Little Buddy

Yay for our little new arrival!

Last night our little guy came into the world, he was 8 lbs 12 oz and 20 1/2 inches long at birth.









The Birth Story (possibly too detailed? oh well).
I had fairly strong contractions spaced anywhere from 3 minutes to 15 minutes apart starting 5am Saturday morning. By 9pm they were regularly 7 min apart and when he broke my water at 11 pm (which there was only the smallest sign of, since he had already dropped low weeks ago) they were suddenly much stronger and 3-5 minutes apart.

So, we changed the bedding, cleaned up the apartment and packed the car as we waited for an hour to see if they lasted in consistency (since I hadn't been completely sure if my water had really broken or not). We got to the hospital at 12:45am, found I was dilated to 2 cm only and stayed awake all night with the contractions which peaked in level by 1:30am Sunday morning and were often around 3 minutes apart and 60-90 seconds in length. All night I was in and out of the tub (I loved it!), on the birthing ball and all over the room. By 6am I had only dilated to a 4, at 9am I was at a 4 again and finally decided to get some pain meds to take the edge off. By 11am things were still the same; since my water had broken at 11pm the night before and the general idea is that it's best to have the baby within 24 hours of the water breaking because of infection risk (my doctor(s) really aren't so strict about it, but like to generally aim for the 24 hour period if the patient is compliant), and because there had been so little change in 12 hours of intense labor, plus 19 hours of milder labor, we decided on Pitocin. Since Pitocin would rocket up some already strong contractions, and because I was already so exhausted, an epidural was administered and instantly loved.

It Was Fantastic!
My darling and I were able to sleep on and off during the day, in between naptimes we invited our loving family in to visit and had a wonderful time joking and passing the time. Both mothers were so supportive of the epidural, even though they went through their labors only with the simpler meds, if any, thank you mommies!

Around 2pm our Little Buddy had a monitor on his head since his heart rate was dropping low during contractions (normal) and not picking up after (dropping even lower to 40-50 bpm). The consensus was that he seemed to be grabbing the chord (I wasn't surprised since he so frequently participated in the Fetal Belly Olympics throughout pregnancy) and pinching or twisting it. So they monitored him, put me on oxygen to help him get some, and had me turn from side to side to see if he would pick up.

Also, he was turned face up, which was why I had not been dilating, but experiencing such long contractions.

By 6pm there was major pressure (yes, the urge to push can be very strong with an epidural), by a little after 7pm there was full dilation and pushing and by 8:19pm our little guy was born. All in all it was very exciting; although I had wanted to go naturally I'm too grateful for the rest the epidural provided so that I was able to push him out into the world so quickly. He was 9 and 9 for both Apgar tests.