Labor and Delivery

It's taken me awhile to get to where I can write this out since now my sweet little David is here.

My contractions began on Thanksgiving day, occuring about every hour from 10 am in the morning till around midnight when I finally went to bed. John and I were able to have Thanksgiving dinner, and watch the last UT football game of the season. My mother came to spend the night, and we all headed off to bed at midnight. As soon as I went to bed however my contractions starting coming every 8 minutes or so. I kept John up to hold my hand and time out the contractions, until they finally got to be 5 minutes apart. Around 2:40 am we got our things together, woke up my mother, and headed off to the hospital. We called John's parents on the way there to let them know the show had started.

We got to the hospital about 3:10, and we were taken to a room where they checked to see my dialation and said that I was effaced 90% but still only dialated 1 cm. The hospital called my doctor who said to observe me till the morning. It was then they moved me to a delivery room and hooked me up to an IV and the other monitors. My contractions kept coming as back labor, which was pretty painful. But my birth plan stated that I was not to be given an epidural until 4 cm. So I kept having contractions all morning until the Doctor came in around 10 a and checked me that I was now at 4 cm.

The Anesthesiologist came in about 11 am and administered my epidural. After that I felt much better as the pain from the contractions had subsided, and I was finally able to take a nap once the pain had gone away. They checked me again around 3 pm or so to see that I was now dialated 9 cm, and we were almost there. I waited another hour and half for the doctor to pronouce that I was at 10 cm and it was time to start pushing.

With the help of John, my mother, David and Donna; I pushed as hard as I could for 2 1/2 hours. By that time when the baby still had not come, they called the doctor in again and she did an ultrasound on me to see that the baby was transverse. His little head was jammed up against my pelvic bone. The Doctor then told us that even if we managed to get the head out his shoulders would get stuck, so we needed to do a C-section to get me delivered. I continued having to push as they administered more drugs to me to kill the pain, and wheeled me into surgery. John dressed in scrubs and came with me.

Through all the drugs and hormones I was freezing the whole time, but all the doctors and nursing staff did everything they could to make me comfortable. I barely felt anything when they cut into get the baby out. The doctor said I had been doing some really good pushing and that if he had been in a good position to come out naturally I would have pushed him out well. He was so stuck that the nurse had to actually push him back up so they could get him out.

At 7:32 pm, my little baby boy was born. In writing this now I'm remembering everything that we went through together and now the tears have started to come. He was 8 lbs. 12 oz and 22 inches long. Once they had finished cleaning him up and doing all the measuring, John brought him over to me so I could see him. Then they took my little boy to the nursery and John stayed with me as they sewed me back up. Then I was wheeled into the recovery room. I was released from recovery about 3 hours later and taken to my post partum room where I finally got to hold my son.

Though I am not unbiased, in my opinion he is the sweetest baby ever born. I love him so much that it almost hurts me to be apart from him. I kiss and love on him so much that sometimes he fusses at me, almost like he's saying "Sheez Mom! Enough already". But I can't help it. He's so adorable and sweet and cute and soft, that I just can't stop myself. My life has been forever changed by this little miracle, and I will love him till the day I die.