Since Luke is officially 4 I guess I better get a birth story up on the blog for him. And since another labor and delivery is looming the time is NOW!
Once upon a time I was pregnant for the first time ever! This was taken a few days after I took a positive pregnancy test. Young, thin, and naive! I was looking for a "challenge"
Who would have guessed a 70+ weight gain and because of this extreme weight gain a stress fractured foot?
Luke's due date was Dec. 7th. It was originally the 11th and they moved it at some point to the 7th but they were using a super confusing sliding chart to determine the date. It never really made sense to us but they are the professionals not us! Thanksgiving was on Nov. 24th. Since it was so close to the dues date we stayed home and family came to us for an amazing Thanksgiving meal at Malibu Grill. I remember being quite large and quite swollen that weekend. We even went shopping on Black Friday. Nothings gonna hold us back! I had a unexplainable urge to decorate our apartment for Christmas. It was kind of odd because we had not decorated at all the year before but I was determined to bring my new baby home to his first Christmas. We bought an artificial tree (something I thought I would never do) and I squeezed into the tiny storage space under the stairs and got out the ornaments and decorated away. I even wrapped all of the presents.
The Monday after I woke up kind of tired. I went into work and started making calls and emails. I had a few projects to wrap up before the baby came and I wanted to get things taken care of. I told everyone that I was still pregnant and ready to wrap things up. I walked over to the library over my lunch time and on my way back decided that I was exhausted so I decided to go home and take a quick nap. My "quick nap" ended up being almost 3 hours! I had missed calls on my cell from various people including my mom and Phil. I called my mom back at 4:30 and told her that I was still pregnant and that the baby probably was not coming today. Phil came home around 5 and I started peeling potatoes. Shortly after starting the potatoes I went in the bathroom and discovered that I was losing my mucus plug. There was a lot of it and it just kept coming. I was really confused. The doctor had told me that I had probably already lost my mucus plug and I just didn't notice. It kind of concerned me that it kept coming.
We called and spoke to the doctor around 6ish. He determined over the phone that I WAS losing my mucus plug and that was all. He told me to just plan on coming into the office on Thursday morning for my regularly scheduled appointment. Well okay then! I decided that I was not in labor and was relieved because I was just so exhausted already. Our friend Peter had stopped by to eat dinner with us and I had a FULL plate of mashed potatoes and beef roast from the crock pot. I assured Phil and Peter that I was not in labor. After eating, I laid down on the sofa and started reading a handout that the hospital had given us in our birthing class. I started to wonder if maybe my water had already broken? Again, I was confused because amniotic fluid is supposed to be clear or straw colored and what I was leaking was cloudy and greenish. Around 7 we started to time some contractions, just for fun really. By the time Peter left we were still pretty sure that I was not in labor. Hey, the doctor said to come in on Thursday and this was Monday!
The contractions intensified quickly and were getting closer together. We decided to go for a walk outside and then decide what to do when we came back. Walking around did not make the contractions go away. They were getting stronger. I remember taking a few steps and then grabbing onto the chain link fence in our apartment complex. By the time we made it back home my contractions were already 3-5 minutes apart. Phil called the doctor this time because I could barely talk. This was around 10 at night and my doctor was reluctant but decided I better come in to the hospital and get checked. We packed up quickly drove to the hospital. I was very uncomfortable the whole way. Once we got there I insisted on walking up to the maternity floor myself. I did not want to sit down.
When we walked onto the maternity floor they asked me if I had an appointment? Ummm, no! Phil did tell them that the doctor had told me to come in and that I was preregistered. The nurses quickly got me into a gown and checked to see how dilated I was: 4 cm! So I was officially in active labor and my water HAD broken. It was just tinted with meconium (babys 1st bowl movement). Not too big of a deal but I had to be hooked up to monitors immediately because they were worried about the baby. They asked me if I had planned on getting an epidural and I told them that I had not decided yet. I was hooked up to a monitor, laying in the hospital bed in intense labor and they were asking me millions of questions. I was ticked because the things that they were asking me were the same things that I had already preregistered for. I assessed the situation and realized that the nurses (who kept asking me if I wanted an epidural) did not know what to do to help me or calm me down. I was a crazy woman! I also realized that because of the meconium scare that I was going to be stuck in the bed with monitors the whole time. I asked the nurse and she said that I would probably dilate 1 cm an hour until I got to 10 cm. It REALLY freaked me out that I would be like this (crazy woman) for 6 more hours. I could not imagine it. I felt desperate. The next time the nurse asked me if I wanted an epidural I said yes.
I had no clue that it would take over an hour to get that epidural! My doctor finally came to check me around 11'ish and he broke my water the rest of the way. Apparently I was only leaking and it had not fully broken. Boy did that hurt. I about jumped out of the bed and ran. Phil missed this part because he had gone out to the car to get our stuff. The epidural finally came around midnight. Phil almost passed out when he saw the needle. The nurse helped him sit down on the floor and got him some juice. Again, I about jumped out of the bed when they gave me the numbing shot before the epidural. I was a crazy woman! I didn't know it at the time but our friends the Gaynors were at the hospital and were waiting to come see us and popped into the room next door when they heard my craziness and saw the epidural cart. They came over once the craziness had calmed down.
I was amazed how quickly I calmed down. I went from being a desperate crazy person to being my old happy self. I apologized to all the nurses and smiled big for the camera. I was happy to have visitors (it was like midnight!) and felt like chatting up a storm. Night and day difference. Phil called my parents and they were on the way to the hospital but would not be there until 4 AM. We decided to try and get some sleep. I could not sleep though, I was too excited. I was having a baby!
In labor after the epidural
The nurse came in periodically and checked me for dilation. I progressed 1 cm an hour just like they said I would. My parents peaked in around 4 AM when they arrived. They couldn't believe how peaceful I was. They wanted to let us rest so they headed out to the waiting room to sleep too. Around 5 AM the nurse told me that I was 10 cm. How easy was that and it was time to push. We thought Luke would be here really soon!!!
When I first started to push I could feel nothing. The nurses were coaching me but it was a S-L-O-W process. They turned down the epidural. Suddenly I was exhausted from pushing, in pain, and no baby in sight. They got me a mirror thinking that would help? The mirror really stressed me out. When I pushed I could see Luke's head but when I stopped pushing the head would go right back in! I would scream in discouragement. This whole silliness went on for 2 1/2 hours!!! My mouth was so dry but they would only let me have one small ice chip at a time. I could not catch my breath because of the position I was in and the frequency of the contractions. When the doctor finally came a little after 7 AM. Right away he took the tweezers and pinched me right where the baby was coming out and I screamed and jumped in extreme pain! He couldn't believe that the epidrual was not working. Yep, I had been telling them that for a while. So he gave me a local pain shot. Then without telling me what was going on gave me a massive episiotomy and pulled Luke out.
The nurses whisked Luke away and started to suck out his lungs. There was nothing I could do! I was helpless and stuck laying in the bed getting stitched up. I kept asking if Luke was alright? Phil was standing right with Luke in the heating lamp while they were working on him. He reassured me that everything was fine. They just really had to make sure that his lungs were clear because of the meconium. If he would have aspirated any it could have caused some serious problems and blocked his airway. Thankfully, he was fine and was able to breast feed shortly after his birth.
A good caption for this photo could be "What did we do?"
One moment we were 2 and the next minute we were suddenly 3! Yikes! We are parents and we don't know what we are doing.
My parents got to meet Luke pretty quick after he was born! My dad said "He is a pretty boy" and "I've seen that baby before" (meaning he looked a lot like me and he still does!)
I feel like I was really out of it after I nursed him. His first time nursing took an hour and the pediatrician came to check him out after he nursed. He checked out fine and the nurses gave him his first bath and then they switched us over to the recovery rooms. I was exhausted but happy. I don't think that I slept all night and I still was too excited to sleep. We had plenty to friends that stopped in for visits over the next few days. We took Luke home from the hospital on the 29th. It just happened to be our anniversary! What a good memory! My brother and Aunt Lisa came down from Indy to meet Luke and Drew grilled steaks on the grill for dinner.
I was so glad that I had all of the Christmas decorations already up. I guess I was nesting after all?! It was soooo fun having a new baby right around Christmas time. I love that we have photos with the tree in the background!
I also remember the first song that I sang for him was "Silent Night" Very appropriate! He did give us some rough nights in the beginning.
I also remember that he came just in time for Phil's finals...he did not do so great that year. It's hard to do your best work with a new baby at home! We kind of thought that Luke would come late (everyone said that he was a first baby and would be late) and that would have been after finals were over. He was 10 days early. Some things you just can't plan for!
Phil studying
We were still fairly young and naive parents! We did things like take a 1 month old baby to an IU basketball game:
And we took him to a semester abroad in Paris where he took his first bites of solid food...
...and rode in a cab twice with no car seat...
Sheesh. All of this birth talk has me a little worked up. Luke's birth was similar yet different from Micah's. With Luke I was SO not ready for birth but my first experience helped me with the 2nd one and I hope that helps me with this 3rd one!
Chow for now!
