Mom's version of the birth

We called the hospital at 7am on Monday morning (August 3) to see if they had a bed and a nurse for us. Lucky for us, they did! My sisters had spent the night since Ben was staying with them while we were at the hospital, so we were able to dash off right away. We got to the hospital at about 7:45 and got checked in and into our room. After I was changed and hooked up to a baby heart monitor and contraction monitor, my OB came in and broke my water. It made my blood pressure drop and I got really light headed and warm. I had to lay back and have Neil fan me for a few minutes while I waited for it to pass.

I had tested positive for a pregnancy condition that could be passed on to the baby unless I was on penicillin, so they had me hooked up to an IV with that right away. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize I had to have a full dose in my system before they would start my pitocin. If they could have started the pitocin right away, I bet Tristan would have been born before 3! Oh well…

Sometime around 11, they started up my pitocin and my contractions got stronger. At about 12:30 or 1:00ish, I sent for my epidural. I think it hurt a little bit more this time than I remember with Ben. Once they got the epidural needle threaded, they handed me the button (the magic button that gives extra doses of epidural whenever you want it). The anesthesiologist said he likes to push it once to make sure there’s no problems. When he pushed it, the machine started beeping and saying something about “high pressure.” He messed around with it for a little while, and I guess to get the flow going, he shot 2 extra needlefuls into my epidural tube. With Ben, I didn’t feel any pain, but I could tell when I was having contractions and I could move my legs. This time, the epidural was much stronger and my legs were total dead weights. I didn’t like it, but by the time I was going to ask if they would back it off just a little, it was too close to birth and I didn’t want to mess anything up.

At about 3:30 or 4, the nurse checked me and said I was a “4+” which was disappointing. She also said she was going home because there wasn’t enough patients. When the new nurse came in, she said she was off at 7 but she didn’t expect anything to happen before then. She got paged away for a minute, and when she came back she offered to check me anyways (this was about 5:00). Neil joked about her helping stretch me out so Tristan could come faster. When she checked me, she said “Girlfriend, you don’t NEED any help, you’re an 8!” She left, saying she’d come back in about ½ hour. At about 5:20, I started feeling like I wanted to push, so I called her back in. She made it sound like I was a 9.5 now, so she went ahead and called the doctor down. When he came down, he said I was really only a 9 and he wasn’t so sure I’d be able to start pushing quite yet. The nurse said we’d just have to prove him wrong. I shoved Tristan right through there on my first set of pushes (1 contraction and 3 pushes) and shoved him out on the next set. That’s right, 2 contractions and 6 pushes later, Tristan joined our family! This time, I asked to have a mirror so I could watch the birth and I think that helped me because I knew how close he was to coming out… J He looked a lot pastier than Ben did and it felt like it took a lot longer for him to start breathing, but eventually he did! Now, I didn’t see this part, but I did see Neil’s horrified face when they sucked about 12 cc’s of fluid out of Tristan’s stomach. Apparently he took a big drink of fluid on his way out.

Besides the cramps I get (mostly when breastfeeding), I’m feeling really good. I don’t really have any trouble moving around. I think part of that is that I’ve done this once before and my body is a little more used to it, but another part of it is that I didn’t have an episiotomy this time. I did have a small tear by my urethra, and the doc said it would probably sting when I pee (it doesn’t). I remember having a hard time walking and sitting with Ben because the episiotomy stitches hurt a bit more. I’m glad that even though I ended up with a small tear, the recovery has been just fine!

Yesterday was our first day home and as I posted, Ben took a lot more interest in Tristan this time (he just asked me where Tristan was, since he’s sleeping upstairs and not sitting down here with us). Last night we did our favorite baby thing – the dreamfeed – and Tristan actually slept from 11-7 before we woke him up to eat. I’m not sure if that will happen again tonight or if that was just a fluke because he’s still such a newborn, but we’ll see… I think it might be partly because he’s a little bit jaundiced, and that makes them kind of lethargic. I’ve had to wake him up for every feeding so far… He’s going to the doc tomorrow morning to check on his levels and see if he needs to be under some UV lights or something to make his jaundice go away.

I’ll try to keep updating his blog as new things happen! Thanks for all your love and support!