baby stockton

every day since we've been home from the hospital, i've been meaning to sit down and type out our experience there, and every day goes by and i haven't done it. so while we're sitting here watching the jazz game and the little man is asleep in his swing i'll write out how we got our baby here.

rewind back three weeks. we went to my 38 week dr appointment and i was determined to get the doc to start me right then and there. i'd been having contractions off and on for several weeks and sleep had become a distant memory of the past. i was so ready to meet our little man and i didn't think i could stand it much longer. after checking me, the doc said that due to hospital regulations the earliest they could start me would be at 39 weeks (the following wednesday, december 22). we waited a week and while we waited tried EVERYTHING to get the little guy out here on his own. dec 22 came and we had another dr appointment. the doctor assured us that i would be back within 24-48 hours but that we could come in the following morning if we were super anxious. that night we went back and forth as to what we were going to do. we both were super ready to have the baby here but didn't know how things would go if i were to be induced. we woke up early thursday morning and decided that it would be best for us if we went in to the hospital to have them start me.

we checked into a room around 7:45. a couple residents came in to check the condition of my cervix, and i was still at a 2 and 80-90% effaced. at this point, several residents and interns had come in to talk to us and chris had worked with EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. on previous rotations. he wasn't completely comfortable with this, and while i had originally thought it would bug me as well, found that it helped me be much more at ease with the whole situation. as it turned out, my doctor was the one on that day so he stopped in told them to start me on a high dose of pitocin and to break my water. by 8:15 i was having pretty intense contractions about 2 minutes apart. this is where i gained respect for all those brave souls out there who choose to give birth to their babies au natural. going into labor i thought i had a pretty high tolerance for pain. how wrong i was! i was whining and complaining to chris and cryingthat i couldn't do it and howawful the pain was. poor chris, he kept saying how sorry he was and he wished there was something he could do for me. i appreciated just having him there with me. at 10:15 when thenurse came in to refill my IV bag and check on the babe and me i asked if it was too soon tosend in the anesthesiologist (they told me when they checked us in that they usually like you to be dilated to at least a 4 when the administer the epidural). after what seemed like an eternity later, the anesthesia resident came in and said he had good news and bad news. good news being i could get an epidural, bad news, he couldn't do it right away because he had to do a procedure first. as i breathed through contractions, the resident explained the epidural procedure. i couldn't help but thinking the whole time he was explaining that i could have had it by now!! but we listened to all the instruction, and when he left for the procedure,he came back within a couple minutes to let us know he had missed the procedure entirely and could give me the epidural now. HOORAY!! i'd be lying if isaid that i wasn't nervous about getting a giant needle in my back, i was pretty scared. but it actually didn't hurt at all and within 15 minutes i was pain free. it was an absolute miracle. the minute the resident left i told chris i wanted to kiss him (the anesthesiologist ofcourse, not chris). a nurse came in after the epidural was complete to check me. she said that i was at a 3-4 and that we'd probably be pushing around 9 pm that night. she also said that i should try to get some rest if i could because most likely when she checked me again in a couple hours i would probably have not made any progress. i got out my soduku book i'd brought and worked a couple puzzles. chris's grandparents were in town for a doctor's appointment so he decided to meet them downstairs in the cafeteria for lunch while i took a nap....

at around 1:30 chris came back from lunch and i woke up from my nap. any time i started to feel the slightest bit of pressure or heaven forbid pain i pushed a magic button that administered more drugs through my epidural. it was great. no one had been in {at least to my knowledge, i was asleep, remember?} to check me since the epidural was put in, so we were thinking maybe it would be time for a check. a nurse came in shortly later to check my progress, and i waited to hear her say, "well you're still at a 3-4". when she asked us if we were ready to have a baby, i looked at her with probably a rude face. of course i'm ready to have a baby, why else would i be here? she said i was at a 10, fully dilated and ready to have a baby. i could not believe it, and frankly neither could chris or the nurse. it had only been 2 1/2 hours ago that i was at a 3-4, how could i possibly be ready??? the ob chief resident came in to confirm that i was indeed a 10. holy cow, this baby was coming!

the resident said that we would let baby "rest and descend" for an hour. rest and descend basically lets gravity work to move baby down further into the birth canal so you don't waste a bunch of energy pushing. the nurse asked me how often i'd been pushing the magic button and i told her i'd been quite liberal about pushing it. she recommended i stop pushing the button for the next hour so i could feel a bit of sensation when it came time to push. the next hour whizzed by as i tried to relax and my nurse readied everything for delivery.

at 2:30 a couple residents and mynurse came back into the room and we went over the pushing plan. at this point, my contractions were coming every 30-60 seconds and lasting 90 seconds long. they turned off my pitocin drip to try to slow them down for pushing.... it didn't seem to do much. when it finally came time to push i was so nervous about pushing the little guy out and overwhelmed with how fast things were going that i got feeling super nauseous. i hadn't eaten anything but ice chips since 10 in the morning and so i didn't think i would throw up but i told chris i was feeling sick and they got me a puke bucket. i clutched it by my face for a couple minutes until i thought it had passed. we pushed for a contraction (we did three pushes each contraction, lasting 10 counts) and the feeling of nausea returned with a vengeance.chris grabbed the puke bucket and i emptied all the water in my system and then some. talk about feeling completely exposed and vulnerable! after that the nurse gave me some anti-nausea medicine which totally helped.

we got to business pushing. it was really ideal, because my epidural had wore off enough that i could tell when i needed to push, but didn't feel any pain. at first we tried pushing with every contraction, but they were coming to fast, i would have worn out too fast. so we stuck to pushing every other, or even every third contraction. up to this point, pushing was the best part of delivery. the four people in the room were all encouraging me and telling me how awesome i was doing and that we were getting so close. with each push i was that much closer to meeting the little man and i almost couldn't handle it. toward the end i was feeling so exhausted and overwhelmed that the only thing i can compare itto is finishing a long race. that moment when you round the last corner and you can see the finish line and all the people cheering you on.at this point, the doctor came in the room and all the while he's pacing around the bed. it was kind of hilarious. at 3:24, after a round of pushing everyone took their hands off me to take a breather between the next contraction. i felt this overwhelming urge to push and told chris this as i push and out comes baby! no one was entirely ready, i'm apologizing as the resident catches our baby boy.

after some suctioning of his mouth and once daddy cut his cord, they wrap him up, screaming and place him on my chest. he and i are both crying. i kiss his face and his hands and marvel at how perfect he is, even covered with vernix. i look up at chris who's crying as well. we are both so engrossed in the moment, our little boy, the perfection of it all, when the two resident's stitching me up tell chris it's ok for him to let go of my leg. we laugh through our tears. i couldn't take my eyes of my baby and neither could chris. we were immediately in love and it seemed right away that he was meant to be in our little family.