A little late, but...my DS arrived!

umdbride · March 2011

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks but my DS was born on 2/17, at 7 lbs 3 oz and 20 inches long. His name is Jackson Otto (his middle name is after my grandpa).

A quick recap of his (natural!) birth: My water broke at 5am while I was in bed, semi-awake because I was sleeping terribly. Around 6:15 contractions started and right away they were about 2.5 minutes apart and a minute long, I called my midwives and we decided to stay at home for another hour or so. By 8:30 contractions were intense and we made our way to the hospital - and my ideas for a potentially natural delivery were replaced by wondering how quickly I could get an epidural.

When we got to the hospital around 9am my midwife was already there and waiting for us, she checked me and I was at 4.5 cm. She encouraged me to try and walk, but I made it only a few steps before deciding that wasn't working with my contractions. She asked if I wanted to try the tub and in my head I thought about how much I dislike hot tubs or baths and how there is no way a jacuzzi tub could make contraction pain go away or even bearable, but luckily my midwife is so nice I just couldn't say no. I thought to myself that I'd try out one contraction in the tub and when it didn't work I'd get out and get the epidural and feel better....well turns out she was right, the tub was MAGICAL. My contractions seemed to almost disappear - instead of feeling the full minute and a half of pain, I felt like they were reduced to 30 seconds, and it was a much more bearable 30 seconds than even my initial contractions that morning at home. I was even able to have conversations with DH again! After about an hour in the tub I had to get out because my temp was getting too high. When she checked my progress after getting out of the tub (around 11:00 am) I was 9 cm dilated! I was so excited....I was going to have a natural birth after all (and I thought I got through the hardest part really easily).

It took about an hour to get to 10 cm, which was actually more manageable than early contractions, then I was ready to push. I pushed for an hour and a half and started to get really tired and sort of frustrated, thinking to myself, ?why is this taking so long?!? my midwives were great, and so was DH ? they kept telling me they could see his hair and other motivating stuff but I just kept thinking ?if you can see his hair, why isn?t he out yet?!? When it came time for that ?ring of fire? push I really didn?t think I could do it ? I honestly was wondering if there was some other way to get him out, lol. I did it though, a few good pushes and he was out. I was surprised how much the uterus massage hurt after though! All in all, it was an amazing experience and I?m glad I was able to feel and experience all of it med free. Although I joked to DH I need to forget a lot more before going natural with the next baby!

After birth, DS was breathing fast and even though his apgars and other vitals were great they sent him to the NICU for a few hours for observation and then returned him to our room later that evening. It took us a bit to get the hang of breastfeeding but I think we?re doing better every day and at his 2 week pedi appointment he was up 2 ounces over his birth weight so we?re on the right track at least. Thanks everyone for all the support and advice along the way, I?m sure I?ll have tons of questions to come!

I can?t figure out how to PIP but there is a photo in my bio and if someone tells me how to PIP I?ll gladly give it a try! Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}