The Birth: Charlie Edition

I had what I thought was my 39 week appointment on Tuesday.  I was seeing a different doctor than I had seen before because my doctor had tripped while running a marathon and broke her arm.  There was no way she could deliver Charlie, so she went ahead and referred me to start seeing a different doctor in the practice.  Although I wasn't convinced that I actually wanted to do it, I wanted to talk to this doctor about the possibility of inducing.  I have been in so much pain and unable to do much because of it.  I was just ready to have this baby.  She checked me, no progress.  I was a bit in shock about this.  She went ahead and stripped my membranes, telling me it might not help but it certainly couldn't hurt.  After she was done, I asked at what point we could possibly induce if I decided I wanted to do that.  She told me we couldn't start talking about it until next week or the week after.  I guess she could see the confusion on my face and asked me how far along I was again.  I told her 39 weeks.  She then told me that everything she had said I was 38 weeks 3 days.  So she technically couldn't do anything until 39 weeks.  I left my appointment very frustrated.  I actually called Tim in tears because the original due date we were given was wrong and I had felt so bad for so many weeks, I now had to go at least another week.  Like I said, I wasn't completely convinced that I wanted to be induced anyway, but I liked having that option in my back pocket if I wanted it.  Ideally, I would go into labor on my own and do everything naturally like I did with Robby, but my body was tired and I just didn't know how much longer I could make it being pregnant.

That evening, Tim came home and we went for a walk with Robby.  I walked as quickly as I could, taking breaks when my feet and legs would go numb, then getting back at it.  We got home, ate dinner, I took a hot bath and that's when the contractions started.  I didn't time them because I knew they either weren't the real thing or at least they weren't intense enough to mean labor was going to happen that night.  I went to bed contracting, I woke up several times throughout the night contracting, and I was contracting when I got up Wednesday morning.  But again, they weren't really intense.  My mom and I decided we would run a couple of errands that afternoon, so we got around slowly that morning, then put Robby down for his nap.  I hadn't mentioned to her about the contractions because I just didn't know for sure if they were the real deal or not.  I told my mom that I would just stay in the car while she and Robby ran in and got what they needed while we ran errands.  I was tired and I wanted to have some time just sitting to keep an eye on the contractions to see if there was any kind of pattern to them.  We got done, headed home, and Tim got home at the same time.  I told Tim I wanted to go for a walk again.  I wasn't able to walk quite as quickly as the night before.  I told Tim that if I was still feeling this way and they got any closer together, we might need to go in tonight just to get checked out.  My fear, living 45 minutes away from the hospital, was that I would wait too long and we would end up having a baby on the way to the hospital!  We got home from our walk, I made dinner, Tim bathed Robby and I told him I was just going to call Labor and Delivery to see what they thought I should do.  He decided to go ahead and take a shower while I was calling.  They told me since my contractions were ranging between 3-7 minutes apart and had been going on pretty much all day they wanted me to come in.  Robby was in bed, and we stopped in his room for a minute before we left just to reflect.  I wasn't convinced I was actually in labor, but if I was, I wanted to remember the last time it was just the 3 of us.  Robby has been as close to a perfect child as you can get.  He has been such a blessing to us and it was hard to think of him as being a big brother when he is just a baby himself!  I hugged my mom good-bye and told her we would probably be back late tonight but I would keep her posted.

We got to the hospital around 9.  They checked me (I was a tad more progressed than I was the day before) and started monitoring my contractions.  They were hovering at about 3 minutes apart.  After a little while the nurse told me to walk for a while.  Tim and I walked and talked for about an hour.  I asked the nurse if I could take a break for a little bit.  She got me hooked back up to everything again and checked me.  I had progressed a little bit more.  She had another woman that had just gotten there who had my same doctor so she was going to wait to have a report on that woman then call the doctor and tell her about both of us at once to see what she wanted to do.  At about midnight, the nurse came in to tell me the doctor wanted to admit me.  The whole time the nurse was checking me and reporting how dilated I was, she was actually off.  She was measuring me as dilated more than I was.  I didn't find this out until later in the morning though.  When she admitted me, she said I was at a 4, but I actually was only at a 2.5.  Now, I'm not complaining because it got me admitted and got things going, but it still would have been nice to not have that false hope that I was progressing rapidly when I wasn't actually.  I told the nurse that I did not want an epidural and I planned on doing everything naturally since that's what I had done before.  Tim was exhausted so I told him to just lay down and I would get his attention if I needed anything.  This labor was different than with Robby in that I pretty much labored silently that time.  This time, I felt the need to groan through contractions.  Simply breathing through them wasn't working.  I also was having to really talk myself through them.  I just felt that I didn't have control over it this time like I did last time.

The doctor came in around 6:30 and broke my water to try to get things moving along.  She wanted me to start progressing faster.  At 9:30 I was at a 3.5 and the doctor said she wanted to start pitocin if I didn't progress in the next hour.  My nurse had worked with lots of moms who labored naturally and she was helping me with various positions to try to get me to progress on my own.  I was having a hard time relaxing and letting my body just take over.  I tried standing and swaying my hips while holding on to Tim.  Although, in order to make me laugh, Tim started saying "shoop, shoop, shoop" each time I would sway from one side to the next.  (It's from an early Friends episode when Rachel wanted to go skiing with her family and she annoyed everyone by constantly saying "shoop, shoop, shoop".).  Later he told me that it was the only time I smiled during a couple hour span.  Sadly, they did have to start the pitocin and I just couldn't handle it.  I spent about an hour laying in the bed, shaking my head violently saying "I can't do it, I can't do it!"  I cried and just completely lost control.  Around 11, I got a shot of nubain to help dull the pain a little.  Unfortunately, it didn't dull the pain, it only made me very confused and tired.  I ended up having a complete breakdown and asked for an epidural.  I was at a 4 when they gave me the nubain.  They came in and gave me the epidural at 11:45.  It took him 30 minutes to get it in, which he made the comment that it was the longest it had taken him in a long time.  That makes a person who was very anti-epidural feel really good!  The nurse checked me after the epidural and I was already at a 6.  She told me she wanted me to lay back and try to sleep.  I, for some reason, was fighting sleeping.  I was in a very weird state of almost sleep.  I was dreaming, but knew what was going on around me and was having conversations with Tim about the dreams I was having as I was having them.  One dream was about this wooden dog that was like this little frog that Robby has that you pull and it hops.  Anyway, this dog and his wooden owners were checking their mail across the street from our house.  I was watching them from our front window and the dog walked off the sidewalk and broke apart.  I started crying and Tim could not get me calmed down!  I was so distraught about this poor wooden dog and his wooden owners!

By 1:30, I was at a 10 and the nurse called the doctor and got everything set up for me to start pushing.  I was still quite loopy from the nubain and didn't really know what I was doing when they told me to push.  The first 2 pushes I wasn't really pushing, but after 3 real pushes, Charlie was here!  He came out holding onto his umbilical cord.  They put him on my chest and I was able to see him.  I didn't have complete feeling in my arms and upper back so I was a little nervous holding him because I felt like I was going to drop him.  Also, he was quite blue when he came out.  He was crying and breathing, but it really bothered me how blue he was.  The nurse ended up taking him over to get him cleaned up and rubbed him to get him to "pink up" a little so I would feel better.  She brought him back over and we were able to get a few pictures then I fed him for the first time.  He did great, just like Robby had!  I got to snuggle him a little before they took him to the nursery for a little while and I was able to take a quick nap.

Tim left to go home and get Robby so he could meet his little brother.  I had expected them to bring Charlie back to me rather quickly, but they ended up having to take me to a different room on a different floor so they were going to bring him to me after I got settled in the room.  An hour so more passed and I called the nursery to see why they hadn't brought him yet.  It turned out that after his bath, Charlie wasn't able to regulate his body temperature himself and keep it up to where it needed to be.  They were going to have to keep him another hour or so to make sure he could keep his temperature up.  Tim left with Robby to go get something to eat with his family who had arrived at the hospital.  I told him I would let him know whenever they brought Charlie back to me.  Well, it was 8:00 and they still hadn't brought him to me and Tim was back from eating.  Tim went down to the nursery to check on him since I hadn't completely regained feeling in my legs yet.  I got a little antsy so I decided to just go ahead and call myself.  The nurse told me that after the hour they were waiting for Charlie to get his body temperature back up, he had spit up some mucus and choked.  He turned blue and they had to suction him for a while to get him back to normal.  But since that happened, his body temperature had gone down again and they had to keep monitoring him.  I was pretty upset that they hadn't called me to tell me anything, and I hadn't seen him since about 3 or so.  I asked my nurse if she could help me get down to the nursery because I at least wanted to see him.  She got me set up and Tim pushed me down to the nursery.  I held him for a little bit.  Tim's family was able to see him for a little bit then my parents were able to see him for a little bit.  They all decided to go ahead and leave and would come back on Friday to see him and get to actually hold him.  Poor Robby was up so late and didn't even get to meet his little brother that day!  But around 9, they let me take Charlie back down to our room and feed him and spend a little time with him.

The next day, all of our family was able to see and hold Charlie for a bit.  He did great in the hospital. He ate wonderfully and slept wonderfully.  We are so blessed to have had two healthy babies!  He passed his hearing screening, as well as other tests that were done.