it all started at the appointment mentioned in my previous post... as I mentioned, an ultrasound revealed that my fluid levels were measuring lower than the OB would have liked & I was to follow up on Thursday (Feb 16). On the morning of Wednesday, Feb 15, I was on the phone with my mom when I thought I noticed my water had broken. I called the nurse at my OB's office, described what I'd noticed, & she told me to come on it to have the OB take a look.
I called JD at work, told him what had happened & what the nurse had said & he headed back home while I took a quick shower & got my things together.
We arrived at the hospital around 12:30 that afternoon & were sent to a room. The nurse helped me get settled & told me that the on-call OB would be in shortly to check my water to see if it had broken. Unfortunately, the OB found that my water had in fact, not broken - but, another ultrasound showed that my fluid levels were down even lower than they had been on Monday... they were going to admit me & induce labor the following morning. We were going to have a baby in the next 24 - 36 hours!!
I was admitted to a L&D room & we called our parents to let them know what was going on. That evening was a blur - lots of family, doctors, & nurses were in & out, preparing me for the induction the following morning. The OB docs told me that they were planning to start the epidural & the induction around 11 the next morning.
As promised, they gave me the epidural around 10:30 the morning on Thursday, February 16, & then started the pitocin around 11:00. Before they gave me the epidural, they measured my cervix, which was already at 4cm - the OB said that I was in great shape to start laboring.
The contractions started pretty quickly after they gave me the pitocin - nothing too bad at first, but after a few hours it became evident that the epidural wasn't living up to its promise... the anesthesiologist said that it had become "one-sided" in that I had no feeling on the left side of my body & I had nearly 100% feeling on my right side. As the contractions got more intense, I felt them more & more. The anesthesiologist was able to manipulate my epidural a couple of times, but I don't think I ever got to the 100% level that I should have on my right side.
Other than the epidural mishap, labor went really well. I continued to dilate steadily & everything was going as planned. There were a couple of times when the baby's blood pressure dropped & the docs rushed in - but then it bounced back & we'd be okay again. Throughout it all, my heart rate never spiked nor did my blood pressure get high - yay!
Starting around 7:00 that evening things got really uncomfortable - the contractions felt much stronger & I was feeling a LOT of pressure. The only thing for me to do to get through each one was to push. I talked to the nurse & OB who told me that I was only dilated about 9.5cm & that they wanted me to wait a bit longer to officially start pushing so that I wouldn't get too tired or put too much stress on my heart. I was able to hold off for about an hour - when the doc checked me again at 8:30, I had dilated to 10cm! This was it - we were ready to start pushing!!
Officially, I pushed for 1 hour & 2 minutes. It didn't feel like an hour, though. My eyes were closed for most of it all. JD counted 13 medical staff in the room while I pushed - everybody from nursing students to the attending OB. UAB is a teaching hospital, so this wasn't too out of the ordinary. Just when I thought I couldn't push anymore, the doc said that the baby was coming!
The one thing we had asked the nurses was for JD to tell me if the baby was a boy or a girl - after all of the drama we'd been through the last 5 weeks, that was the one thing that we really wanted. Fortunately, the OB was happy to oblige.
My eyes were still closed - I was exhausted. I heard the OB say "okay dad, tell her what it is..." then JD, "it's a BOY!!?!" I laughed & burst into tears. We had a son!!
John Weston Baker was born at 9:44pm - coming in at 8 lbs, 1.5oz / 20.5 inches
He is absolutely perfect in every way & we are head over heels in love!!!
Yay! More John Weston pics, please!! Love you
ReplyDelete