My birth story . . . finally

So, you'll probably remember the post called so . . . labor . . . (if not, click here) and how I had been in labor since early morning on Wednesday. Here's the rest of the story.

My contractions pretty much backed off to one hard contraction every 45 minutes to an hour. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed. So, I tried to rest as much as possible that day since I had been up so early. Brandon ended up going in to work late, and when he got home from work, we headed out the door to Sam's Club for some grocery shopping.

My contractions picked up, but were still pretty sporadic - nine minutes apart here, then three minutes, then fifteen . . . Kind of interesting walking through the middle of Sam's Club telling three different boys to stop climbing on the shelves or playing with the toys, and having to stop in the middle of the aisle to breathe through a contraction! I got a lot of funny looks that day.

Anyway, we came home and I made dinner (one of my favorites - breaded chicken breast, peas, mashed potatoes and white gravy. Yummy!) By that point, my contractions were about every ten minutes apart, so I went and laid down on the couch to time them and to rest. I helped Scott do some homework, then managed to walk downstairs for nighttime prayers with the boys.

We got the boys in bed (by around 8:30 or 9:00), then sat down and watched some NCIS (or NCIS LA; I don't remember for sure) for an hour while my contractions got progressively stronger. Not closer together, really - they were still kind of sporadic, so, still disappointed, I decided to go get ready for bed. As soon as I got up and was walking around, washing my makeup off, getting my pajamas on . . . they picked up. 3 - 5 minutes apart, and really strong.

By 11:00, I was struggling to get through the contractions without some help, so I told Brandon to call his mom. We finished packing up our hospital bags, and I changed back into some clothes. By the time Brandon's mom got to the house, I was crying through contractions, so we left to head to the hospital.

We got there around 11:45 and got all checked in. (Even with all of the "pre-registration" they still had to ask me about 15 million questions before I was "checked in." I.E. When was the last time you ate? When did you last used the bathroom? What's your birthdate and full name?" I wanted to scream.) But, they checked me and I was only dilated to a three. So, they broke my water, and found some meconium in the amniotic fluid. So, they put the NICU team on alert to be ready for my delivery.

Now, my intent was to do this labor naturally. But, by then, I had already been up since 2:30 the previous morning, with little to no rest that day. Almost a full 24 hours of dealing with contractions, and I was exhausted. Plus, I dilate really slowly, and I wasn't in the frame of mind to deal with hard contractions (think transition - the most painful point in labor) for another possible 24+ hours. So, I opted for an epidural. They pumped me full of four (I think) IV bags in about ten minutes, then the anesthesiologist came in. It was around 1:00 in the morning at this point.

He had me lean forward to get the needle in, and once the epidural kicked in, I was able to get some rest. I still wasn't able to sleep, but I was able to at least close my eyes and breathe normally. The nurses let me rest, and when the shift changed at 3:00 in the morning (seems like a weird time for a shift change to me), the new nurse came and checked me.

To our complete surprise, I was fully dilated! What? It's only been two hours since the epidural - with no pit. While we sat there and stared at each other in shock, she called the on-call dr. and started prepping the room. The NICU team came down and got the stomach pump and the air ready, and then it was time to push.

I pushed for a total of about ten minutes, and at 3:41 am, Connor Jay was born! 7 lbs. 13 oz. 20 1/2" long. The NICU team immediately took him to their cart to work on pumping his stomach while I delivered the placenta and the dr. stitched my tear. One stitch! With the others, my dr. was afraid that I would tear badly, so she always cut me instead, and I ended up with about six stitches. What a HUGE difference one stitch vs. six stitches makes!

Anyway, the NICU team took about fifteen minutes to pump his stomach and check his respiratory rate. By then, I was dying to hold my baby! They finally handed him to me, and it was heaven! But, he wasn't content to just lay there in my arms like my other babies were - he wanted to nurse. And, boy did he nurse! I had to coax my other kids to nurse after labor, but Connor latched on immediately, and other than when my milk came in and he couldn't latch on, he's been a pro at nursing!

The left us in the room for about an hour, then took us upstairs to the mother/baby unit. My first nurse there was an interesting character - far too chipper for 5:00 in the morning. She gave me quite a few interesting looks, and asked why I was so out of it! (Um, I've been in labor for 25 hours!) At the end of her shift that evening, she came to say goodbye and admitted that when she first saw me, she thought, "Oh boy. Here's another new mom that's been in labor for a couple of hours and is totally out of it. (I'm assuming that's what the looks were about.) But, then I read your file and realized that you'd been in labor for 25 hours, and my respect totally went up for you!"

We stayed in the hospital all of Thursday with lots of checkups from the various dr.'s and nurses. They only checked on me once Thursday night, and I had Connor sleep in the nursery with one bottle and one feeding from me. I felt so well, and Connor was doing so well that they let us come home on Friday morning!

My recovery has been awesome! Even my mom seemed surprised with how well I was recovering. Physically, I've been great, and emotionally I've been pretty good, with the exception being when Connor doesn't sleep well and I'm running on 4 - 5 hours of sleep during the day. He's a wonderful baby and I'm constantly thanking my Heavenly Father that we were finally able to get pregnant and have Connor join our family! We're all in love with him, and I look forward to watching him grow!