Welcome Baby Miles!

Hi everyone -

Short version: Miles Howard joined our family yesterday at 5:11 am, weighing in at 8 lbs, 13 oz via vaginal delivery. We're over the moon!

 Long version: Doctor stripped my membranes on Monday - at that time, I was about 3cm and 60% effaced. That lead to some cramps and increased BH during the day, but not a whole lot more. That night, I started having timeable, uncomfortable contractions. When they were 5 min apart for about 45 minutes, we loaded up the car and began heading over the my mom's to drop off DD. Well, by the time were at my mom's they had spread back out, and within a couple of hours had stopped. I was bummed out and spent the next day in kind of a funk - I was stilling having contractions but they were far apart and it didn't seem like anything imminent was on the horizon. I settled in to wait for Thursday, which was my induction date, even though I'd been hoping to avoid an induction.

DH convinced me that we should sleep at my Mom's that night , so that we didn't have to load up again and drive DD over there if the same thing happened - she is also very close to the hospital. By 11:00 that night I was having contractions that were around 8 minutes apart, and they hurt - yay! By 1:30 they had been 4-6 minutes for about 45 minutes, and they were fairly painful. I wasn't convinced that they were painful enough to be REAL contractions, and DH was trying to talk me into giving it a little more time after the night before, but my doctor had told me not to "dilly dally" because my birth with DD had gone quite fast - so we headed to the hospital. I was checked in and was a 7 with a bulging bag of waters! She said my contractions were coming strong and immediately offered me an epi, which I accepted.

Don't let this freak you out, because my epi with DD was pure heaven and the procedure was over very quickly, but the epi was the worst part for me this time. I think it was the doctor, I don't know - basically he couldn't find the right spot and had to keep trying the needle in new spaces. The numbing injection is the painful part, and he kept having to reinject it! It went on for about 20 minutes and that point in my labor I was starting to shake and thought I might pass out. I was actually wishing as he was doing it that I had just pushed through and not gotten it, because I had already come so far and was handling the pain quite well. Anyway, once it was said and done I was glad to have it.

I stalled at a 7 for about 40 minutes. I was offered pitocin (I thought it seemed a little early in the game for that, but it was about 4 am by now and I was ready to get rolling so I accepted). The nurse broke my water by accident during a cervical check. Once that happened, combined with only about 10 minutes of pitocin, I was quickly a 9 so my doc was called in. I pushed 5 times through 2 contractions, and out he came!

He weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs, 13 ounces and had good apgars of 9-9. So far he is just a sweet, mellow little thing who has "squeaked" more than cried. We are so in love - here is the best part:

Good luck to all the May mamas!

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