The countdown to Kenny's arrival started much earlier than I thought. On the Tuesday before I delivered, at my 38 week appointment, my OB informed me that it looked like the little man might be arriving at any time, and that he figured the next time he saw me would be in the delivery room. I was certainly not prepared to hear that! We arranged for Jeff to come out a bit earlier than we expected, and the wait for Kenny's arrival began. We attempted to prod him along with lots and lots of walking and acupressure, but all that seemed to do was create false contractions. More than once I had contractions all day long that got closer and closer together but then stopped when I went to bed. It was frustrating. I thought that it was happening again when I started having contractions on Sunday night and they seemed to calm down when I went to sleep. However, it turned out that I was having plenty of contractions that night, I just slept through them!
Jeff, Colleen (My SIL and awesome labor coach), and I went to the hospital Monday morning. At 7 (when they got me hooked up to the monitor) my contractions were about five minutes apart and I was 4 to 5 centimeters. They called my OB and he said that since I wasn't on any drugs or anything (and therefore not attached to an IV pole) I could go off the monitors and move around as we waited for things to progress.
After settling into our huge room- it was in the corner and thus afforded us both extra space and privacy- we decided to get walking. We did lap after lap after lap. The rule of thumb at the hospital was that mom could be off-monitor for 50 minutes, then back on for 20 minutes. Of course a few times the nurse got busy while I was on-monitor and I ended up hooked up for a bit longer, but pretty much all day I was off and walking, bouncing on my exercise ball, or doing awkward squats- anything to progress. At first my OB thought things were going to move quickly, so mom came over mid-morning to hang out and make sure she didn't miss anything. Of course, things moved fairly slowly; at noon I was at 6cm, and at 2pm I was at 7. At that point we were sure things would get more interesting...but instead things completely stalled. My contractions got weaker and farther apart. Since I was still not on any medications I kept walking to try and get things moving, but around 3 the monitor showed signs that Kenny was not doing as well as he had been, so I had to lay in bed on my side for him to get better blood flow and perk up a bit. At 4 the OB said it was time for some pitocin, as I was still at 7 cm. Once they give you pitocin you have to stay on monitor and in your room, which I was unhappy about, but I was also getting rather bored with walking the halls and all the waiting. They hooked me up to all the monitors and started the IV, and I took a nice nap. At 5:30 I still hadn't progressed so they broke my water and upped the pitocin dose. That's when things started to get uncomfortable.
Up until about 5:45 I was not in pain at all. Discomfort, sure, but not pain. Then I hit transition. I did not like transition (or know that it was transition since I wasn't getting checked). After another 15 minutes I decided to get an epidural, and that was in place about 6:30. Just in time. After waiting about a half hour for it to fully kick-in, I was fairly convinced that the epidural wasn't properly working, because I was still in a lot of pain on one side....even though my toes were tingling on both sides. I told the nurse, and she said that it might be the baby ready to come out, and it turned out it was. Of course nothing was ready at that point. It probably didn't help that they switch shifts at 7, so the nurse/midwife who ended up coaching me through pushing hadn't settled in and done all her transition checks yet. So I waited and waited for what seemed like forever while they set everything up and called the OB to come so I could start pushing. That got started about 7:30 or so, and Kenneth was born at 7:54. I will spare you the details of that experience. Probably the most memorable thing to occur during that time was my Dad and Nic walking into the room while I was mid-contraction. Talk about bad timing! Apparently there was a miscommunication and Dad and Kevin thought they were supposed to come to our room, when really they were supposed to go to the waiting room. I'm just thankful that there was a curtain in front of the door, so I don't think they saw anything that might scar Nic for life. It certainly broke my concentration.
The entire time that I was pushing my mom kept yelling, "I see his head! he has hair," "Wow, look at all that hair!," "He has so much hair!" Apparently, Kenneth's full head of hair really surprised her. The thing that surprised me the most was how much Kenny looks like my side of the family. When I first saw him he was looking a little smooshy and puffy and old-manish, and I swear he was the spitting image of Grandpa Cox (his pediatrician who was also our pediatrician growing up claims he actually looks just like Uncle Kevin).
After all my work was done I was ready to eat. I was so so hungry. In fact, at the hospital they have a white board across from the bed with all the nurses info, etc on it. On the side of that my first nurse drew a little baby face to remind me of my goal, then my OB drew a little birthday cake next to that. These were supposed to symbolize my main goal of delivering a healthy baby. I had them draw another picture add my secondary goal- to eat a hamburger. Seriously, I was so hungry. After delivery the nurse told me that I shouldn't eat because I might get sick, and I told her I would eat a few crackers first but that no one was going to keep me from my burger. And, for the record, guess who ate a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings and did not throw them up? ME. It was glorious.By the time I finished eating Kenny was done with his bath (they don't do baths until after you have finished with your skin to skin time immediately following delivery), and it was time for us to rest and cuddle some more. Also, we took loads of pictures:
Jeff, Colleen (My SIL and awesome labor coach), and I went to the hospital Monday morning. At 7 (when they got me hooked up to the monitor) my contractions were about five minutes apart and I was 4 to 5 centimeters. They called my OB and he said that since I wasn't on any drugs or anything (and therefore not attached to an IV pole) I could go off the monitors and move around as we waited for things to progress.
After settling into our huge room- it was in the corner and thus afforded us both extra space and privacy- we decided to get walking. We did lap after lap after lap. The rule of thumb at the hospital was that mom could be off-monitor for 50 minutes, then back on for 20 minutes. Of course a few times the nurse got busy while I was on-monitor and I ended up hooked up for a bit longer, but pretty much all day I was off and walking, bouncing on my exercise ball, or doing awkward squats- anything to progress. At first my OB thought things were going to move quickly, so mom came over mid-morning to hang out and make sure she didn't miss anything. Of course, things moved fairly slowly; at noon I was at 6cm, and at 2pm I was at 7. At that point we were sure things would get more interesting...but instead things completely stalled. My contractions got weaker and farther apart. Since I was still not on any medications I kept walking to try and get things moving, but around 3 the monitor showed signs that Kenny was not doing as well as he had been, so I had to lay in bed on my side for him to get better blood flow and perk up a bit. At 4 the OB said it was time for some pitocin, as I was still at 7 cm. Once they give you pitocin you have to stay on monitor and in your room, which I was unhappy about, but I was also getting rather bored with walking the halls and all the waiting. They hooked me up to all the monitors and started the IV, and I took a nice nap. At 5:30 I still hadn't progressed so they broke my water and upped the pitocin dose. That's when things started to get uncomfortable.
Up until about 5:45 I was not in pain at all. Discomfort, sure, but not pain. Then I hit transition. I did not like transition (or know that it was transition since I wasn't getting checked). After another 15 minutes I decided to get an epidural, and that was in place about 6:30. Just in time. After waiting about a half hour for it to fully kick-in, I was fairly convinced that the epidural wasn't properly working, because I was still in a lot of pain on one side....even though my toes were tingling on both sides. I told the nurse, and she said that it might be the baby ready to come out, and it turned out it was. Of course nothing was ready at that point. It probably didn't help that they switch shifts at 7, so the nurse/midwife who ended up coaching me through pushing hadn't settled in and done all her transition checks yet. So I waited and waited for what seemed like forever while they set everything up and called the OB to come so I could start pushing. That got started about 7:30 or so, and Kenneth was born at 7:54. I will spare you the details of that experience. Probably the most memorable thing to occur during that time was my Dad and Nic walking into the room while I was mid-contraction. Talk about bad timing! Apparently there was a miscommunication and Dad and Kevin thought they were supposed to come to our room, when really they were supposed to go to the waiting room. I'm just thankful that there was a curtain in front of the door, so I don't think they saw anything that might scar Nic for life. It certainly broke my concentration.
The entire time that I was pushing my mom kept yelling, "I see his head! he has hair," "Wow, look at all that hair!," "He has so much hair!" Apparently, Kenneth's full head of hair really surprised her. The thing that surprised me the most was how much Kenny looks like my side of the family. When I first saw him he was looking a little smooshy and puffy and old-manish, and I swear he was the spitting image of Grandpa Cox (his pediatrician who was also our pediatrician growing up claims he actually looks just like Uncle Kevin).
After all my work was done I was ready to eat. I was so so hungry. In fact, at the hospital they have a white board across from the bed with all the nurses info, etc on it. On the side of that my first nurse drew a little baby face to remind me of my goal, then my OB drew a little birthday cake next to that. These were supposed to symbolize my main goal of delivering a healthy baby. I had them draw another picture add my secondary goal- to eat a hamburger. Seriously, I was so hungry. After delivery the nurse told me that I shouldn't eat because I might get sick, and I told her I would eat a few crackers first but that no one was going to keep me from my burger. And, for the record, guess who ate a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings and did not throw them up? ME. It was glorious.By the time I finished eating Kenny was done with his bath (they don't do baths until after you have finished with your skin to skin time immediately following delivery), and it was time for us to rest and cuddle some more. Also, we took loads of pictures:
Waiting...
More waiting...
He's here!
Not loving his bath...
With Daddy
With Auntie Colleen, Auntie Emily, and Jjaja
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2 comments:
The one with you & Jeff made me cry!
Thanks for the details & sweet photos! Congrats!!
I enjoyed reading your story.
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