Introducing Hunter John - PIPs & Birth Story

Greetings, December Mamas!  I'm sorry I'm so late in posting - but between feeding, changing this little poop machine and trying in vain to sneak naps in while he sleeps, I have been totally neglecting TB, FB and blog reading. 

Hunter John was born on 12/23/10 at 8:48pm via unplanned C-section.  He weighed 9 pounds, 15 ounces. 

The last couple weeks of my pregnancy, my blood pressure started creeping up and up, so my Dr. recommended that if the LO didn't come on his own over the weekend before my due date, that we would schedule an induction on my due date (12/22/10). 

On 12/20 & 12/21 I checked into the hospital as an outpatient for the prostaglandin (sp?) gel to get my cervix to ripen.  Aside from a lot of strong contractions, it didn't do much to dilate or efface things down there.  On 12/22, we got to the hospital at 7am.  I got checked and I was still at 1cm.  After that, I received 3 doses of cytotec (sp?) to hopefully help things progress.  No luck. 

The Dr. recommended a good night's rest, so I got a dose of morphine and another drug that I can't recall and I slept for about 5 1/2 to 6 hrs.  A nurse woke me at 4am to start the Pitocin drip.  By 7:15am, my water broke on it's own.  Only later did I find out that it was only a partial break.  Apparently I had a little extra balloon of water (I think they called it a "forebag") due to a blockage.  I found that out when later that day when I finally got to 3 cm, the nurse broke the bigger bag when she did the exam.  The contractions were really strong and very regular, but I was completely miserable because I had back labor going on.  I tried really hard to push through and do focused breathing and have DH do lots of counterpressure and massage.  About 2pm I got an epidural when I was 4cm dilated.  Over the next 5 hrs I only dilated as far as 5-6cm. 

At 7pm the nurse and the Dr came in and we discussed doing a c-section because of my lack of progress in spite of the interventions.  They gave me the option to continue laboring the way I was, but DH and I decided to go ahead with the c-section.  In retrospect, I'm glad we did that because Hunter ended up being 10 pounds.  His head and shoulders were so broad that they had to use the vacuum to get him out.  In spite of that, he was just fine and scored 9 & 8 on the APGAR and did not have much of a cone head.  He came out crying and with a full head of dark hair.  The funny thing is, we were Team Green and had no idea what about the sex. I had several dreams about a dark eyed, dark haired boy.  I also had dreams that the LO was a girl, but in those dreams I never saw specific features. So it was pretty cool to see that my dreams came true.   

Seeing him for the first time and hearing the phrase "You have a beautiful baby boy" are memories burned in my mind forever.  I will never forget those moments!

My recovery has gone really well so far.  I've been dropping the weight steadily,  (Thank God for breastfeeding!), the bleeding hasn't been too bad and the incision is healing really well.  Now if I could just get some sleep!!

Anyway, if you made it this far, you deserve a !  Here's a couple pics for your viewing pleasure.