Birthing Story

I know some people have asked for details of the labor and delivery, so here goes; don't worry - I won't get too graphic :).

Mike and I reported to the hospital at 1:00 am Wednesday the 23rd for the induction. Although Jack was only about 5 days late, we decided to go ahead and induce on the 23rd, partially because the doctor that I felt the most comfortable with was going to be on duty that day. Anyway, we got there and got all signed in and I.V.'d, and I was lucky enough to get a sleeping pill so I could get some rest while the first dose of a drug took its toll (it wasn't Pitocin - something localized that was supposed to get the uterus into gear, so to speak). At about 10:30 in the morning, they started the Pitocin, or, as we like to call it The Widowermaker. Holy crap. By I think about 11:30 it had really kicked in, and by 12:30 the anesthesiologist was working his magic with an epidural. Oh, I forgot to mention the part where they broke my water - very painful; I may have cried . . . Anyway, once the epidural started working, I was much more comfortable (although the actual process of getting the epidural hooked up while having heavy contractions was rather painful). I started to think "man, this isn't so bad after all!"

It took several hours for me to start dilating and get even to a three, but Mike and I just chilled, dozed a little, read some, and Mike got a BLT from Blimpies that made me salivate a little (you can't eat at all during this whole process). By late evening I had jumped from a 3 to a 9 in dilation, and we were getting pretty excited. Eventually I made it to a 10, and then we just had to wait for Jack to move down a little so it would be reasonable to think he could be pushed out. Well, let's just say that Jack, as I had suspected all along, was very, very comfortable where he was and not really interested in coming out. Finally the doctor had me start pushing, around 11 pm. Perhaps due to his extreme SIZE, it took a lot to get him to move down. Luckily the doctor was pretty patient, until Jack's heartbeat started going all over the place during every contraction. We got very near to a c-section on several occasions, but we begged the doctor to let us try a little more, and I think she could sense that the baby could still come out the good old-fashioned way. So I kept pushing. And pushing. About 2 hours and several near-death experiences (for me) later, he finally started to crown, and then his head popped out. The doctor pulled the rest of him out immediately. He had a pretty low first Apgar score (the responsiveness test they do when they first come out), but the second one was great, and he's been wonderful ever since.

Worst part: Pushing my body to its absolute limit. I really thought that if I pushed any harder my body would just cease functioning. The worst thing I said during labor was that I wanted to die.

Best part: Having Mike holding my hand, comforting me, and caring about me the whole time, and then being so thrilled when Jack came out. It really is a very cool thing to experience together.

Well, it's been almost a week now since this kid came out, and he's doing great. He's a real sucker! My feet and calves have finally resumed their natural, unswollen state, and my "laceration" is less of a pain in the butt than it was initially. Thank goodness for Percocet.

I'll try to get up some more pictures soon!