It's still long, it's still dramatic and almost a year old-Christopher Michael's Birth Story 4/26/07

Now that DS is asleep on my chest, I can finally write this down.

So, as you ladies know, my life the past couple of weeks has been very intense and very stressful. Wednesday April 25th started out with a nasty message from my landlord and was followed up by my termination letter from my job. I actually had a cleaning crew at my house and then when they left I headed out to my doctor's appointment. My blood pressure was very high, they took it twice and then said to come back Friday to have it checked again. The doctor decided to check it one last time and then decided to send me right to the hospital to have my bp monitored to make sure I didn't have preeclampsia.

DH was home from work, so we ate something quickly and arrived at the hospital at 5:30pm. They triaged me and hooked me up to the fetal monitors and the bp cuff. They also took blood and urine. We basically were just hanging out until 10:30pm when the resident came and said that she and my doctor were discussing the three options that they felt we had: 1. Go home and pee in a jug for 24 hours 2. Be admitted and do the same test or 3. Be induced. I honestly didn't want to be induced and started to get VERY nervous. About an hour later, she came back and said that they had decided to induce me. I cried.

At midnight on April 26th they inserted the cervedil (I was NOT a fan of that) and set me up in the birthing room. I had an IV, the bp cuff and the monitors on me, so sleeping was next to impossible. I sent DH home to sleep and my parents showed up at about 10am and DH about 10:30am and we just waited to find out what they would say at noon when they checked my cervix.

So, at noon they came in and said I was 2cm. Great. I was 2cm when I walked in the door! But I was having stronger contractions. They said they were going to call my dr and see if she wanted to do cervedil again or start the pitocin. I said PITOCIN and then cried at the possibility that I'd have to wait ANOTHER 12 hours.

She decided to go the pitocin route. So, they hooked me up and as my contractions got stronger they asked if I needed drugs. I was exhausted already so I said yes---and this is when the story get funny--they gave me some type of demerol cocktail that knocked me out, but did NOT get rid of the pain so I was fast asleep and SCREAMING in pain. Apparently DH was so upset that he kept asking when I could get the real epidural. At some point, I got it, don't remember it, don't remember if it it hurt or anything.

At about 8:30pm they wake me up and tell me what has been going on and that I am 10cm and we are going to get ready to push. Just then DH noticed that the vein where teh IV was had blown so my hand was about 4x it's size, so they did a switcho chango and put the IV in my other arm. So, I am still a little dopey and they are telling me what to do and it is just not making sense so, after an hour, I was finally "with it" enough to push DS out. His hand was by his face, so I have a second degree tear, but that was the worst of it. He was born at 9:59 on April 26th and was just perfect.

I was in a regular room by 1:30am on April 27th. I just remember feeling the best that I have felt since August when I first got pregnant. I can't BELIEVE how much better I feel. I was up and moving around that night and we came home on April 28th. I love being a mother and my other baby girl (my dog) has been adjusting well.

Adding some pics for fun
Just born

"I had a hard day, please let me sleep"

February 2008-10 months old