I had been having early labor and contractions for about two weeks before his birth. On the evening of Thursday, May 16, contractions got 3-4 minutes apart and slightly more intense. I thought I would just go in to labor and delivery in case this was the real deal. I was 39 weeks and 2 days which is the most pregnant I've been and definitely got to feel the uncomfortableness of the end of pregnancy. It took my mother in law 34 minutes to get to our house (we timed her) and we set off to L&D for which we thought we would probably be sent home.
We arrived at L& D around 12:45 am. I got settled into triage where they did an assessment and told me I was 4 centimeters dilated but they couldn't feel his head engaged. They did an ultrasound to reveal that he was breech! This must have happened just in the past couple of weeks as I was told around week 37 that he was head down and engaged. I never felt him turn though. The doctors said that because he was breech and my labor was progressing, that I'd have to have a c section.
I was pretty devastated. One of the best things in the world is hold that baby on your chest that you just worked so hard to push out and I thought that with a c section that couldn't happen. I was wrong though. They assured me that although space would be tight, that they could support us in doing some skin to skin contact moments after delivery.
I felt a mix of emotion as they prepped me for surgery. I had never had surgery before and had no idea what to expect in terms of the process as well as the risks and recovery. I also felt nervous and excited. We would be meeting our third son a lot sooner than we expected. I had thought I would have time to labor and it would maybe be 10 hours or so but nope, they gave me a timeline of 60-90 minutes until he would be born.
At about 2:45 am, I walked into the OR as Randy got himself ready to go in. I got a spinal to numb me for the surgery and it felt the same as getting the epidural in the past. At this point, my contractions were starting to get more intense, but not super painful. I remember touching my last pregnant belly as often as I could. I laid down and several minutes later, Randy joined me.
I had no idea they had even gotten started until I head them say "He is all boy!". Apparently his butt was up in the air and he pooped and peed right after being pulled out. Moments later they laid a beautiful baby boy on my chest. He had a full head of dark brown hair and cried for quite a while before settling in for a few minutes while mama got put back together. The doctors called a birth time of 3:15 am, but both Randy and I saw the clock which read 3:12. Our observation didn't count though.
They took him, cleaned him up a bit, weighed him, bundled him up and handed him off to daddy. We then went to a recovery room where I got to hold him some more while they monitored us. He took to nursing right away.
From the time we were in recovery, I was told how well I was doing. They continued to monitor us in recovery for an hour or so before putting us in our room. We spent the rest of the morning hanging out, nursing and trying to catch a few minutes of sleep while we could, although it was hard.
Big brothers and the grandparents came to visit on the first day. Daniel was so so excited to meet his baby brother, who by the way, still didn't have a name. Daniel was eager to hold and kiss him, which he did a lot of. Ryan was confused but soon warmed up once he saw how Daniel was so excited. Ryan also wanted to "hold it, baby" which he did for a couple minutes before being "I all done".
Later that day I got out of bed for the first time and was very eager to get all the equipment detached as fast as possible. He continued to nurse well and take good naps on mama's chest. Later that night, or early Saturday morning he began to have a few spells where he gagged and seemed to stop breathing for a few seconds. Thank goodness we were in the hospital and help was right there! Apparently the gagging is normal in c section babies, but enough to scare mom and dad! We rarely were able to lay him down without it happening again. This went on for 24 hours or so. He did spend some time with a nurse so we could get a couple hours of sleep.
Sunday came and it was time to go home! He weighed 8 pounds 11 ounces upon discharge.And, it was also time to decide on a name. Throughout our hospital stay, we played around with different combinations and finally decided on Alexander Joseph. We made our way home later that day and let the big boys stay with the grandparents for another night so we could get settled.
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