Henry is here! Part 1

It is a long story, but I want to document it all so that I don't forget any of it. It might have to be done in pieces though, if Henry doesn't let me finish.

Jason and I spent most of Thursday getting things done around the barn, making sure things were clean and put away. We knew we would have guests after Henry arrived, and we just didn't want to come home to a dirty house. Around 2 or so we ran over to Wal Mart for our last run without a child. Ever. That was a surreal experience. Knowing it was the last time we would walk in there without being parents sorta hit us both pretty hard.

After we were done, we ran home, I got a shower and we made sure we had everything we needed. BTW we needed about 1/3rd of the things we brought. First time parent overpacker syndrome kicked in. Did we really think we needed that many books?

We made sure we got to the hospital by 5pm, and after being redirected to three different places, we found the right place to be. I felt bad for all the mothers I saw coming in there having contractions, looking worse for wear, and I just waltzed up to the front desk and filled out my paperwork. They had me in a room within 5 minutes. I was shocked really! I figured it would take forever.

I should note that earlier in the day, I started having stronger contractions, or at least what I thought were contractions. I hoped that this would help things along and maybe he would come on his own. by 6:15 they administerd the Cervidil. BTW that hurt! Wowza. They have to shove it up behind your uterus. They said at that point I was 2-3 cms, leaning towards 3cms. So we definitely had progressed since Monday. They hooked me up to the baby heart rate monitor adn the contraction monitor which was very interesting to watch. I took an ambien around 8pm to help me sleep. It helped a little bit, but I did start feeling contractions so it woke me up. I slept maybe an hour and a half.

I should also note that the nurses both had told us that most people did not react to the Cervidil and that probably at most I would feel mild contractions through the night. When the night nurse said this, I was watching the monitor and my contractions were already timing themselves at like 5 minutes, if not less. They were consistent too, but then nurse seemed very adament I was NOT in labor. These were just pre labor contractions or Braxton Hicks. I knew better, or thought I did.

The contractions just get stronger and more painful through the night. Poor Jason had to help me to the restroom, it was too painful to try to go alone. Neither of us got a lot of sleep. By about 6am the contractions are about 1.5 minutes apart, and yet the night nurse still seems to think nothing of this. I finally decided to get the Staydol or whatever it is called for the pain, to help take the edge off. In order to get this, I needed to get an IV. Three people and an anesthesiolgist later and finally I had an IV. Once the meds started going in, the contractions were so painful it did not work at all.

I had to ask for an epi at that point. I couldn't continue going through that every 45 seconds basically, that's about how long it was before another one started. They checked my cervix beforehand and low and behold I was a solid 4. After the epi went in, my doctor came in, around 7:30 or so, and at this point I was a 5. Around this time she decided to break my water since she could see it bulging out at that point, could even touch it. She also could see that there was meconium, meaning Henry had pooped in the womb. We were sort of afraid of this since he was late and that is not uncommon at all. Jason did the same, so he takes after his daddy!

They checked me every 45 minutes to an hour after that and by 11am I was 10 cms. No Pitocin at all was necessary. I dilated all on my own. I don't know if the Cervidil helped or not, but if it did, it was all I needed to get it going.

Dr. Carnevale had a procedure to do at 11:30 am and she said if she had to, she'd get another doctor to do it, babies come first, but my mom wasn't there yet and he hadn't dropped into the +3 station yet. He was still at 0 to a +1. I told her to go ahead, we'd start trying to push afterwards. It should only take an hour or so, and again, I wanted to wait for my mom. Actually she had me try a practice push first, nothing happened, so she was comfortable with this decision.

My mom shows up shortly after, and come to think of it, this was probably more like 10:30 or so. Through all of this my doctor was so surprised that I was moving as quickly as I was. I was too, and happy about it, for sure. Well I sent my mom, Jason, his parents and my grandparents to go get some lunch. In the meantime, I could start feeling more, mostly pressure but some pain, so they came and gave me another round of epi meds into the epi catheter. I went back to being completely numb and I was perfectly fine with this. Also, they found out I had a fever that ended up peaking at around 101.5, so some IV meds were required. They are not sure why, but it could possibly be because of the meconium.

Fast forward to about 1pm and the nurse comes in letting me know that a team from the NICU were on their way. They were going to have to clean Henry up and get the meconium out of his lungs ASAP. They didn't even want him crying first, to help make the cleaning up part easier. The nurse, Jolene, who was wonderful by the way, started prepping me for delivery. They got the stirrups out and she and Jason got my legs up in those. That was quite a feat btw. They had to roll me over a lot during the hours leading up to delivery because Henry's heartbeat would go down every time I had a contraction. They had to monitor him pretty closely, but they figured it was because since he had dropped, the cord had wrapped around some part of him, head, neck, legs, arms, etc.

Once I was up in the stirrups, Jolene went to check on the baby. About this time a team of three nurses come in from the NICU and my mom comes in with her lunch. She even sits down to eat it and then Jolene looks down and says "I see a head!" Sure enough, Henry's head was poking out. I didn't even know it happened like that, or could. My mom decided at that point maybe this wasn't the best time to eat. The nurses then were all staring at my parts, which was a tiny bit uncomfortable, but at this point you just don't care. Their eyes were as big as saucers. Apparently they did not see this that often. Dr. C was still not there and Jolene had called her and even paged her at this point. She needed to get there NOW, this baby wanted out.

The nurses jokingly told me not to laugh or sneeze, he might fall out. They weren't kidding! I started to feel something a bit like a tear, but it didn't hurt. It is hard to describe how it felt really. After frantically trying to call the nurses desk and get them to find Dr. Carnevale however they could, Jolene looks down and says, "Well, we're having a baby." Within 10 seconds, she plops him on my stomach, completely covered in slimy meconium. I was in total and utter shock. My doctor burst through the door 30 seconds later and I just gaped at her with my hands out with this look of total and utter surprise on my face. Apparently the look was priceless. Henry came out without a single push. He just simply came out. I did NOTHING. I still, four days later, cannot wrap my head around this. No one could. The nurses and doctor all said they had never seen a first time mom do this before. Maybe a second time mom, but never a first timer.

At least Dr. C was there then to clean everything up, get my stitches taken care, deliver the placenta, etc. Good thing I had that epi. Because I did not push, the placenta did not want to deliver itself, so she had to get it out one way or another. The NICU nurses whisked him to the other side of the room from my stomach and got to work cleaning him up. They were fast, but because it took so long to get ME taken care of, it was almost 40 minutes before I ever got to hold my son. I was in too much shock to worry about it too terribly much until I remembered we needed to try breastfeeding right away. Jason was able to long before I was, because of the position I was in, it just was not possible. He was so handsome, right away, I knew he was a beautiful baby. Of course I am a very bias mother. Who wouldn't be? :)

I'll continue the rest of the hospital story some other time. This is already really, really long and I doubt anyone else will ever read it besides me lol.