DP from Pg After 35: BABY ADRIAN IS HERE!
NewMrs07
member
Adrian came on his exact due date at 40 weeks on Aug 24 at 3:57 p.m. He weighed 8 lbs, 5 ounces and measured 21 3/4" long.
Labor
started naturally (yeah!). I went to bed Sunday night with no signs of
impending labor... no contractions, no mucus, no bloody show, nothing.
I was even planning to go to work on Monday and had set my alarm. At
2am or so I got up to pee and noticed a little bit of cramping but
nothing I hadn't had before. At 3:30am I felt a little trickle of warm
fluid and rushed to the bathroom. OMG, the flood gates opened, my water
broke right then and there. Not a little leak but a gush. I soaked
through about 5 pads in the next hour, it was crazy. After about an
hour or so contractions started, they felt like really mild cramps,
nothing painful and were coming every 20 minutes or so. I thought that
could take forever and got the rest of my hospital bag ready and just
chilled with DH and watched TV.
When contractions started to
get 10-15 minutes apart (still not painful) I called my doctor (it was
about 6am). He was like, "you need to get to the hospital if your water
broke!" Plus I remembered that I was Group B Strep + and they needed to
start the antibiotics right away. I guess I thought it would take a
long time for the bad contractions to kick in but I'm glad we went to
the hospital at that moment b/c by the time I checked in my amniotic
fluid was coming out non-stop and contractions where coming every 5
minutes (still bearable). I was only about 2cm dilated and thought I
could ride it out drug-free until 4cm. Wrong! By 9am or so I was in
excruciating pain, we're talking I was yelling out loud w/ each
contraction, like in the movies. It was time for the epi. I almost
kissed the anesthesiologist when she came, and I would have if she had
been a man instead of a woman, lol. By that time I was about 3cm
dilated and the contractions had been coming every 4 minutes or so,
lasting about 30 seconds (the longest of my life!). The epi kicked in
around 10:30am... SWEET RELIEF!!! I bow down to the women that can
deliver med-free, I couldn't do it and I'm glad I didn't. The epi took
effect really quickly, much quicker than they said it would (fine by
me!). It's an amazing thing, you still feel your legs and can move
them, you still feel people's hands when they check your cervix and
feel the contractions, but only the pressure, the pain component is
GONE. I highly recommend an epi and will do it again. Plus, I had no
side effects afterwards.
At first the contrations slowed down a lot and I was worried that my progress would stop and I would end up with a c/s. My mom and DH started to make me feel guilty about getting the epi and said that now I wouldn't make progress... I was so worried. But I showed them! I did progress very slowly for about an hour (so I took a nap) but then they gave me some Pitocin and I went from almost 4cm to 10cm in 3 hours!!! I couldn't believe it. I could feel the pressure of the contractions (but no pain, yeah!) and felt like bearing down. The midwife had gone on lunch break thinking I would take forever to dilate so they called her so she could rush back. This baby wanted out!
The hardest part for me, besides waiting for the epidural, was pushing the baby out. I was so tired already by that point and it took almost 2 hours of pushing every 5 minutes or so, I thought I couldn't make it. Again, I worried about a c/s but by that point the baby was far down enough that he had to come out vaginally, no matter what. So I ended up w/ an episiotomy, ugh. Not fun but at the end I was so frikin' exhausted that I didn't care what or where they cut, I just needed that baby out!
So out he came, all 8 pounds 5 ounces of
him. I couldn't believe that little creature came out of me, it was
amazing. I was so tired that I couldn't really bond w/ him until after
my nap, but now we're getting to know each other 
and he's a
professional at breast-feeding. Latches right on and it doesn't even
hurt too much.
The hard part is the episiotomy, which makes me pretty sore right now, but I'm soooo glad I didn't have a c/s, I know that would be so much harder to recover from. DH and my mom helped me push during labor. Honestly I hadn't planned for that but at the moment I felt like I needed their support and they were all for it, so that's what we did. I told DH, just don't look down there too much, I know I didn't want to, no mirrors for me please!
Anyway, I'm still in
the hospital and will be discharged tomorrow. Labor was the hardest
thing I've done in my life but it was totally worth it and I would do
it again in a second to have our precious little boy. We're so happy.
He's the most mellow baby and sleeps really well so far. We feel so
blessed, DH can't get enough of him and he's doing a better job than me
w/ diaper duty and swaddling, it's so cute to see that. Baby Adrian is
an exact replica of DH, it's pretty cute.
Re: DP from Pg After 35: BABY ADRIAN IS HERE!