Labor Pains

So as many of you know by now, Alex and I welcomed our beautiful baby boy Ben into the world last Sunday! It was a whirlwind of a week for our family leading up to his arrival. As I stated in my last entry, we were scheduled for an induction on April 5th. We were blessed to have my mom and Alex's parents with us when we went to get checked into labor and delivery that night. Little did we know that we would be spending the next four days at Walter Reed but by Sunday morning we would have our little boy!

To make a long complicated labor short, we started with medication that got my contractions started, however there was very little progress as far as dilation. Around midnight they tried inserting a foley bulb, a painful experience that failed the first attempt. A few hours later the doc would come in to try again. I'm not sure if anyone has ever had this procedure before, but it hurts. Especially when you're having contractions. It was awful, so awful I was in tears and squeezing Alex's hand so hard I'm pretty sure he got a hairline fracture. Once they got it in the contractions started becoming stronger and more frequent but not at all regular. That was my breaking point. The best piece if advice I got going into this birthing thing was if you plan on getting the epidural at all get it early. Boy were they right! Props to anyone who goes thru labor without any medication, I on the other hand know where my limits are.

The foley bulb did its job, I was dilated to three centimeters by 9am and as an extra bonus my water broke without any docs! However, with my water broken Ben and I were now on a timeline. 24 hrs to get into active labor (4cm or more) or else we were headed for the O.R table. Saturday was spent increasing the pitocin drip and constantly checking to see if I'd progressed further than the 3cm I'd been at since 9am. No dice. On top of that, my contractions were getting stronger, but still not regularly spaced out and Ben was starting not to handle them well. Every so often his heart rate would drop with the contractions and I would have to go on an oxygen mask and flip on my side. You want to see something funny, it's a nurse and my husband trying to flip me and my epidural legs over from side to side! LOL!

Throughout the night it would be the same routine: flip on one side, put on the mask, up pitocin, lower pitocin, check my cervix, no change. At 6am the docs started prepping us for what was most likely going to happen on Sunday morning. If at 9am there was still no change we would have to have a c-section. Many people go into labor prepared for only one outcome, a normal delivery. I however am one of those people who like to mentally prepare for the unlikely and then be pleasantly surprised when it goes one way or another. By the time 9am rolled around I was ready for the c-section Alex and I knew was coming.

Sure enough, 9am came, there was no change and our nurse (who by the way was freaking awesome) started prepping me for surgery. By 10:30 I was being rolled into the OR and in a few minutes Alex was there with me. The rest of it all seems like a blur to me now. There was a lot of pressure, and movement on the other side of the panel. You can't feel pain during a c-section but you can still feel some stuff, it's a weird feeling.

At 10:55am I heard the first little whimpers of my son, and then we heard him crying. Well screaming is more like it. The doc said he was one of the loudest babies he'd ever heard. Alex went over to cut the cord and then got to hold him, that was when the nurse noticed that Ben was making a grunting noise. They put him back on the table and the pediatrician checked his lungs. Then the nurse came around the corner to tell me that they were taking Ben to the NICU to check him out and Alex was going with him.

Apparently when he came out, Ben screamed so loud that he got air outside his lungs and it was making it hard for him to expand one of them all the way. I would get to see him for about thirty seconds before he was rushed off to the NICU. . But Alex was with him and that's all that mattered.

To be continued...