Labor Story-ALL THE DETAILS!

I am going to share as many of the details I can recall so it is long and I tried not to be TOO graphic....



From my last couple of posts, you could probably tell I was about done but that I seriously doubted that I would be having Grevin on his due date. It turns out that he got that eviction notice and decided to SLOWLY pack his stuff. Around 6 pm on Monday, March 9th, I started having contractions but they were anywhere between 20-40 minutes apart and not very long. We decided to ignore them, have dinner with a friend, and head to bed at 10 pm. Zippy fell straight asleep and I started to doze before the contractions became closer together(around 6 minutes apart). At about 1:30 am, I woke up Zippy to have him start timing the contractions and they were going on 2-3 minutes apart for about a minute long. We slowly started to prepare for the hospital because I really didn't want to get there and be told to go back home!! At 2:30 am, we hopped in the car and headed to the hospital. By 4 am, they admitted me at 4 cm dialated and my water had not broken yet. Zippy and I tried to be good and use what we had learned in class-our bag of tricks(walking, shower, back massage, birth ball, etc). The only thing that seemed to help relieve pain was the shower and by 8 am, the contractions were so intense and mainly in my back so they checked me again and I was only 5 cm!! Eek!! I really wanted to go natural the whole way and was scared to death about getting an epidural but the back pain was so intense and just wouldn't stop like a normal contraction that I decided around 10 am, to get it and get some rest.

By 11 am, the epidural was in and working, I was laughing and the happiest person on earth(my labor had started almost 15 hours ago...). They checked again and I was at 7 cm so they broke my water and I took a nap. When they broke my water, they were a little concerned because it had meconium(the babies first poo) in it. They called a pediatrician to be onsite when Grevin came out just in case Grevin had breathed any of this fluid into his lungs and to make sure nothing else was wrong as this could indicate stress to the baby. Around 1:30 pm, my body was ready to push but Grevin was still taking his sweet time making his way down. We decided to try to let Grevin and gravity continue to work so as not to where me out in pushing and waited until 3:30 pm to start pushing. Even with an epidural, I was having alot of intense pain in my back(his face was turned the wrong way and I was having back labor). We found a position that worked and started pushing.

Around 5:15 pm, I was able to see the top of Grevin's head in a mirror and the midwife suggested we bring in the pediatrician and invited Zippy to join her as he was getting ready to crown. Zippy and the midwife worked together to help bring out Grevin's head. If you have never seen this, it is truly one of life's miracles and it is so amazing what our bodies are capable of!! I watched his head start to crown, Zippy was helping steady it, and all this HAIR just kept coming. I kept expecting a face to show up and thought maybe I was delivering Cousin It from the Adams Family but then his face appeared. At this point, the midwife was in a rush to get him out because he wasn't crying yet but luckily he wasn't limp. She tugged and tugged but his shoulder didn't want to budge. Finally it did and the rest of him followed quite easily into Zippy's hands and the midwife told him to pass him quickly to the pediatrician. The pass was done over me so I could see he was a boy(Zippy hadn't seen yet).

The pediatrician went quickly to work with the help of a nurse to try to clean out his passage ways and get him stimulated. Those had to be the longest moments of our entire life as we waited to hear that first cry. Finally he did and it was the best sound on earth!! As soon as they realized he hadn't swallowed any meconium, they gave him to Zippy who handed him to me.

His official time of birth was 5:48 pm, almost 24 hours after I had my first contractions. It was a long intense day but so worth it. We spent more time in labor and delivery with our little guy than we did in postpartum! We were released from the hospital at 1:30 pm the following day, not even 24 hours after he was born. Even though he was SOO big (his head was 14.5 cm!!) I did not tear at all and even with the meconium scare, he is super healthy and strong...so it is nice to be at home instead of trying to share a room at the hospital and being stuck in a hospital bed!! And today, I am writing this while Grevin and his dad are taking a nap on the couch-not even 48 hours after he was born.