Baby Time!

Brett had a brilliant idea a few weeks ago that he would blog while I was in labor to give everyone a general update on the progress of things. This was a good idea, until I was in labor in the middle of the night and then we were so tired once things slowed down to even care about updating anyone but our moms, so here is a recap of what you missed:

Friday, December 3 I went to the doctor in the morning for a scheduled visit and I hadn't made much progress since that Wednesday. I was only dilated 1 cm, so the doctor scheduled me to be induced Sunday night. I was excited and scared, but kinda disappointed I had to wait until Sunday night. Mostly I didn't want to go to church again and have everyone ask why I hadn't had the baby yet; especially when my Relief Society president said the week before that she did NOT want to see me at church the next week.

Later that Friday afternoon around 4 I went on a walk with my mom around the neighborhood. I noticed I was having a few contractions that actually hurt. After I had a few I realized maybe they weren't going away. By the time we got back home I decided to start recording when I had each contraction and how long it was; this was at 5:00 pm. By 7:00 pm I was sitting on the couch breathing through contractions that now were smarting quite a bit. I had crazy bad back pain with each contraction, so that was super fun...

I tried changing positions and walking around to see if the contractions would stop because the last thing I wanted to do was go to the hospital too early and get sent home. By 10:30 pm the contractions had been five minutes apart for over an hour, so I called the hospital. The nurse told me because it was my first baby that I should try and stay home until my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart for at least an hour. I was super disappointed that they didn't want me to go in right then; probably because I wanted drugs.

At midnight we finally decided to go to the hospital. We got out the door around 12:30 am and got to the hospital about 20 minutes later. That car ride was one of the longest of my life! I had to check-in through the emergency room and I don't think the guy at the desk really understood that every 2 minutes I was in some pretty bad pain for approx. 60 seconds. He took his sweet time! Finally I was taken to the L&D department and they and checked my progress. I was dilated between 3 and 4 cm. Only 3 to 4! How do people go through all-natural childbirth? By this time it was all I could do not to scream at people to give me drugs! The nurse said she would talk to the doctor on call and see if he wanted to keep me or send me home.

Send me home!? No joke, they were going to have to drag me out of the hospital kicking and screaming because there was no way I was going home.

After what felt like an eternity and a million contractions later (3o minutes) the nurse came back and said the doctor was admitting me! Yeah! This was great news and I felt I should be rewarded with some pain killers. The nurse told me I would need an IV for 30 minutes before I could get an epidural and she went to get that stuff. Again, what seemed like an eternity and a million contractions later (probably 15-20 minutes) the nurse came back to start the IV.

I think maybe the nurses see too many women in labor and have lost a lot of sympathy. Maybe if she could have lived through ten minutes of my life at that point she would have moved a little quicker! Anyway, I convinced her to give me some drugs through the IV before the epidural. The hardest thing was laying perfectly still while the nurse put in the IV and I was having contractions ever 1.5 minutes; the only thing I could move were my feet.

After about thirty minutes the epidural man came. Whoever said that felt like a bee sting must have had one massive bee sting. Again I had to sit perfectly still while having contractions, but I made it through and just a minute or two later I almost decided to change Carter's name to Eric after the epidural man. Once I finally got the epidural I was fine with the whole childbirth thing. We tried to sleep now that it was about 3:00 am, but it didn't work out so well--lots of beeping machines.

By 10:00 am my new nurse and the doctor felt I was ready to push the kid out. Little did they know...

I pushed a few times and made good progress and everyone thought Carter would be out in no time. And then we hit a wall. Or Carter's big head... Plus, my blood pressure was all over the place so they wouldn't let me push for a while. Turns out the lovely epidural medicine made my blood pressure go a little wacky sometimes...totally worth it!

Eventually the pushing ground to a halt. The doctor needed to intervene or Carter was going to stay inside me forever. I was exhausted, but he was holding strong and didn't show any signs of distress; thank goodness. I'll spare you the gory details... At 11:58 am Carter joined the outside world.

At that point I felt almost like I was having an out of body experience. No way could that baby have been living inside of me for the last nine months. Hearing him cry was a huge relief and he continued to let me know he was okay by screaming while the nurse checked him out. Brett was the lucky one who got to stay by Carter the whole time while I watched from the other end of the room just trying to catch a glimpse of my baby.

They assured me he was doing well. His apgar was 7 and then 9. They told me his weight and I almost had a heart attack--8 lbs 14.8 oz. No wonder I had such a hard time pushing the kid out!

After two days in the hospital I was more than ready to come home. Carter was a little jaundice, but he didn't end up needing phototherapy. He slept a lot, so waking him up to feed him was a little ridiculous. But he gained back his birth weight and 4 ounces more by day 10, so the pediatrician told me to let him sleep at night as long as he wanted. I almost kissed her I was so happy. Now of course, he doesn't sleep as much, but three hour stretches of sleep for mommy are wonderful.

We love having our little guy here. I'm finally starting to comprehend that this handsome guy is mine forever and I'm not just baby sitting someone else's kid. We'll try to be better at updating the blog now that things have slowed down just a little and Brett is done with finals.