And speaking of a where things have gone, I'm looking for my baby.
He was just born, weighing in at 6lbs 9ozs, 19½" long. I could have sworn he was born at 4:10a this morning but when I looked around for him, all I found was this young man...I still remember that day 9 years ago in such vivid detail. I remember being woken up at 5am by contractions and thinking they were probably just braxton-hicks as I'd had a very convincing set of those a few days earlier. I tried for an hour to go back to sleep with no luck so I grabbed a watch and decided to start timing them. After an hour, they were still very regularly 5min apart and lasting about 45sec. I woke Mark up excitedly telling him it might be it. We spent another hour walking around the house, showering, and all the other things they tell you to do to determine if it's the real deal. All that accomplished was to speed them up. We called the dr and were told to come on in.
We grabbed Christopher and his breakfast and some toys for him and headed out. Everything was going fine until we hit HWY92, when we came to a complete stand still. I could not take it! After about 10min, I was threatening to get out of the car and go around telling people to get out of my way! Mark decided at that point that going around via a different route might be advisable. LOL
We got to the hospital and were admitted. They checked me at 10a and said that this was indeed the real thing and we would be meeting our boy soon. I was at 2cm already and looking good. I was allowed to get up and walk the halls tho I was refused food since I was attempting VBAC. Clear liquid diet only. I was really wishing I had eaten breakfast before coming in.
Several hours passed during which I felt fine and was only mildly bothered by the contractions but after 17hrs, I was still only at 4cm and my bp was rising. Given my history with Christopher, this had the midwife and drs concerned. I still remember laying in bed and the midwife coming in and kneeling down to look me in the eye as she told me that they all admired how well I'd done but that with my bp rising, she felt that some pain meds would be best for me and my baby. I grudgingly agreed but asked that we try to hold off on the epi. I have a fear of things being stuck in my back and was truly hoping to avoid it. They gave me IV pain meds for a bit and I remember at one point looking over at my mom and saying "Cool, I'm having a contraction." My bp unfortunately was not fooled by these measures and was still high. They decided that I would need Mag Sulfate to bring it down which meant that I would need pitocin to keep the labor going. With that combo, it was decided that an epi was necessary. I've tried to block as much as I can of that whole ordeal out of my mind and thankfully, I've succeeded rather well.
By this time, I'd been laboring for 20hrs and was still only at 4cm but WHOA, when that epi took effect, I went to 10cm in 15min. I can only guess that while I felt I was handling it well, I actually wasn't. They started having me push but by this point I was exhausted. I'd had nothing to eat for almost 28hrs and was tired as it was 1am. I kept falling asleep between contractions and pushing only to have them pump up the pitocin more to make the contractions stronger. 3hrs I pushed. I heard the midwife saying
for the last 30min that one more push and she was going to send the nurse out of the room for the dr to do a vacuum extraction. I was thinking that was a great idea. The nurse was actually making her way out the door to find the dr when Matthew finally made his debut and we found out why he had taken his sweet time being born. His hand was next to his head as it would be for the next several months of his life. They immediately placed him on my chest and I got to hold my new son. Matthew looked up at me and immediately smiled. He then looked around the rest of the room giving everyone else a "who the heck are you" look, even his dad. The midwife turned and asked Mark if he would like to cut the chord to which he asked if there wasn't anyone more qualified to do that. I remember them having to ask me to give him up so they could get his measurements and give him his first bath. Even tho they weren't going to leave the room, I made Mark go and keep an eye on everything. Hours later we were finally up in our room and I couldn't put him down. I couldn't believe that I was finally able to hold him in my arms and I couldn't get enough of him.How was I to know that in the months that followed, I'd barely be able to as he wouldn't go to anyone else? Even now, Matthew is forever my boy.
No comments:
Post a Comment