The Birth Story

I'm going to try to be VERY detailed in this because I constantly wished that I would have kept a closer record of Little man's birth because I felt like I forgot so much and couldn't remember things. So on to the story.......

Monday, September 1st
We had dinner a little later on Labor day. Little man and R were going on a camp out in the backyard. Earlier in the day they set up the tent and I helped Little man pack up all the things he would need for a night out in our backyard. After dinner I cleaned up and then took pictures of the boys going out for their campout. After dinner I sat down to watch some news and as I was getting ready for bed my normal period feeling cramps started again, but were a bit stronger. They started getting closer together and more intense. They were still down low and so I wasn't sure if it was "real" labor because I read that "real" contractions are all over the whole belly. I decided to take a shower in case it was the real thing, mainly because a shower always made me feel better and lessened the feeling of the contractions. It didn't help and they were really getting painful. I attempted to time them and they were somewhat around 5min apart and lasted for about a minute. I finished getting ready, blew dry my hair, put on make up, and then decided it was time to go fetch R from the tent.

I went out to the tent and woke up R and then went and told my brother that we were going to go to the hospital. R was sleeping and very confused. I finished packing the last minute stuff and then made a pile of all the stuff that needed packed into the car. We got everything packed and seriously had the longest ride to the hospital. It was only about a 5 minute drive but man it felt like an hour.

September 2, 2008
We pulled up to the curb a little after 12am and went in to get admitted. When we arrived in the room there was no one at the desk the nurses were all sitting on their butts and told us to have a seat that the woman would be right back. That was super annoying. The woman got back a couple minutes later and proceeded to ask us a million questions. I thought the purpose of preregistering at the hospital was to avoid the 10,000 questions but they asked them anyway.

We finally got moved to the "holding room" as I call it and I had to give a urine sample, which I had a hard time doing and got undressed. They put the fetal monitors on and then the on call dr came in to exam me. I had to get an IV with fluids and I was indeed in active labor. I was 5-6cm dialated and the head was right there. While I was in this room R went and moved the car and man he did that really fast! We then moved to our birthing room and R went out to the car to get our things. He got the Dav.e Matthe.ws Ban.d playlist all set up that I had made. It was great! I endured the contractions and was managing pretty good. R on the other hand was not doing well. Apparently sleeping outside unleashed his allergies REALLY bad! He was sneezing, blowing his nose, washing his hands, sniffling, and miserable. Of course we had no meds for him packed because I had no idea that he was going to have an attack in the middle of my labor (note to self, pack meds for him next time!) We were applying our Bradley Method relaxation and strategies but it was getting to the point that I was unable to get into relaxation because he was so disrupting. It's not his fault but I was getting so annoyed and then add in the fact that I was really really tired I decided at 2am that I was going to get an epidural.

The nurse said that I needed another bag of fluids and it would be about another hour before I would get it. There was a nurse change of shift at 3am so my first nurse Beth left and I got my new nurse Allison. It was exactly 3am and the anesthesiologist came in and gave me epidural. It wasn't a pleasant experience but it did help me get some much needed rest. Right after the epidural I got a red Popsicle, which I had been craving all day. It was really weird that I had been wanting a Popsicle all day, that certainly wasn't the circumstances I expected to have my craving fulfilled, haha. I was able to sleep/rest for 2 hours. I did have to get a catheter to empty my bladder so that it wouldn't get in the way because it got too full. At the time I got the epidural I was 7-8cm. They checked me 2 hours later at 5am and I was 10cm and ready to try pushing. She broke my water and I tried pushing. The epidural was left on and they wanted to see if I could effectively push. I tried one round of pushes and I did very well so they just left the epidural on and I continued to push with just the nurse and R there. The one thing that the epidural did slow down was my contractions. They were about 5 minutes apart so I had a lot of wait time in between pushes. I pushed for about 1 1/2 hours and then my dr arrived. At that point there were quite a few drs in the room. I ended up getting an episiotomy and then they had to use the vacuum one time to help get the baby the whole way out. I really did not like the sound of the episiotomy but I didn't feel anything so that was nice. I could still move my legs and could feel the pressure of pushing the baby out.

He was born at 7:49am on his due date, September 2nd 2008!!!! He weighed 7lbs 15ozs and was 20 1/2 inches long. He had dark hair and looked very different from Little man. He was put on my chest/belly for a little time and then taken across the room to get cleaned up. He had a bit of mucus in his throat so they were doing a lot of suctioning and he had some oxygen. It was pretty cute because he was removing the oxygen mask with this hands. He was over there for quite a long time and I was getting stitched up by 2 female drs. My dr started the stitches but then had to get to his C-section that he put off to come deliver me. It was weird to watch them stitch me up, it was my first time ever getting them. I was in the recovery room until about 11am. I was able to get breakfast right after I delivered because I was starving so by the time I moved rooms I was ready for lunch.

I got my IV out after I peed and then gathered up my stuff and was able to move to my permanent room. My mom had arrived around 10am and was able to see Baby M and then went to my new room with me. I walked to my new room and my mom and R carried all my stuff. After getting to my new room I got to fill out what I wanted for lunch and dinner. It was like a restaurant!!!!! When I had Little man I was on a special diet from my dr so I didn't get to choose anything I wanted to eat. That was definitely exciting, haha! My mom left to go back to our house and relieve my brother and to help with Little man while R stayed with me at the hospital. He ended up leaving to go get Little man and bring him to the hospital. We had gifts for the boys to exchange and that was just precious. Little man got Baby M a Bab.y Einst.ein toy that goes on his car seat and then Baby M got Little man this Fish.er Pri.ce set of dinosaurs. He loved it!!!!

I requested that the lactation specialist come in just because it had been 3.5 years since I had breastfed and I wanted a little reassurance that I was remembering correctly how to get him to latch, etc.. She ended up coming in when my mom and brother were visiting so we pulled the curtain and she proceeded to look over my technique. She discovered that Baby M was tongue tied, which meant that the little flap of skin that connects the tongue to the bottom of the mouth was very short and also very far out on the tongue so he was unable to move his tongue. It was affecting his latch and making it painful for me to breast feed. He wasn't able to extend his tongue under my nipple so there was a little procedure he could have done in which they clip the skin. I was told to discuss it with my pediatrician when he came in to check him over the next morning. Later in the day the nurse informed us that we could have the procedure done right at the hospital the next day so that was a relief that we wouldn't have to schedule it to be done at a dr's office later on. I really wanted to get it taken care of as soon as possible because it was affecting breast feeding.

R ended up coming back in the evening to stay the night with me, bless his heart, because he had a very uncomfortable window seat to sleep on and had to get up at 5am to go to work. He was working on Wednesday because he had to work two days during the week and he obviously took the birth day off and then was taking Thursday off because it was Little man's first day of school. I didn't mind though because I just got to hang out at the hospital all day and wait for him to get off from work. Neither one of us slept that great because the nurses were in every couple hours checking me and Baby M and then coming in to ask me if he'd eaten and how much. On a side note can I just say that he was a pooping machine. In the first day he pooped like 4 or 5 times and he was only required to have one bowel movement his first day. He was definitely ahead of the game! The nurse came in around 9pm to take him for his hearing test. He was gone quite a long time but his hearing is great so nothing to be worried about with that.

September 3, 2008
The next morning the pediatrician came in around 7am and checked over Baby M. A doctor also came in and checked me over so it was already turning out to be a busy morning. Both him and I were doing well. I brought up the tongue tied issue and he scheduled the procedure with the ear, nose, and throat dr for later on that afternoon. He was also going to be circumcised later in the day. He was taken in the morning to get his bath and hospital pictures, which came out so freaking cute! My mom, brother, and Little man came up around lunch time so Little man could eat his lunch with me. They stayed for a couple hours. I was able to shower and get ready while my mom watched Baby M and Little man. After they left Baby M got taken for his tongue clipping and then once he was back from that it wasn't too long before he went for his circumcision. I was able to get a little sleep throughout the day and got everything packed up. The nurse came in and went over my discharge papers and I signed everything in the afternoon, just so I was ready whenever we wanted to leave. R got to the hospital right after work around 5:30pm and we we on our way home around 6pm. It was raining and crappy weather, though it was warm.

We arrived home and were greeted with lots of pictures and a cute "It's a Boy!" sign in the front yard. We carried everything inside and then sat down and had cake celebrating Little man's first day of school the next day. I definitely wanted to make him feel special. He was very excited to go to school the next day. My mom had to leave shortly after cake because she had to work the next day but my brother was staying to help out. The first night home was rough, Baby M didn't sleep much. It reminded me A LOT of our first night home with Little man. The next morning we always wished we had just stayed at the hospital the extra night, but when you're at the hospital you just want to go home because they wake you up and bug you so much.

Ok, I kinda slacked at the end but I will probably go back and insert details as I think of them, but I want to get this posted because it's been almost 2 weeks, how time flies!