BIRTH STORY! :)

Charles David, born 11/1/11 at 5:21 PM PST, 9 lbs 13 oz (12.6 oz), 21 1/4 inches, head 15.25, 41 weeks gestation

2:30 AM - Paul (DH) woke me up because my nose was wheezing. I got up, feeling like I had to pee, but every time I sat down, it hurt really badly and my back was hurting. I woke up about every 1/2 hour until around 4 when I gave up and stayed awake.

5:45 AM - Left for the hospital, scheduled induction. My back was killing me, my pelvis hurting. I wanted to kill DH for stopping for coffee.

6:00 AM - Checked in to L&D - it was the exact same room that Anna (our daughter) was born in! They attached the monitors and I was already in labor! Here I thought I was having the most horrible back ache ever (just as it was on "false alarm day", but worse). I guess it was meant to be this little guy's birthday! Contractions were around every 2-3 minutes. I labored on my hands and knees to relieve the pain. I went into the whirl pool until that didn't help any more. I kept trying to go pee, but it was way too painful. DH kept saying, "Maybe you don't have to pee? Maybe he's just pushing on your bladder." Maybe, I agreed.

I was checked and I was 2-3 cm and my cervix was way posterior! What?! I had actually regressed?! How could that be with all of this horrible pain? (I had been 4 cm, 70% for the last two appts and anterior for the last appt.)

8:30 - Given 1/2 dose Phentanol for the pain. Ah, it felt nice.

9:30 - Made wise choice to have epidural. I could tell it was back labor all over again. I prayed the epi would work this time and it did!!! :)

The doctor came in finally and checked me. He was also feeling a posterior cervix and then he thought the baby was breech! He had an ultrasound machine brought in and it was hard to see the baby. He realized the problem and had the nurse give me a catheter. I had over a liter of urine in my bladder! I knew I had to go!!! He could see that the baby was actually head-down, not breech! Whew! I was praying so hard that he wasn't!

After that, the doctor checked me and I was actually 5 cm and 80% effaced! I knew I had made progress!

10:00 - My contractions were alright, but needed to be augmented with Pitocin. Yay for having a working epidural on board! I kept checking the machine to make sure I was still in labor!

11:00 - 6 cm, 80% effaced, -2 station

12:10 - 6 cm still, water broken. This part was hilarious. I had so much fluid that it was gushing out, soaked the doctor's sleeves and the sheets all the way up to my ribs! I had "copius amounts" of fluid, according to the nurse. My stomach actually deflated quite a bit with that. I did not have that experience with my daughter!

There was meconium staining in the fluid. :(

1:00 PM - 7 cm, 90% effaced

2:15 - 8-9 cm, 100% effaced. I couldn't believe how fast this was going!

3:15 - Just a lip of cervix left. They noticed he was ROP (right occiput posterior) and had me start pushing to get him to turn on his own. I pushed like this for a couple 1 hour, 45 minutes. He didn't turn on his own, just a little bit, but not all the way. I had to keep turning from my left side, to the back, to the right because of heartrate decels, while keeping an oxygen mask on. I was praying the whole time this didn't turn into a c-section situation.

5:00 - The doctor came in and had me start actual pushing. I could definitely feel pain and pressure as he moved down the birth canal. The doctor wanted to get him out of there, especially after noticing more meconium. The doctor talked about using a vacuum. I was so afraid of the same thing that happened with DD (Anna), vacuum and gigantic episiotomy. I asked immediately if it was possible to use the vacuum and not need an episiotomy and he said yes. As I pushed, he used the vacuum to turn him from ROP to anterior. Thankfully he did turn with this help! Once the vacuum was on, it only took two sets of four pushes for him to come into the world at 5:21. :) The doctor noticed that the cord was around his neck. Paul said the doctor was sweating as he pried the cord off from his neck. Paul cut the cord and blood sprayed across the room and soaked a nurse. haha :)

He was immediately brought to the pediatric team who assessed him because of the cord around the neck, the vacuum and the meconium. It took several minutes before I could actually see him. But he was a healthy boy. I was shocked at how huge he was - we all were! No wonder I was so uncomfortable. I gave up my evening one-mile walks a few days before he was born - it was just too hard any more. He's doing such a great job nursing! He always wants to suckle on things - his hands, me, or a pacifier. He likes to be warm and swaddled. He has tons of dark hair.He's fine with sleeping in the bassinet as well. He's wearing size 1 diapers lol! He has a little bruise on his head from the vacuum.

I made off with a 2nd degree tear and I'm doing great with 800 mg of Ibuprofen. I feel pretty great, considering. I feel so lucky. It was a great birth and it's making off to be a great recovery! So many things are working better this time around, compared to last. :) So many things could have gone wrong, but didn't. We are very, very blessed. God answered many of our prayers yesterday - from the breech situation to the healing thing. Very blessed!!!

Oh, and Anna loves her little brother so much! She's currently holding him and singing Twinkle Twinkle to him. That's the song I always sung to her. :)

ETA: I had to add that because of his surprising size, they've checked his blood sugar three times! Paul overheard them say, "Everything's OK. He's just a big boy!" haha :)

ETA2: I forgot to add that his shoulders also got stuck when he was coming out. Another "big boy" situation!