Daniel Edward decided to come early at 36 weeks and 3 days. He was born on 4/7/09 at 7:49 am. He weighed 6 pounds 8 ounces and was 19 inches long. Apgars were 9 and 9.
April 6 was my first day of maternity leave. I spent it running errands and trying to get a jump start on my to do list. Randy came home from work early that evening and also got some chores done. While watching television I saw an ad for biscuits and we decided biscuits and gravy sounded good for dinner. I ran to the store to get the ingredients and cooked dinner for us. After dinner I sat back down to finish sorting what I thought to be a never ending supply of baby clothes.
At about 7:30pm I felt what I thought to be my water break. I ran to the bathroom. Randy was in his bathroom and wondered why his pregnant wife was running down the hall. Just as it dawned on him why that might be, I said "I think my water just broke!".
Randy brought me the phone and I got on the phone with Labor & Deliver who told me to come on in. Meanwhile, Randy ran around the house trying to pack a hospital bag, which was on my list of things to do...guess I should have done that chore on Monday! After the bags were packed we gave the dogs a treat and headed to Kaiser Deer Valley.
We arrived at Kaiser around 8:00pm and after walking down the longest hallway in the world (really poor planning on their part...L&D was at the end of a very long hall) we finally got there. They put me in triage to confirm that my water did in fact break. It did and they admitted me to the hospital and told me we'd be having a baby!
Feelings of excitement, joy, anxiety and a little bit of fear overwhelmed us. Upon being admitted they hooked me up to a bunch of monitors to keep track of contractions, baby's heart beat, blood pressure, etc. I was feeling minor contractions but apparently they were regular. Things were going almost as I had hoped with the exception of his premature arrival which I was a little worried about.
The midwife explained that she wanted to move labor along since my water had broken this left the baby more vulnerable to infection. She wanted to start me on some pitocin but I wanted to hold off because I had heard that makes the contractions much more painful and I really wanted things to progress naturally. In addition, I hadn't had a particular test done yet so they started me on some antibiotics to protect the baby. The antibiotics were repeated every 4 hours. Oh, did I mention how bad having the IV put in my hand hurt? Well, if I didn't..it hurt, bad. I'm glad I didn't see how big that needle was until they took it out the next day. Anyway, I digress...
We were moved into a Labor & Delivery room. The rooms were huge. Lots of space and we had a pretty decent view, except that it was night time, so it didn't really matter much. Labor continued on but my contractions became irregular. Randy and I spent this time laughing a lot, watching Old School, watching our trip to Kauai video and talking about what our new little son would be like. This "light" labor continued until about 3:00am. The midwife finally decided it was time for the pitocin since my contractions were irregular and I wasn't progressing. The pitocin was given around 1:00am and then the "fun" began around 3:00am.
Contractions got much more intense and I got more and more uncomfortable. The bed was uncomfortable and I had to keep moving which then made the nurses continue to come in to adjust the monitors. Needless to say, I wasn't able to rest much. I finally decided to get some relief and had a narcotic given to "take off the edge". Yeah, whatever. I think they only thing that did was help me rest in between contractions. The pain was pretty intense. Randy stayed right by my side the entire time and was so incredible. He was supportive and said and did all the right things.
About 30 minutes after the narcotic was given I decided to go for the epidural. The pain was so intense. It seemed like it took the anethesiologist forever to get there. It seemed like it took the anethesiologist even longer to get the epidural adminstered. I think she had to give me 5 different locals and it took 3 attempts at the epidural to get it in right. She was less than helpful. Apparently, I have a curve in my spine and this was inconvient for her. She wanted to discuss the situation and finally Randy just said, "yes, she must have a curve in her spine". Oh also, the moving I was doing during the contractions was also inconvient and she kept telling me to hold still. Yeah, thanks..I'm trying. Finally, she got her job done.
I don't remember a whole lot of specifics during this time. But apparently it took a while for the epidural to get going. The thing I worried about with the epidural was not being able to feel my legs and fortunately, this wasn't an issue. By the time it was time for me to push I was told that I didn't even get the full effects of the epidural because things happened so fast. I think I went from being 3 cm dialated around 3:00am to 8 cm at about 5:00am. When they told me I was only 3 cm dialated, I felt so discouraged and that was when I ended up deciding to get something to help with the pain.
Also, I guess they were having a hard time monitoring the baby's heart rate and they wanted to use an internal fetal monitoring device. I did not want that and told them that. The midwife was worried about not being able to monitor his heart rate but agreed to let me try and push. Finally! During the active part of labor I think one of the hardest things was the feeling of pressure and not being able to push. I started pushing around 6:30 am. Randy continued to be by my side and was with me during every breath and contraction and kept telling me to relax, breathe and push.
I pushed for about an hour. I kept being moved from laying on my back to my sides to help him make his way out. Finally, at 7:49 am Daniel was born! Sunny side up! Randy got in there and cut the cord. Hearing that little guy cry for the first time was incredible. There are no words. They put him right on my chest and began to clean him up. I think I said "Oh my gosh there's a real person in there!" and Randy kept telling me how awesome I did. That might be true but he did pretty freaking awesome himself.
Daniel calmed down pretty quickly after being put on my chest and cleaned up. He spent about an hour resting on my chest before they took him to weigh and bathe him. He laid on my chest and cooed and looked around and it was just amazing.
Randy went with them when it was time to clean him up. He put on his first diaper and was right there by his side during his first medical examination and bath. Soon after they were done, Daniel was brought back to me and the 3 of us spent some time as a new family.
We spent a couple days in the hospital so that Daniel's weight and possible jaundice could be monitored. They discharged us on 4/9 and we headed home to start our new life as a family of 5. I am of course, including the dogs in this number :)
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