Labor
Monday morning, Betsy and I called the hospital at 6:00 AM to see if we could get an appointment for induction. We wavered all weekend on whether or not Betsy really wanted to get induced. She was sure she would naturally go into labor in a day or two if she could just wait. In the end, we decided if the doctor thought induction was right, it was the right thing to do.
We actually called a few minutes before 6:00. I figured if everyone was calling at 6 and we called at 5:50, maybe we would get a spot before someone else. I don't know if it really works that way, but they told us to be in by 7:30 AM. We were on our way. When we got in, our Dr. was there and we were introduced to our nurse, Maria. At Texas Women's, they assign one nurse per delivery. Maria would be with us until her shift ended at 7:00 PM. She was amazing, so we got really lucky. Not only was she good at her job, but we liked her a lot, which was important since not much happened for hours ... and hours.
In fact, the entire first day of labor was totally non-eventful. Betsy had contractions all day, but nothing very painful. Nothing worse than what she had at home for weeks. So, we sat and talked all day. The grandparents and my sisters waited nervously and I occasionally went and told them what was going on. Eventually, Betsy's parents came back to the labor and delivery room for a while. My mom visited too.
At around 6:00 PM, our Dr. decided that there wasn't going to be a baby any time soon. Betsy was not significantly dilating. The Dr. took her off of the drugs, and let her eat dinner and get some sleep. His theory is he would rather let a mother eat and rest to have energy for delivery rather than have the labor continue through the night. I also got to go home for a few hours of sleep.
The next morning, I went to the hospital early and we had a new nurse. As she was introducing herself, Maria walked in! We couldn't have been more exited. I am sure our second nurse would have been great, but we loved Maria and were definitely disappointed that after getting to know her the whole day before we were going to have to deal with someone new. Although it was her day off, she came in and then switched assignments with another nurse to be with us for day two.
Betsy started feeling contractions that were pretty significant. About 20 minutes into that, she decided it was epidural time. No reason to suffer. Betsy was very nervous about the epidural. I would have been too, but it turned out it was no big deal. They do a great job at this hospital and it was fast and relatively painless. In fact, she had a tough time with an IV the day before that hurt a lot more than the epidural. After several hours of labor (but pain-free labor), Betsy was still not dilated to even 4 cm. Generally, after 4 cm things start going a lot faster. We were relaxed enough about it. The Dr. said she had 20 hours to get to 10 cm before he would call it off and order a c-section. After we both took a nap, Betsy said she was feeling some pressure. The nurse checked and she was 10 cm and Ian had completely dropped. It was time.
Delivery
Maria decided Betsy should do a couple of trial pushes. On the first push, I could see the top of his head. Amazing. He was right there. Time to call the Dr.
Betsy kept pushing until the Dr. arrived and Ian kept getting closer and closer. The push deal is 10 seconds of holding her breath and bearing down and that is done three times in a row during a contraction. The she rests until the next contraction. Some women have trouble figuring out how to push with an epidural in, but Betsy got it pretty much right away.
By the time the Dr. got there Ian was really close. I think he was only there for maybe four contractions and then he came out. It was absolutely amazing. I watched the whole thing and was nervous as hell. The baby does not move when his head is about to come out. I guess this is obvious -- he is way too lodged in there to move around. Still, I didn't know if everything was ok. He was mushed. He was a funny color. There was some stuff on his head that looked funny to me. Our Dr. called in an extra Dr. and an extra nurse (and there was a student watching). We had a room full of medical personnel and I thought maybe there was something he wasn't telling me. I kept asking if it was ok and he promised it was. Betsy pushed for under 30 minutes total. I started taking pictures and cut the umbilical cord, which is far harder to do than you would think.
They gave Ian to Betsy for a minute and then began to work on him. He was not breathing all that well, so he got some oxygen. There was a minutes of blue baby, but it went away pretty fast. He also had some pretty serious fluid in his lungs that Maria got out right away. Then he was given a diaper and handed off to Betsy. There were a lot of tears. The Bean was born.
Within the hour, the pediatrician came and checked him out. He was weighed and measured. He took his first poop and his diaper was changed. He breast fed. And we all hung out. I also went out to the waiting room and told everyone he was born and announced his name for the first time.
The baby went up to the nursery and I followed him up. We stopped by the waiting room so everyone could see him. They got Betsy ready and eventually I went with her to her postpartum room.
And then it really began ...
No comments:
Post a Comment