The Birth Story, Part 2

So, I had been on the Pitocin all day, and into the night, I started feeling very uncomfortable... the whole day I had been having contractions, but they weren't consistent and they didn't feel very strong. By midnight, hubby was asleep and the intensity began to increase... the monitor showed they were coming every 2-3 minutes. I began breathing through the pain and thinking to myself, wow this could be it... my second thought was, wow, i'm so tired, how am i going to do this?

And then.... i fell asleep. Yes, passed out, fell fast asleep, had a one way ticket to la la land.

When I awoke a few hours later, the contractions had almost stopped completely. I was now actually pumped up to the max dose of pitocin (20mL) and barely feeling a thing. The pain was on par with light period cramps... say what!

Dr J was back on call for the weekend and she came to check me. Another fun internal (note the sarcasm in that) revealed NO progression. Still only 3.5 cm dialated and only 50% effaced. I was presented with 2 options. They could give me a bit of a break, then go in and break my water and restart the pitocin and hope that breaking my water would give me a better outcome, OR i could opt to just go for a scheduled C-section. The dr and nurse left hubby and me to chat about what we wanted to do. Let me say, this was one of the hardest decisions I had to make. This entire time the words C-section had never even crossed my mind. But at that point, it was Saturday and I had been in the hospital since Wednesday, basically just "hanging out"... After talking to a few mommy friends for their opinion, I made the decision to just go for the C-section. It was time to get this baby out. My reasoning behind my decision was that Baby Camb was behaving perfectly... everyone said his heartbeat and movements were text book perfect. What if I opted to break the water and he went into distress? He was happy as a clam in there, so why not just go in and get him out and not stress him out... and in the end, that's just what we did.

Once the decision to do the C-section was made, things moved quickly. Forms were filled out, scrubs were given to the hubby and we walked down to the OR. I was scared the spinal block was going to hurt, but I had a great anesthesiologist and it really was no big deal. It's basically the same kind of procedure as the epidural, they shoot you up with some lidocaine and then administer the block. Then they laid me down on the operating table and waited for me to numb up. There were a bunch of people in the room, my dr, an assistant OB, scrub nurses, neonatologist and finally hubby at my head.

The whole experience of a C-section is completely surreal. The fact that I knew I had legs, but couldn't feel them was wild. It's like when you go to the dentist and get novacaine and feel like your lip is huge. I felt like I had elephant legs... and I knew they were there, but when I tried to wiggle my toes, nothing happened! Soon they were cutting into me, and I felt all kinds of tugging and pressure, but no pain. After a while, I felt lots and lots of pushing on my chest/stomach area... like someone was literally standing on me jumping up and down... I started mini freaking out and hubby was quick to calm me down and told me that I was fine and to just look at him and our son would be there soon. And then.... a very loud wail!

Our son was finally here. Cue the sobbing from both the hubs and me. They cut his cord and whisked him over to the neonatologist while he screamed his head off (a very good sign!). After a few minutes, hubby was able to go over and see him and they brought him over to me... and he was perfect in every way. 10 fingers, 10 toes, chubby little cheeks, and a hell of a wail! He measured a 9 on the Apgar scale and weighed in at 7lbs, 5oz and 20" long. In that moment, I fell in love...

After letting me see him for a few minutes, hubby went with him to recovery, while they put me back together - more pulling, poking, pressure. Then finally I was wheeled to recovery for some skin to skin with my son.

The Birth Story, Part 1

While Baby Nicholas takes a snooze, I figured I'd try to get in writing his birth story (before I forget the details, yes I'm {happily} sleep deprieved!)

So, it all started on Wednesday, November 5th. I was exactly 38 weeks along and had a routine appointment with my OB for a growth ultrasound. I had worked from home that day, and around 2pm went off to my appointment, figuring I'd be home by 3:30 to continue working... how wrong I was!

At the ultrasound appointment, the tech took her time looking at baby. She said he looked great, had a strong heartbeat, and didn't like the probe since he was flipping all around when she'd press it on my belly! Then she started to measure the fluid in the amniotic sac. The levels concerned her and she told me not to be nervous because he looked great but she needed me to go back out in the waiting room because she needed to show the doctor her report. After about 10 minutes, I was in another room and hooked up to the NST monitor. After 30 minutes on the monitor, Dr J came in and said baby looked great, however, the level of fluid concerned her. She wanted me to go to the hospital for some futher monitoring and for another BPP (biophysical profile). At this point, I still didn't think Baby Camb was on his way... Once I got to my car, I got on the phone with my hubby and was surprised when I saw the Dr beeping in... she told me there was a change in plans and not only did I need to head to the hospital, I would be spending the night there. I was allowed to go home to quickly grab my things, and then headed with my mom to the hospital.

Once we were checked into L&D, things were pretty quiet. Hubby was on his way home from work to spend the night with me... and basically i was just going to be hooked up to the NST monitor for the night and then would have the ultrasound the following morning.

We spent an uneventful night in the room, listening to Baby Camb's heartbeat on the monitors, and then first thing in the morning were sent downstairs to ultrasound. The techs down there deemed no change in the fluid and actually said to me, wow looks like you're going to be having a baby!

Once we got back upstairs to meet with Dr J, she told us that since baby's fluid was so low and that i was 38 weeks, full term, she would feel more comfortable if we started the process of getting him out. This meant induction. She gave me an internal, I was only fingertip dialated (which is like nothing) and gave me a cervical softener (which looked similar to an IUD) to get things started. The softener would stay in place for 12 hours and I could just hang out and wait for it to work it's magic. That was noon on Thursday. They checked me around midnight that night and inserted a second softener since there wasn't much progress. Hubby and I just continued to hang out, watch tv, and ordered some food. I wasn't feeling any pain or discomfort and still had no idea what lied ahead.

The following morning Dr R was on call and came to check my progress... which ended up not being much. He removed the softener and instead put in a cervical balloon to try to stretch my cervix and encourage dialation. Yes, this was SUPER uncomfortable, but I progressed to 3cm... by 9am, the pitocin was started and I thought for sure things would get moving. Throughout the day, they increased the dosage of the pitocin to try to increase the contractions, and would check me every few hours. By that night (Friday), I was given my last meal, and they figured with the pitocin working overnight, things might get moving. But boy were they wrong....

Baby Boy Has Made His Debut!

I will try to get back to posting his birth story soon, but he is here!

Introducing Nicholas Gary  •  Born November 8, 2014, 2:26pm  •  7lbs, 5oz  • 20" long

It's an understatement to say, we are in LOVE!!!

Last Minute Odds and Ends

Well here we are... almost at the finish line...
I'm taking advantage to blog a little before Baby C decides he wants to join us!
I just can't believe we're near the end. Tomorrow is 38 weeks people! Amazing! And yes, I'm SO ready for him to be evicted. The word uncomfortable doesn't even describe how I've been feeling. And once I get the ability to easily put on my socks and shoes back, I swear I will NEVER take it for granted again! #sadbuttrue.

I know I haven't done an update in a while, honestly my mind is a jumbled mess lately. So I'll just give you some of the highlights of the last couple of weeks that I can remember...

• Everything baby is ready to go! The room is done (as I showed you last post), we have all our supplies ready and waiting, our bags are packed, complete with nursing essentials, camera, and i'm praying hubby does not forget the phone chargers. The birth plan is done (which, i didn't do an extensive one, i downloaded one from the bump, it was a really nice easy checklist), and now all we need is a baby!
• My 36/37 week appts were for the most part uneventful. I did find out that I tested positive for the Group B strep (bleh), which they say is not a big deal... other than that in the words of my dr, "your kid looks like a rock star" -- all of my NST's have looked great so Baby is just jammin' away in there.
• We took our infant care class a couple of weeks ago... it was great to learn about baby and what to do for him. Hubby was awesome and asked questions and was really involved... makes my heart smile to see how excited he is for his son to get here and to be an involved dad.
• We took a private breastfeeding class with a lactation specialist on Sunday. She was awesome. We nicknamed her the Baby Whisperer. She was so knowledgable and supportive. Hubby now really understands what a committment breastfeeding is going to be and is 100% on board with trying to help me as much as possible.
• Work has been Cah-ray-zeeeee. I decided to work up until Baby C gets here... and its taking way more of a toll on me than I would have thought. However, I just felt that I needed to be in the office as much as possible and get as much crap done as possible. I have a freelancer taking over for the next few months that I had to train, so at least we're moving along on that and now I feel confident that they'll be fine for when I'm out. It's still stressful though... This week, I'm transitioning to working from home 3 days a week and only going into the office for 2 so hopefully that will help me out.
• Other than that, have just been trying to get in some last minute dinners with all my girlfriends, that's been fun! They are all so excited for me, and it's been nice to hang out with them before my whole world changes.
• Contractions have increased... at my appt yesterday I had 2 on the monitor, hubby was floored! You could see the contraction monitor # increase from the 70s all the way up to the 190s! He thought labor was coming, but since the dr told him i still had a smile on my face, it was only some BH ones and that once I'm in REAL labor, i won't be smiling. LOL!

That's all i can think of off the top of my head. The next time I blog I might have a son! Eek! So exciting!