November 9, 2010--Part 1

I woke up Tuesday morning at 4:30 and showered and got ready to go to the hospital. Thankfully, we didn't get any phone calls that morning telling us there wasn't room, so at 5:30, Scott and I hopped in the truck and headed downtown to the hospital.

Before heading up to Labor and Delivery, we stopped inside the front door of the hospital for the traditional "going to have a baby" picture (I have a picture of me in front of this water feature with every baby).

We checked it at triage, and before long we met our nurse and were taken to our room. Because they were still pretty full, we were in the "spare wing" of labor and delivery. Our nurse's name was Hope and she was absolutely wonderful through the whole process. By 7, I was resting comfortably in my bed with an IV hooked up to me. My doctor came by around 7:15. He said he was really surprised to see my name on the board. They were still so busy, that he expected them to have postponed me again. But he said he'd told them they had to call, that he wasn't going to. But, they didn't call, and we did make it into a room, so I was very happy. My doctor checked me--I was at a 3 1/2! Then he broke my water, and the pitocin was turned on. He suggested my nurse order the epidural soon, because he knew things would progress very fast. Then he was off, and we were left to wait for the contractions to start. The epidural showed up about 20 minutes later. My nurse turned off the pitocin while I got my epidural so we wouldn't have to worry about contractions during it. Then we got a call that the regular wing of labor and delivery had cleared out, so they unplugged everything and rolled my bed through the hallway down to a room in the regular wing. Once we got settled into our new room, my nurse turned the pitocin back on, because my contractions had begun to really space out. That was probably around 8:30.

Once the pitocin was turned back on, the contractions started back up. Slowly they began to get uncomfortable. My nurse reminded me that I'd paid too much money for the epidural to still be feeling pain, so we called the anesthetist back to put more medicine into the epidural. During that time, my nurse had checked me, and I was only at a 4. She also told me she was pretty sure my baby wasn't quite lined up (he was sitting with his head over my left hip and his feet up in my right rib cage). With every contraction, I would have a little "bump" of a contraction at the end, which was an indicator that he wasn't lined up. I could feel quite a bit of pain with him pushing down with each contraction--which my nurse said was because his head was pushing into bone instead of straight down like he was supposed to. The anesthetist came back and gave me more medicine, but I still was feeling pain in the lower part of my stomach (and it was getting worse and worse). He tried to adjust where the epidural was, but I was still feeling pain. He said that I'd developed what they call a "window"--a bunch of nerves that they can't reach with an epidural, no matter what they do.

By this point the pain was bad. I knew I was going through transition. The anesthetist decided to pull the epidural and just do an interthecal (spinal block). I'd had that with Nate, and knew it would work fast. So, they sat me up to put another needle into my back, and the whole time I was sitting there, I told them it was time for this baby to be born. Everything was happening really fast. I got the spinal block (which is just a one time shot into the back), and they laid me down and immediately had my doctor in. We'd talked to my doctor about letting Scott assist with the delivery, and he'd agreed. Doctor Lowder came in and told Scott to get suited up immediately. Scott got his scrubs on, and was trying to get the gloves on. Doctor Lowder told the nurses to help him with the gloves because the baby was coming out and I wasn't even pushing. Scott got the gloves and stepped into position. Doctor Lowder coached him on where to put his hands (on either side of the head on the ears) and how to turn his head (nose up), and before I knew it, Scott was placing our baby boy on my stomach. It seriously happened SO FAST! They ordered the spinal block at 10:02 and he was born at 10:13. During the pushing, I had become really light headed, and was afraid I was going to pass out (they hurried and put oxygen on me), and even once it was all over, I was still pretty light headed, but I was so happy to finally have my little boy to hold.



One thing I love about my doctor is how calm he is--always. It's very reassuring. So, while everything seemed to go flawlessly, I was still aware of the nurses comments that clued me in on the fact that the delivery wasn't without a few problems. First, the cord was wrapped around his neck, and he came out quite purple. But it didn't take long for him to start to pink back up. Also, I remember the nurse asking for help because I was bleeding quite a bit (which probably contributed to my light-headedness). And the biggest worry for me was the fact that my cervix tried to come out after the delivery. I remember my nurse commenting that I might need to have repair work done when it was all over with. But, the bleeding got under control, and after an hour or so, my cervix had pulled back up, and everything was fine. It's just a good reminder of how many things can go wrong with childbirth, and how completely blessed we are that we've done this 6 times and had everything go so well each time.

After cutting the cord, it was time for him to be placed on the scale. 9 pounds 2 ounces! He was a big boy!

Next it was time for him to be examined by a nurse from the nursery. One of the things they check for is blood sugar levels, and because he was so big, his was a little low. I'll talk more about this later--it turned out to be the biggest worry of all for the next day.





Before things had started to get serious, we had called my parents and given them the ok to bring the kids down. They arrived about a half an hour after he was born, which gave Scott and me a little quiet time with our baby first.




The kids were so excited to see their little brother. Of course, they wanted to know what his name was... and so did we. But we weren't quite ready to decide. So, he was just baby brother for their first visit.