Went to the hospital Saturday morning after calling my doc from all the prodromal labor all week. She was the house doc for 24 hours Saturday morning to Sunday morning. Took the girls to my sister-in-law's, no traffic on Saturday (yay) and made it to the hospital in about an hour and a half total. Got in and put on the monitor and my contractions were about 4 minutes apart. Doc checked me and I was 4.5cm, and as soon as she checked me things suddenly kicked. It was as if he was waiting for us to be settled in - considerate little one. Since last time I went from 4-10 in twenty minutes, I agreed to a combination spinal epidural (which provides a little instant relief and a push-button control on the epidural). I ended up not needing to push the epidural button and had a lot of good feeling and control on my lower half (could move around, feel contractions, etc.)
My water broke, then the nurse checked me and I saw the look on her face change from anticipation to concern. She stayed very still and called the charge nurse and "house doc" (my OB). I asked what was going on, and very calmly she said she thought she felt a loop of cord. My doc came in, it was a bit of a flurry of activity, and Jack's cord had indeed prolapsed. The charge nurse had an OR prepped and "all hands were on deck" so to speak. (Actually it felt more like all hands were on me as they tried to get his head backed up enough to move the cord). I laid very still, trying to consciously will him into position - trying NOT to panic. My doc was amazing - moved the cord to the space between his ear and shoulder and then turned on pitocin. She was concerned that if I didn't dilate quickly at that point, the cord would just come right back to where it had been. I was a "stretchy 6" at that point, but his head was still not coming down very far.
From there, Jack took his time. It was another five hours before I was complete, and that last lip of cervix took an hour and a half to get thinned out and out of the way. We were all amazed at how this labor was so unique. (And impressed that Jack already knew how to get the attention of all the ladies - we had 7 nurses in the station watching his strips and popping their heads in to check on us).
I pushed through four contractions and out he came. His cheeks took a push of their own, they were so chubby. He passed meconium as he was coming out, but thankfully after his head and chest were delivered. He must've been laying on his right arm or somehow strained it because he wasn't using it for about the first hour after delivery - but we were all relieved to see that he started moving it normally shortly thereafter. He wasn't too sure what to do with that nipple in his mouth for the first five minutes, then latched on and is nursing like a champ.
Making it official - he's ours!
His first bath - they were kind enough to oblige our request to admit him in our room and the nurse brought everything down from the nursery (check out those curls!)
Sunday we had a little setback in my recovery when I developed a spinal headache/neckache. They think it will resolve itself, so I am limited in how much time I can spend vertical. It's much better when I'm lying down. Jack also seems to have pretty bad reflux - in fact, worse than any of the girls. He aspirates and chokes and then screams. It's a heart-wrenching sound and nothing helps (it even happens when he's almost entirely upright). We'll need to follow-up with our doc and probably a GI doc very shortly (as soon as I can be upright enough to ride in the car comfortably).
So, all is fairly well. I'm so glad John is home to take care of everything. I'm back off to bed.
Oh - Jack was 9lbs, 1 oz and 22 1/4 inches long.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Phase II of my recovery coming soon...
No comments:
Post a Comment