and then right on his due date, Teddy made his appearance. At that point he was still Baby Boy. We didn’t decide on his name until he was about 24 hours old.
These 8 Pounds, 4 ounces, and 20.5 inches of baby goodness joined us at exactly 1:01 PM.
And now 5 weeks have already gone by! I can hardly believe it. He’s such a sweet baby (does anyone ever say their baby isn’t sweet?). Allie loves having a baby brother, Jesse and I are re-learning what it’s like to have a newborn in the house, and all is well.
Since I love birth stories, I’ll post mine (plus more pictures) after the jump. TL;DR: Pretty textbook labor and delivery, none of the complications we had last time around.
I made it through Christmas feeling pretty good. This was a huge load off my shoulders, as I was irrationally worried about the baby coming on or before Christmas Day. Friday we met some friends for lunch and lazed around the house. That morning I posted this picture on Instagram. Still carrying pretty high, I thought there was a decent chance I’d be going past my due date. By that night I was having contractions that were strong enough I thought they might be the real thing. They weren’t.
Saturday I continued to feel crampy and like labor was imminent. Jesse, Allie and I ran a few errands together in the morning, but cut the day short so I could go home to rest. By Sunday I was back to feeling great. I was contraction-free for most of the day, we went to a new place for brunch, and I finished packing our hospital bag and Allie’s overnight bag.
That night around 10 I started having contractions that were very similar to the ones I’d had on Friday. They weren’t painful, but they were pretty uncomfortable, and they were probably 20-30 minutes apart. After 2 or 3 of them I told Jesse what was happening, and then I went to bed. I woke up around 3 am and thought to myself that I’d been wrong again, because the contractions had evidently stopped while I’d slept. Woke up again a little after 4, this time by a contraction that was painful enough that I knew it was the real thing. The next one didn’t hit until about an hour later, and after that they went anywhere from 10-20 minutes apart. Each contraction was over 2 minutes long, and unlike my labor with Allie, I had constant menstural-like pain through the whole thing. So instead of feeling relief between contractions, I was just in slightly less agony.
Our plan was to drop Allie off with friends on the way to the hospital, and I really didn’t want to wake them up in the middle of the night. So when the contraction woke me up at 4 I decided to try to stick it out until at least 6 on my own.
I made it until 7 with contractions only hitting every 30 minutes or so. I woke Jesse up, sent him out for coffee, and got in the shower. It felt so good in there, but we had a long enough drive ahead of us that I didn’t want to get too comfortable. I stayed in for about 30 minutes, then used the time between contractions to help get Allie ready to go. I found that staying busy helped me to cope with the pain. We left the house around 8:30, when my contractions were still a little over 10 minutes apart and mostly bearable. We got to the hospital a little after 9:30. By then they were coming much closer together (5-7 minutes), and were more painful. But they’d also shortened in length to about 30 seconds, which was actually preferable.
My nurse was an older man named John. He was very nice, very supportive, and overall awesome, but I learned later that he was not particularly gentle. He did give me cake, though. This surprised me because most hospitals don’t like you to eat while you’re in labor. Anyway, we talked for a few minutes about my history and my birth plan (I don’t write birth plans, but I do go in with a solid idea of what I want and a clear understanding that plans can change). I explained that I wanted to attempt a drug free delivery, but that I was already in enough pain that I might lose my resolve. So I’d ask for an epidural if I needed it, but didn’t want it offered. I also explained my fear of needles, and the complications that I had when I delivered Allie.
Monitors got hooked up at around 10, and I was just about 7 cm dilated. John told me I could get in the bathtub after 20 minutes of monitoring. It ended up being closer to 40 minutes, as we got into a long discussion about my IV.
I really didn’t want to have even a saline lock put in (see above re: fear of needles), but I let John and Jesse talk me into getting it for 2 reasons: 1) Jesse’s peace of mind–I could tell he was uncomfortable with the idea of not having a backup plan in case things went badly again, and 2) the option do try Fentanyl instead of an epidural in the event that I did decide I wanted drugs.
I finally got int he bath tub at about 10:45, and found a really comfortable spot that lasted me maybe an hour. I was tolerating contractions but getting discouraged by how slowly I thought I was progressing. My water had not broken yet, and I wasn’t feeling any kind of urge to push.
John came to check on me and I got out of the tub to have the IV put in. I was at 8, waters bulging, and baby still very high. The IV insert was basically torture. It took 4 tries. Remember how I said John was a little too rough? There was no mercy when he did the IV. (Nothing against him. I’m a little high maintenance when it comes to IVs). After trying and failing once on each arm, he called in the anesthesiologist. By this point I was in transition. Contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and I was screaming through them. There wasn’t enough time to get the IV done between contractions, which of course made it that much worse. I ended up with the line in the wrist bone of my right hand, which is pretty much the worst placement ever. I’m still a little pissed at the anesthesiologist for ignoring my multiple requests to stay away from bones and joints. This whole process probably took 30 minutes, and I’m not kidding when I tell you the bruises on my arms were insane. I took pictures, but I don’t want to traumatize anyone by actually posting them here.
IV finally in, I got back in the tub but just couldn’t find the same comfort level I’d had before (duh). My hips were extremely sore and I was getting no real relief between contractions. After about 20 minutes I asked to have my water broken and to get some Fentanyl. Walking back to the bed I started to finally get the urge to push. I was about 9 centimeters, but the baby was still so high that I expected the last centimeter would be the longest. Yeah, no. Once my water was broken things happened very fast. Contractions were right on top of each other, and I couldn’t not push. John told me there was no time for Fentanyl, so he and Jesse sat on either side of me and squeezed my hips together during the next few contractions. I was just straight up screaming obscenities.
Doctor ran in, I pushed 3 or 4 times, screamed a whole lot, and got REALLY MAD that he wasn’t already out. The pain was so much worse than I remember with Allie. Also, the way I was positioned I felt like I was working against gravity. I really wanted to get up and squat, but I also didn’t have the energy to move. After 2 more pushes I asked “Is his head out?” and everyone in the room said yes. Then it just clicked in my head “oh, I’m done.” One more quick push and he was out and on my chest. It was 1:01 pm.
I had a small tear, and they were concerned enough with the amount I was bleeding that I got 3 different drugs to help stop it. Still, within minutes I was pretty confident that I was going to be fine. I will never forget the pain I felt from the hematoma after delivering Allie, and there was nothing like that this time around. They held me in the delivery room for monitoring for about 2 hours, then they were happy enough with my progress to let me go to recovery. I did have to keep the IV line in for 24 hours because of the bleeding, but it never got used. I do kindof wish that I’d declined it from the beginning.
The rest of our stay was completely uneventful, which is exactly how you want it to be. We were discharged on New Year’s Eve, and got to ring in the New Year as a family of 4.
