The day our lives were forever changed :)
Let me start off by saying I do not want to be one of those girls who only tells the horrible things about their labor, I have had several people wanting to know about my labor so I wanted to just type it out so I could remember it too. I, in no way, regret how my labor went or the decisions Jeff and I made along with Kathleen and the OB. We are so blessed to be able to have as natural of a labor as we could and to have an amazing midwife that fought for that the whole time!
I guess I should start at the very beginning... On Tuesday, 10/25/2011, Jeff and I went in to our midwifes office. We had decided after trying numerous natural inductions (red raspberry leaf, evening primrose oil, walking, castor oil, etc) at home it was time to see if there was anything that Kathleen could do to help induce labor to avoid going to the hospital. When we arrived for our 8:45 appointment I was given a medicine to induce labor. We waited about an hour for observation and then went walking in the neighborhood behind the birth center, hoping contractions would kick start. I had 2 contractions while we were walking, but when we returned to the birthing center to relax some more they stopped. Kathleen sent us to go get lunch and then we walked around a lake hoping to yet again kick start labor. With no such luck we returned, yet again, to the birthing center. In a final attempt to kick my body into labor without having to go to the hospital, Kathleen broke my water at 2:01pm... Labor has officially started. We hung around for observation, went for a walk, and then headed home. We were basically going to treat everything as if my water had broken on its own at home, and we would just head back up to the birthing center when contractions got close together like we had previously planned.
We got home and Jeff started making us some dinner. We were home maybe an hour when we got a phone call from Kathleen. She was calling to check how things were going - they weren't. She had called the OB that she works with and together they decided that I needed to go ahead and go to the hospital. Because my water was broken we were on a time schedule, the risk of infection shoots up after that barrier between baby and outside world has been broken.
We headed to the hospital and they were waiting for us in Labor and Delivery. The nurses took us right to a room and started getting all the paperwork filled out so I could get started on the pitocin as soon as possible. Once everything was filled out and the pitocin was started they were still noticing that I was having contractions but there was no pattern - they were random lengths of time apart and the intensity was varying. They upped the pitocin and I could definitely tell a difference in the contractions. They became much more intense but they were still trying to regulate the consistency. Throughout the night and into the next day they adjusted the about of pitocin in an attempt to regulate the contractions. By about 3 pm I was 7 cm and had been for an hour or so. THis was the trend through the labor, I would progress and then the progress would stall until they changed something. At this point my body was getting pretty tired, working through contractions for 24 hours at that point. They suggested that I get an epidural to help relax the muscles in an effort to dilate the last 3 cm, also just to allow me to rest better between contractions especially since I hadn't even started to push yet.
Side note.... I originally didn't see any need to be in the hospital to deliver because I, under almost no circumstance, did NOT want to get an epidural! The thought of not being able to move my legs was absolutely terrifying to me, so much that pain was a much better option!
Needless to say, we decided to go with the suggestion and I got the epidural. The actual epidural did not really hurt at all, but the numb legs was a really strange sensation to get used too... and I didn't like it! However, it did its job, I finished dilating and I was able to rest a few minutes at a time between contractions.
Dr. Downey came in and checked me around 5 pm. I was "anterior lip" which is pretty much fully dilated, just had a small portion on one side to go. He just waiting for the next contraction, told me to push and there it was, I was fully dilated!
At 5:06 pm I officially started pushing. At this point I still had the epidural and could not feel below my belly button. Kathleen and Jeff helped hold my legs, we tried different positions to help little Luke find his way, and they were having to tell me when to push and how. We worked like this for about an hour with very little progress. Kathleen asked for the epidural to be turned off because my pushes were not effective because I could not tell where I was pushing. They did bring a mirror around so I could see the progress, and this was really neat.It took about 45 min for the epidural to ware off, and then... wow, I could tell where they were telling me to push. I could feel every contraction almost before the monitor could pick them up, I finally felt in control of my labor.
Fast forward... I pushed for about an hour willing to try whatever they were suggesting. Luke was moving down into the birth canal, but his head was lowering and then going back up with every contraction. They assured me that this was progress, but I was getting so tired. I had been up for nearly 36 hours with very minimal rest (no more than 15 min at a time). For the remaining hour or so before he was born, I was pretty frustrated and overall just exhausted. I begged for them to turn the epidural back on to allow me to rest (of course you can't rest like I was wanting that far into things, lol...sounded good in my head though) and eventually I just asked Dr. Downey to please help me anyway he could.
After 4 hours of pushing, Luke James was born at 9:06pm on 10/26/2011. 9 lb 14.5 oz, 22 3/8 in. long. He was absolutely perfect. When they placed him on top of me I suddenly could care less how many hours I had been awake, how long I had been pushing, how exhausted I was... Its really like they say, my heart melted and I have never felt so much joy.
Jeff was able to cut the cord and they let us just bond together as a family for a few minutes before the took him to get cleaned up. Jeff stayed with him as they gave his first bath, weighed him, and did all the newborn checks. Kathleen stayed with me as Dr. Downey finished up.
We were soon surrounded by friends and family with our new bundle of joy. We couldn't be happier or feel more complete as a family. Luke James is our little blessing and he was worth every single second of the wait!
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| Big Boy! |
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| Look at that swollen face! |
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| First bath :) |
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| meeting Grandmo for the first time :) |
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| Oh, there's my Grandpa! |
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| Uncle James |
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| Aunt Sarah |
