The Penderys: April 2011

Now that we're home and have had some time to settle in, I thought I'd write about Connor's birth. Sorry in advance if there are a lot of typos; I’m working from an iPad which does some bizarre autocorrects.

The short version

I was scheduled to be induced at 6am on Monday, but went into labor on my own around 11pm Sunday. We arrived at the hospital at 6am where I was given my epidural and had my water broken. I started pushing at 3:15 and Connor was born at 4:10pm, weighing 7 lbs 15 oz and measuring 20.5 inches. We had a brief scare where Connor was having trouble breathing, resulting in a visit from a NICU nurse, but he ended up being fine. Actually, he's perfect. Pictures follow the long version.

The long (detailed) version

I was scheduled to be induced at 6am on Monday since Connor had decided he was going to take his time and come a week late. I had been to the doctor for additional monitoring and everything was fine, but my doctor wanted to get him out by Monday. I started having irregular contractions on the Wednesday before Connor was born and kept getting my hopes up that "tonight would be the night." Every day the contractions were slightly worse, but nothing bad enough to stop me from my daily activities. By Sunday afternoon they had strengthened to the point where I was really starting to feel awful. But I just assumed that like every other night, they would stop once I went to bed. After packing our last-minute items for the hospital, we tried to sleep. As I was laying there, I noticed that the contractions were getting worse and worse. Normally I had no problem sleeping through them, but these were getting pretty intense. I decided to get up and start timing them. They were getting longer and more regular, but still nothing I couldn't handle. I watched some TV, tried to sleep, took a shower, etc. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't ignore the contractions. By 4 am, I decided to wake Danny because, while my contractions weren't a minute long and 5 minutes apart, they were shorter and consistently 90 seconds apart. We called the on-call obstetrician who was not very nice and told us it was too early to go to the hospital. So I dealt with the contractions as they came until it was time to head in for the scheduled induction.

We made it to the hospital in 7 minutes where the valet parked our car and we headed to Labor & Delivery. I checked in and they showed me directly to a room. Normally you have to go through triage first but since I had a scheduled induction I got to bypass that. When I arrived at my room the nurses got right down to business. I changed into a gown, they started my IV and asked a million questions for their paperwork. After hooking me up to monitors they noted I was already in active labor and would therefore get to skip the procedures used to help jumpstart labor. Thank goodness because those sounded awful. They also told me I could get my epidural any time. I never expected the early stages of labor would be as painful as they were, but having had contractions off and on for 5 days and been in active labor for 7 hours, I opted to get the epidural as soon as they could get the anesthesiologist to my room. Somehow I was at the top of the list so someone was in quickly. She appeared to be about 18 which made me a little nervous since she would be inserting something into my spine. She asked me a number of questions and had me sign a release form while the nurses gave me two bags of IV fluid. By the time my fluid was done, it was time for a shift change. The 18 year old left after introducing me to Ron, who looked like he had been doing this for 40 years. He was wonderful. He explained what he was doing which I thought would freak me out, but actually comforted me somehow. Everyone made a big deal about how big the needles are, but Danny said they were no bigger than a normal shot needle. As I sat there arching my back, I braced myself for the "burning pain" of the first numbing shot, but it never came. It just felt like a few pin pricks. After that, I never felt the epidural. My blood pressure dropped so they gave me a shot of ephedrine (yes the weight loss drug that is now off the market) to bring it back up. That made my heart start racing, but it did its job. After a few minutes my right side was totally numb, but my left side still hurt. So they rolled me to my side to help even out the drugs and five minutes later I was delightfully pain-free. They told me that even though my contractions never made it to the magic threshold (1 minute long and 5 minutes apart for a full hour) I was having pretty intense contractions and likely would have been in on my own later in the day. After they made sure I was stable with the epidural, they had to reinsert my IV because the first nurse had put in the wrong kind of tubing. The IV was easily the worst part of the experience.

About an hour later a resident came in to break my water and I was started on Pitocin to help my contractions become more productive. Around that time the nurses’ shift change came and the nurse who would be with me for the rest of the day came on. Her name was Dori and she was wonderful. She took such great care of me that I would like to request her for the next time around. About every hour Dori would come change my position. It was an odd feeling because I was numb but not paralyzed. I could still help move my body, but I didn't have any control over my legs. My mom came for a bit and then left and Danny and I took a nap and I enjoyed at least 5 cherry popsicles.

When I wasn't sleeping we were just hanging out and talking. Around 1 the nurse came in and said I was dilated to 8cm so we asked my mom to come back. By 2:45 I had made it all the way to 10cm and the Dori called my doctor because it was time to push. She said since I was so numb they might have to turn my epidural down, but we did some practice pushes and I was doing fine so they left it alone (dodged that bullet!). I started pushing for real at around 3:15, my doctor came a few minutes later and Connor was born at 4:10. I was hoping he'd hold out for 4:11 (so he would have been born at 4:11 on 4/11), but he was ready. I didn't feel an ounce of pain and was actually surprised at how quickly the hour went by. Danny, Dori and my Dr were all chatting between pushes, but I had to have an oxygen mask so I wasn't participating since no one could understand me. I thought I would at least feel pressure, but I was shocked when they told me that he would be out after one more push. As soon as he was born they put him right on my chest where he proceeded to poop all over me. He actually pooped on the doctor too as she was catching him. Connor was slimy, cute, and perfect. The biggest surprise was that he wasn’t a redhead.

They took him from me over to the warmer to do his initial assessments. He checked in at 7 lbs 15 oz and 20.5 inches. That's about a half pound bigger than the doctor’s estimate (although he was a week late) and apparently very long. His oxygen saturation levels were low and they called in a nurse from the NICU to monitor him. Everyone seemed very calm and said this happens often with big babies. My doctor told me he would be fine, but might have to go to the NICU for a while. I honestly didn't have much of an idea what was going on, but it seemed like they were monitoring him for a long time. Finally they brought him over to me for some skin-to-skin contact to see that would help resolve the issue. Apparently it did because we were told he could come to recovery with us instead of the NICU. Danny was able to hold him for a few minutes while they got me ready for recovery and we were on our way by 6:30. Elyse brought me a Jimmy John's sub since I had been craving deli meat for the past 9 months, and we watched while they gave Connor his first bath. My family left and the Penderys came a little while later. No one was able to hold him that evening except Danny and me because they had to monitor his temperature and keep him under the warmer for several hours. The rest of the night was a blur of nurses constantly checking on both of us and snuggling with our little boy. I had intended to keep him in the room with us overnight, but was so freaked out about his breathing issues that I wanted him in the nursery where the nurses could observe him overnight. They brought him back to me at 6am to eat.

The rest of our stay was great. The nurses were awesome and took very good care of us. I was surprised at how much pain I felt after the epidural wore off. No one really talks about after the fact - I guess because labor is so painful. We were released from the hospital Wednesday afternoon and have been settling in ever since.

Now for some pictures.

Leaving for the hospital at 5:45 am