Samuel, moments after his birth...
Everyone, our lovely little Sam is here. I'm going to dedicate this post to Samuel's birth story, while it's still fresh in my memory...although, I can't imagine it ever being anything but fresh in my memory! This is our journal, as well as our way to keep everyone updated on our lives, so I will say that the below story includes, you know, a birth. It does not, however involve gratuitous blood and gore. :-) I just wanted to let you know, so you were forewarned.
I had my 38 week doctor appointment on Wednesday, January 9th at 1:00 in the afternoon. At the appointment, I was at least 4cm dilated and very effaced. The doctor told us it could be any minute and that my mom should probably plan to leave the next morning at the latest. She also gave me instructions to eat light for the rest of the day, just in case. So, I tried to stay calm and get things in order for the rest of the day.
Around 3:00 I started having real, but not regular or extremely strong contractions. I told my mom and Peter that I believed I wouldn't progress far enough until the next day. That said, I think I knew that we were going to be laboring that night and heading to the hospital soon, because putting Eric to bed was really hard for me that night. It was so hard to imagine that when he woke up his and our world would be so different. I love him so much.
Things stayed about the same until around the time we tried to go to bed. I went to bed around 10:00, and by 11:00, I woke up Peter and told him to come with me to the bathroom so he could time my contractions while I soaked. We brought in a lamp for some softer light and my music to help keep things calm and peaceful. Getting in the tub just seemed like the right thing to do. For the next 4 hours, Peter timed my contractions, which got increasingly powerful, and distracted me with news stories (not kidding - we talked about the fiscal cliff and the trillion dollar coin) while I sat in the tub. This may sound strange, but it was actually one of the most romantic moments of our marriage. I'll ALWAYS remember feeling like an absolute team as we worked through the contractions and talked about life. We did this while we waited for the contractions to get to about 5 minutes apart for about an hour before heading to the hospital. During most of this time, however, the contractions stayed about 6-8 minutes apart. We called my mom at midnight and told her to get on the road, because it was pretty obvious at this point that things would be progressing sooner than later! I am going to be forever grateful that I was able to labor at home and in the tub. I don't know how or why, but the water made the pain so much more manageable than it had been with my induced labor with Eric. Having it be just me and my partner - with no medical equipment or constant monitoring - kept things calm and helped me manage things so much better.
Around 2:45, the contractions jumped from 6-8 minutes apart to being 1-3 minutes apart. We skipped the whole 5 minutes apart piece all together! I hauled myself out of the bathtub and we called our friend Chelsey to come stay at our house until my mom could get here to be with Eric. We left the house around 3:00. I was in quite a bit of pain with the contractions at this point, but was really holding it together pretty well until we started driving. The contractions were coming fast and furious by the time we were on I-29, and every bump in the road was very difficult. When we came up to some train tracks, Peter hesitated -- "I don't know whether I should go super slow over them to make it less bumpy, or just step on it to get over them faster!" -- I told him to just get us to the hospital; it didn't make a difference at that point!
We got to the entrance/parking area we thought we were supposed to go to, parked, got all our stuff out, walked up...and...locked. So, Peter ran to grab the car and we drove around to the emergency entrance. When we got inside to the window (slowed by frequent contraction stops), no one was at the desk! So we hollered for help and someone came, took our information, and brought a wheel chair for me. The ride up to the maternity ward was the longest ride of my life, but we finally arrived and the nurses took charge and got me to a room. Right around 3:25, they did their initial check and discovered I was somewhere between 8-1/2 and 9cm dilated already! I had been in transition and didn't even REALLY realize it. As a brief aside -- I attribute this to the labor and delivery experience I had before. I was induced with Eric and the pain was so much worse from the beginning, especially since I was stuck in bed and unable to labor changing positions, etc. The pain was bad this time around, but I kept thinking it'd get a lot worse, or be worse for a longer period of time. They got the on-call doctor called to get over to the hospital. Soon after they did their first check, I felt like I needed to use the restroom, so I went in and sat. While in there, I got a STRONG contraction coupled with an urge to bear down! It felt like it came out of nowhere and my body just took over. I rushed out of the bathroom knowing I had just unintentionally pushed! It is amazing how our bodies just do what they need to do when they're left alone!! I threw off the hospital gown (I didn't want anything dry or scratchy on me at this point) and got into the bed as the doctor arrived. The bear down contractions kept coming and it was a good thing the doctor was there, because it was happening whether I was trying very hard or not! Right at the worst of the pain, as my water popped and Samuel was making his way out, the doctor told me that if I just closed my eyes, held my breath, and pushed for ten seconds, three times, we'd have our baby. That was pretty much all I needed to hear. With the help of a slight position readjustment by one of the nurses, a few pushes more, and my sweet little one was on my chest and I was crying and telling Peter that he was here, he was here, he was finally here! At 4:15am on January 10, 2013, Samuel Robert Leo joined our family.
I got to hold him for a good, long time while the doctor sewed me up a bit and they took care of things. Sam was a perfect 8 pounds, 3 ounces and 22 inches long. He did great on the APGAR and we were in love right away.
A couple hours after he was born, I had a little extra bleeding, and they had to do some extra pushing on my abdomen to remove clots (this resulted in me feeling like I had been repeatedly punched in the gut over the next several days). They also gave me some extra postpartum pitocin to help my uterus shrink down because apparently I had a lazy uterus this time around. Those were pretty much the only complications we had this time around, though, so compared to the last time, I felt a million times better afterward. It was incredible, and I was really proud of my ability to do this and bring this child into the world.
I can't thank the nurses and doctor enough for their help while we were at the hospital. They were supportive and talkative and friendly. It was personal and meaningful the whole time we were there, and I'm so grateful.
When my mom brought Eric the next day, my family was complete. It feels so wonderful to have our two healthy boys. We're very lucky and exhausted and happy.
I will update more with pictures and about his name and how things are going and the like once I get some more time, but for now, my baby needs to nurse, so I'm going to go do that and then try to sleep some...(haha, yeah, right.) Thank you to everyone for your well-wishes and kind thoughts and actions! We appreciate it more than we can say!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment