Seth's birth - the conclusion

So I guess it was around 2am that I got checked again. I was 7cm and totally spent. I looked at Eric and tearfully said I wanted an epidural. There wasn't a lot of discussion, he just said "are you sure?" and I said yes and that was pretty much the end of it. We briefly talked about how much longer it might be before I was complete and just the thought that it might be another 2-3 hours (not to mention most likely the worst 2-3 hours) was more than enough to seal the deal for me. The nurse mentioned that I could opt for some pain medication through my IV which might give me an hour or so of relief, but I said if I'm going to give up on the drug free birth I might as well just get the epidural. She didn't waste any time and called up anesthesia. And bless his heart the anesthesiologist showed up so fast, it was almost as if he had been waiting outside the door. I expected to feel like a failure, but I didn't. Still don't. I'm really proud of myself for making it as far as I did.

After the epidural went in the nurse put me on oxygen. She had noticed before that the baby was showing some signs of fatigue, another reason I'm happy I did what I did. When I was getting the oxygen he was a lot happier I guess. Natalie and my mom came in to say hi and then we turned out the lights so I could rest up for the big show. I dozed in and out of sleep for the next several hours and was complete a little after 5am. The nurse called Dr. Z and said she wanted to let me "labor down" for awhile and then maybe start pushing at 5:30am. He said why don't we make it 6am and then Dr. H could be there for the delivery. Yay! Dr. H originally had they day off because he was going skiing. Lucky for me, the weather was 40 degrees and raining so he decided to go to work after all. I was SO incredibly happy to hear that. Throughout this whole process I have really gotten to be fond of Dr. H and the thought of someone else being there really didn't sit well with me. Anyway... I started pushing at 6:20am and kept at it for just shy of 2 hours. The first hour though I only pushed a few times because my contractions had slowed down to about every 7 minutes. Finally they started some Pitocin a little after 7am so we could get the show on the road. Pushing was crazy. First of all it was so hard, way harder than I could have imagined. It took every ounce of strength I had in me to get little (ha!) Seth out. It was also a tiny bit nerve wracking because he was having some decelerations and the nurse would have to reach in and tickle his head a bit after each contraction. Then of course I was pretty numb so it took awhile to get the hang of really effective pushes, even though everyone said I was doing awesome from the very start. But I could tell everyone's encouragement got more enthusiastic partway through the process :) Oh, also the shift changed about 7:30am and our new nurse was the same one we had had for the ECV, so that was another gift from God. It was really funny too because I could feel Seth's feet way up by my ribs and his head coming out and it seemed like he was a mile long.

When we were getting close to the end the room turned into a circus. I could not believe how many people were milling around with me laying there totally exposed...and not caring. A tech came in to set up all the supplies. Dr. H showed up, along with a resident. My nurse, and a student. About 5 NICU people. Eric held one leg and the nursing student was on the other side. At the very end it got so confusing because Dr. H would say "okay now push, ok now stop, ok give me half a push, stop stop stop" etc etc. I didn't want a mirror and I didn't want to reach down and touch his head. It was all so weird!! Finally he was out and everyone said "look! look at your baby!" And I looked, and I cried with relief and happiness and excitement. Then everything kind of went to hell. Dr. H was suctioning like crazy and I watched, and he didn't cry. I could hear him whimpering a little, and he was squirming, but he didn't cry. Eric cut the cord and they took him over to the warmer and went to work on him. I just stared over there holding Eric's hand watching him wiggle around, although I could only catch brief glimpses of his little legs and feet there were so many people crowded around him. I only found out later that they had called a code, and there was a light flashing above the door to my room, and about 10 more NICU people had showed up. It was totally surreal and I'm not sure why I was as calm as I was. It barely occurred to me that he might not be alright. When I heard them say they were trying to intubate I had a brief moment of worry but for some reason I just had this feeling that he was going to be fine. After they took him out and Eric went with him though I started crying and asked someone to go get my mom from the waiting room. She came in and prayed and stayed with me while I got stitched up.

Dr. H said despite his best efforts I had a 2nd degree tear. It seemed like they (he and the resident) were stitching forever. I remember thinking in mild annoyance that I hadn't agreed to having a resident practice on my girl parts, but I wasn't about to say anything. I asked how many stitches I was getting and he said "just one" sort of jokingly. Finally they were done and I got cleaned up and moved to my new room down the hall. My new nurse came in to check on me and make sure my uterus was shrinking down like it should. It wasn't long before I was sobbing, staring down at my empty squishy belly and wishing there was something I could do to get him back in there. But pretty soon Eric came down to wheel me up to the NICU to see my little babe.



My stay in the hospital was stressful and wonderful at the same time. All of my nurses were amazing and made sure I had everything I needed. It was really hard being there though and not having Seth in the room. I felt so irrelevant. Like I had just been an incubator for 10 months and now someone else was taking care of him. I couldn't even touch him really, so hanging out in the NICU seemed silly, and the nurses kept telling me the best thing I could do was get some rest and start pumping. But I still felt guilty just hanging out in my room so much. I stayed two nights, Dr. H wasn't in any hurry to discharge me since Seth was still in the hospital. Unfortunately though, he couldn't really justify keeping me longer than 48 hours or so after my delivery so we had to get out on Thursday afternoon.

The next two days and nights were SO hard. It was a real bummer leaving the hospital without our baby. Fortunately we had the opportunity to stay at a friend's house so that I wouldn't have to go to our real home empty handed. But we had started breastfeeding Seth about every 4 hours so we had to be at the hospital most of the time anyway. I was really reluctant to miss any feedings even though the nurses had plenty of breast milk that I had pumped before Seth was able to eat. The first night we went home around 10pm and were back at the hospital by 5am. But of course by then my milk was really coming in so I had to wake up a couple of times every night to pump. Thankfully on Friday our NICU nurse told us about the Ronald McDonald family rooms they had over in the children's hospital - little rooms with beds in them that are open during the weekdays for parents/families of kids in the hospital. So we took advantage of that a couple of times which helped a lot since we didn't have to use precious sleeping time for a commute back home. The days flew by and before we knew it we were home with Seth on Sunday the 17th.

Our view that morning when we woke up :)



So I think we're all caught up. Congratulations if you made it through my novel :) I'm sure it was an excruciating level of detail for some, but I know I'll go back and read this myself about a hundred times so I couldn't leave anything out! Perfect timing, sounds like Seth is waking up and ready for lunch.