Noah James is here :)

TheLittleRedM · July 2013

I disappeared for a few days because I've been getting ready for my hubby who finally arrived in town on the 23rd! Guess our little man was just waiting for him to show up because that's when labor started.

Short Version: Noah arrived at 12:19pm on July 24th. He weighed 6lbs 11oz and was just under 19 inches long (He's tinier than his daddy or I was!). He has a head full of thick, long black hair and I think he's just perfect

The birth was natural and I only spent 9 hours laboring at the hospital. Little man is having some troubles keeping his temp at the minimum "happy level" and the pediatrician said he had a slight murmur but that should clear up. Other than that, we are both doing very well! Breastfeeding is a bit frustrating, but only because I fully think he believes he doesn't have to suck to get food, that he only needs to latch.

Long Version: Before I start, I'm just gonna say that after we were admitted to the hospital, I have no idea about times that things happened Lol My internal clock was completely screwed up so I can't even guess.

I started having contractions Tuesday morning that were noticeable but didn't interfere with my day and were happening about 20 minutes or so. Nothing I worried about since that's been the norm for so long. Shortly after picking DH up from the airport (yay!!), I noticed that the contractions were coming more frequently than earlier and they were getting harder to ignore but again, I've had that in the past and it's always stopped at some point. By the time I got to my 3pm appointment with my midwife, they were roughly 8-10 minutes apart and becoming slightly harder to ignore. We had a NST done since Noah had a big enough decrease in movement and she scheduled me for a biophysical profile for the next morning before she checked my cervix (3cm, 90%) and swept my membranes. She didn't believe I'd make it another week but just in case, we talked about induction and set a date and time for one in case Noah didn't come soon.

After that, she sent me on my merry way and throughout the afternoon, my contractions got steadily stronger but not enough to make me stop doing things. By 10pm, I was having them 2-5 minutes apart but the length of the contractions varied enough and weren't usually more than 40-50 seconds long so I kept myself busy by walking, trying to rest (unsuccessful), and eating. By 2am I called the midwife on call and she said to come on in and get checked out. Got to Triage around 2:45am and my cervical check showed that baby dropped to a 0 station and I was dilated to 4 with contractions happening every 2 minutes and lasting 1 minute so they got me admitted and got my doula called in. Sometime around sunrise I started feeling the urge to push during the peak of my contractions so my doula had the midwife check me out. I was starting to have back labor pain and learning that I was only at a 5 made me want to cry. Shortly after, my doula left and I got a new doula who was a God send and just what I needed! My back labor got worse but was relieved a bit so long as I wasn't on my back or sitting down. Noah kept moving from sunny-side up to facing the correct way which was somewhat irritating but oh well. I started to feel the urge to push regardless of whether a contraction was happening or not. The midwife came in and made me cry by saying we were only at a 6.5. Granted, I was thinking it was well into the afternoon at this point and not still morning. At this point, the nurse doing the EFM could no longer tell baby's heartrate apart from my own with her little portable doppler because of the positions I was comfortable in and there was slight concern over baby's recover time after contractions. I would say that about the time I was at an 8 or so, I was restricted to lying on my back during the monitoring sessions that seemed to last forever because it was the only way the nurse could get a good reading. It. Was. Awful.

When I was starting to routinely push involuntarily, they checked me again and I was at 9.5 but one side of my cervix hadn't completed thinned out yet so I had to lay down on my side (ouch!) so that it would make LO drop against that side and thin it out. I don't think it really took very long, but it felt like it did. Pretty soon I was at a 10 and ready to push! My mom said I pushed for about an hour before LO had his head out far enough that my doula told me to reach down and help pull him out. Harder than it sounds because I had to be on my back for pushing since they needed to keep the monitor going and I have little arms. Plus, he couldn't come all the way up my chest because his cord was really short (took him a couple hours to stop being quite so blue/purple). But it was absolutely wonderful and such a relief when he finally came! I only had one teeny tiny tear that they didn't need to stitch up. I was so thankful to my doula for helping me reach my zen mode between a lot of the contractions because I know I wouldn't have gotten any rest whatsoever if I hadn't.

When one of the delivery nurses said what his time of birth was, I had to verify with my mom what the date was because I was so sure that it should've been later in the afternoon or early evening because of how long I thought it had taken. Didn't help that the nurse who had set me up in my room when I first got admitted told me that I shouldn't expect Noah until late in the night or the next morning because first-timers rarely have quick labors.

So that's that

I will update with pictures once I manage to get some uploaded!