Owen Thomas Michael

Short:  Owen Thomas Michael, born 3:06 a.m. on 4/30/13.  He weighed 8 lbs 8 oz (all my "he's big" ultrasounds were pretty dead on and our original dating ultrasound was 4/30/13 EDD) and was 21 1/2 inches.  We're over the moon for our little dude! 

Long:

I was induced last Sunday night (4/28).  When we got to the hospital, I was contracting irregularly (just felt uncomfortable all day but what else was new) and at 1 cm finally starting to dilate.  They gave me Cervadil and a baby Ambien (BEST EVER) and I slept through the night.  At 8 a.m. we went down to L&D where sadly, I found out that I was still just at a 1.  They started Pitocin and the morning was fine (they broke my water a little after 10 a.m.) but I was starting to have more regular and painful contractions starting around 2:00.  My progress was SO slow all day and my doctor got ready to leave just before 5:00 p.m and I was still not even at 3 cm.  We kept making little mini-goals for my progress and luckily I just barely hit all of them as needed to avoid a c-section.  By 6:00p, my contractions were one after the other and I wasn't getting any relief in between so I opted for an epi, despite my fear that it would stall my labor out even more.  The epidural was the BEST idea ever because even though I don't think it ever completely worked (I could always feel one side or the other), it relaxed me enough to really make some progress.  At 10:30 Monday night, the on call OB came in to check me and suggested that my husband and I get a little rest since we were looking to have a long night.  At that point, I was a 6 but making 1 cm per hour progress.  I'm a yoga teacher so I had a 45 minute song of mantra that my husband put on repeat for us and I fell into a weird sleep where I felt so peaceful and rested but at the same time I was really aware of my surroundings and the music.  I woke up around 11:45 pretty suddenly and knew I'd be sick (second time during labor and for the approx. 1 billionth time during my pregnancy so I didn't think a thing of it).  My husband handed me a barf bag and called the nurse who came running in.  She was so excited and wanted to check me right away because I guess lots of people get sick just at the end of transition?  Either way, I had gone from 6 to complete in that little more than an hour of total relaxation (if you are a hypnomama and are reading this, I hope you have the same sort of experience!).  The nurse wanted me to continue laboring for another hour because his head wasn't low enough yet and she didn't want me to waste a ton of energy pushing for hours.  She came back in another hour and they started setting up the table for the doctor and the warmer for the baby, so surreal.  I think there I was crying a bit then.  Long story short, I asked what I could do to help baby's head to move down so they helped me get into this crazy side lying squat (those L&D beds are CRAZY) and we started pushing around 2:00 a.m. because I could no longer stand the pressure.  With each contraction, instead of pushing in sets of three, our nurse would somehow convince me to throw a fourth one in.  Pushing was beyond intense.  The pressure/pain was crazy.  We're not totally sure how well the epi worked for me!  The doctor came in just after 3:00 and I could NOT STOP PUSHING.  At that point, there was just no way!  He was born on the first set of pushes with the doctor and they put this gigantic baby on my chest!  I still look at him and wonder how on earth I grew and carried this baby.  How did he fit?    

All day today, I've been extra weepy because I keep looking at the clock and thinking about where I was at this time last week.  It was the most intense emotional experience I've ever had and what a reward to end up with the sweetest little man.