{"id":741,"date":"2013-09-22T01:13:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-22T01:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eaumaison.wordpress.com\/2013\/09\/22\/sams-birth"},"modified":"2013-09-22T01:13:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-22T01:13:00","slug":"sams-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/2013\/09\/22\/sams-birth\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam’s Birth"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>“Babies know when it’s time to get out.”
“Don’t rush your baby, he will come when he’s ready.”
“Savor those little kicks and your last chance to sleep all night.”<\/p>\n

This is the kind of advice I read as I entered my 40th week of pregnancy with no strong signs of impending labor.\u00a0 So when I scheduled an induction for later that week I felt all kinds of guilty over it.\u00a0 Why can’t my body just figure it out?<\/p>\n

Fast forward to another healthy, robust boy of larger than average size, after a safe and pitocin-free induction the next day.\u00a0 My midwife Norine said “I’m so glad you got him out when you did.\u00a0 It was the right time. You made a good choice.”\u00a0 Relief and validation flooded me.\u00a0 Those were the exact words I needed to hear.<\/p>\n

Thursday afternoon was the slowest day ever.\u00a0 Minutes crawled by as I waited for 5 pm to confirm my spot for that night at the hospital.\u00a0 Once confirmed, I gave Amanda the call to come over to Jack sit for the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Anxiously I watched the clock crawl to 7:10- time to head to the hospital.<\/p>\n

Once checked into my LD suite I got the usual IV and they started penicillin.\u00a0 This being my second baby, they anticipated a quick labor.\u00a0 I ended up getting several (6?) rounds of antibiotics before the birth, since they give them every 4 hours for GBS+ mothers.\u00a0 They put me on the fetal monitors and saw the same old Braxton Hicks contractions I’ve been having for months.\u00a0 I was also still 3 cm dilated, no change from the last two weeks.\u00a0 This meant I could still benefit from misoprostol as a first step.\u00a0 The hospital was running a study of the medication.\u00a0 I happily agreed to participate in their double blind trial to see which route of medication is most effective.\u00a0 Just like with Jack, I had a night time dose, then an early AM dose.\u00a0 Unlike with Jack, not much happened.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/a>\"Sam<\/a><\/div>\n

Ben and I didn’t sleep much that night.\u00a0 Between the anxiety, uncomfortable beds, and frequent monitoring and medication checks, we each scored about 2 hours of sleep.\u00a0 In the morning I was 4 cm.\u00a0 It was disheartening.\u00a0 Obviously this wouldn’t be a quick induction, and again I worried that I was rushing Sam.
\u00a0
The midwife broke my water at 10 AM.\u00a0 They monitored me for an hour in bed and contractions definitely started for real.\u00a0 At 11 AM I got up to walk around the unit.\u00a0 I waddled in circles for the next hour until they had to put me on the monitor again.\u00a0 Contractions were coming every 3 to 7 minutes and were getting hard to talk through.<\/p>\n

After monitoring I tried the jacuzzi tub, remembering how nice it was with my first labor.\u00a0 Not very nice this time.\u00a0 Not sure why it didn’t help the pain.\u00a0 I quickly washed my hair and got out.<\/p>\n

Back in bed I was emotionally at a low point.\u00a0 My midwife came in and we talked about starting an epidural.\u00a0 I was worried it would stall labor, since now I was only up to 5 cm.\u00a0 But the pain was getting intense and I was exhausted, so we called anesthesiology.<\/p>\n

That’s when I hit my physical low point.\u00a0 It took 3 tries for him to get the epidural placed.\u00a0 The first attempt drew back blood.\u00a0 The second adjustment was incorrect.\u00a0 The third try in a new vertebral space finally worked.\u00a0 And dang, those pricks and tests HURT.\u00a0 During that, my contractions were 1 minute apart or less, lasting 1 minute each.\u00a0 Relief couldn’t come fast enough.\u00a0 I’m hazy of the details, but I would guess it took at least 30 minutes to place the catheter.\u00a0 Finally I dropped back into bed and tried to doze without much success.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0002\"<\/a>At 3:45 I jumped to 7 cm.\u00a0 I couldn’t help but compare this to Jacks birth, because at this point in the day we did 5 minutes of pushing and he was born.\u00a0 I still had a ways to go.\u00a0 I didn’t believe them when they said the last few cm go fast, because everything so far has been slow.\u00a0 I was also bummed that my midwife would have a shift change soon, so I’d have someone else for delivery.<\/p>\n

More waiting and waiting.<\/p>\n

My folks arrived in Denver and we gave the family an update.\u00a0 I told them to come visit if they want, since I was bored and needing distraction.<\/p>\n

But at 6 pm the nurse checked me and I was “9.9 cm.”\u00a0 She and the new midwife decided to let me “labor down” for another 30 minutes and then start pushing.\u00a0 So when Amanda, Jack, and my parents arrived it was just a quick hello.\u00a0 They went out for ice cream to wait. <\/p>\n

By this point the epidural was not doing a whole lot.\u00a0 I was pushing the extra dose button as much as I could.\u00a0 I mentioned this to the delivery team.\u00a0 They felt like it would all be over soon and I would do better not to get the dose adjusted, but to just power through.\u00a0 I wish I had argued in hindsight because I felt EVERYTHING.<\/p>\n

My day midwife wanted to labor him down a lot, then get him out in one easy push.\u00a0 My new midwife had a different plan.\u00a0 We went slow and steady, pushing for half an hour.\u00a0 Like I said, if I had known it would go on that long I would have insisted on more pain med.\u00a0 But it was too late to go back so I mustered on.<\/p>\n

Sam was born at 7:02 pm.\u00a0 He came out purple as a grape and covered in vernix.\u00a0 Despite his alarming color, his Apgars were 8 and 9, quite excellent.\u00a0 He quickly pinked up.<\/p>\n

FRESH BABY PICTURE WARNING <\/div>\n

I made them small in case you are squeamish.\u00a0 Nothing gross, but still kind of raw looking.\u00a0 Click it if you want to see Sam the Grape larger.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0003\"<\/a><\/div>\n
\"DSC_0010\"<\/a><\/div>\n

I had warned the team that with my first delivery I had a bad time immediately after.\u00a0 Bad shakes, vomiting, low blood pressure, and needing oxygen.\u00a0 They were cautious with me this time and it paid off.\u00a0 I still had terrible shakes, but they piled on warm blankets and that seemed to help.\u00a0 They let me stabilize before trying to nurse Sam.\u00a0 They didn’t force me to eat any food until I felt ready to and was keeping liquids down.<\/p>\n

By 8 pm things were chill in my LD room and we invited my family to come meet Sam.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0027\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/a>The next two days in the postpartum unit were uneventful.\u00a0 I took full advantage of the nursery at night so I could sleep between feedings.\u00a0 Feeding Sam was easier because at least I knew what I was doing this time.\u00a0 So only one of us had to figure things out.<\/p>\n

We had our checks by the various doctors and nurses and went home on Sunday.
\"DSC_0032\"\u00a0<\/a>
\u00a0
\"Sam<\/a>
Recovery has been great.\u00a0 Sam has been sleeping well since my last post.\u00a0 He wakes to eat, poop, then goes back to sleep for a couple hours.\u00a0 I also try to get a nap in every day.\u00a0 Usually while Jack naps and Ben plays GTA 5 while watching Sam (he wears headphones of course).<\/p>\n

My tearing is so. much. better. than with Jack.\u00a0 Seriously.\u00a0 I didn’t use half the medications and ice and ointments needed last time.\u00a0 Engorgement came and went.\u00a0 My feet were super swollen but they have gone down.\u00a0 I have the icky bread dough stomach and uneasy appetite, but they are fairly mild.\u00a0 I had a migraine for 24 hours that just recently subsided.\u00a0 I get the weepies every day, but that’s also normal.\u00a0 The emotional highs and lows aren’t as crazy as last time.\u00a0 Mostly I have very low stamina.\u00a0 I think another week and I’ll be in pretty good shape.\u00a0 Whether I can take care of two children at once by myself, we shall see.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Babies know when it’s time to get out.”“Don’t rush your baby, he will come when he’s ready.”“Savor those little kicks and your last chance to sleep all night.” This is the kind of advice I read as I entered my 40th week of pregnancy with no strong signs of impending labor.\u00a0 So when I scheduled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}