Sooner than Expected

He's here! Our boy has arrived. First a summary...he was born Monday, October 29, 2007, at 7:35 pm. Weighing in at 7 lbs. 8 oz. and 21.5" long, he is perfect.

The Story of His Birth

Monday morning I woke up with a pain in my right side. I got up and did my usual morning activities, but the pain wasn't going away. So, I sat/layed down for most of the morning - it didn't hurt if I didn't move. DD was great during this time. Finally at 10 am I called DH and asked him to come home from work. DH's mother suggested we go to the hospital and get checked just in case. Once DH was home and Grandma was here to watch DD we headed to the hospital.

We arrived around 12:30 pm, checked in, and waited for just a short time. I was a 3 and 70% effaced and the thought was that I was feeling all of the labor pains in my right side. So the nurse and our midwife decided we'd have a baby that day. So off to the labor room we went.

We got situated and was soon given an IV (after the 3rd attempt). Around 2 pm I was given the antibiotics for Strep B, which you have to have every 4 hours until you deliver. Then at about 3:30 I was given the epidural. I seriously felt like I was in heaven! I was finally able to relax a little and just rest, checked out a magazine I brought. DH was able to go grab some lunch, our bags from the car, and make some phone calls. I had to wear the oxygen mask (talk about annoying) for baby's sake. Around 4 pm I was given pitocin to help my contractions work harder (they were too close together to help much). I also had to have some stuff put into my IV to help my blood pressure - I always have low blood pressure and they didn't want it to get too low.

At this point, I was a 4 and 90% effaced. Within an hour of receiving the pitocin, I was fully dilated and ready to have my water broken, which the attending physician did at around 5:30 pm. After which, they continued to let the pitocin do its job and have the baby start to descend even more on his own.

At around 6:30 pm, the attending physician gowned up and started preparing everything. Finally around 6:45 pm, my midwife arrived and gowned up. We began the pushing process at around 6:50 pm and with 4 sets of 3 big pushes, little DS was born at 7:35 pm. When he first arrived with his head first, the doctors noticed he had the cord wrapped around his neck twice. Our midwife said, "Oh, that's not good" and quickly grabbed the cord and pulled it over the baby's head. The attending physician then grabbed the rest of the cord and did the same thing. Once they pulled the cord away from his neck, DS began to cry and the attending physician quickly sucked out his nose and mouth. With one final push, they were able to secure his shoulders and pull the rest of him out. DH was able to cut the cord.

After a quick clean up they rested him on my chest and he just looked at me. I still can't believe he came out of me! We then watched him get cleaned off, weighed, and measured. We were then to spend some time with our new budle of joy. We took a lot of pictures!

After spending an hour in the delivery room, DH went to the nursery with the baby where they cleaned him up even more and performed a few tests. I was taken to a recovery room and met up with both DH and DS. It all happened quite fast - from 12:30 pm when we arrived to having a baby 7 hours later. What a great experience. We are truly blessed. Today, November 8th, was my actual due date, which makes baby 10 days old. Wow, time is already flying!