Birth Story

This is only for those who are interested. It's going to be really long and detailed and stuff, so you are in no way obligated to read this. :) 

We went to the hospital at 4:00 AM on Thursday, Feb. 2 to be induced. Because of Nate's busy season, we figured if he hadn't come by then, we would force the kid out when it was a little more convenient for us. :) I changed into the lovely hospital robe and they got me started on the antibiotic for Strep B. They said the doctor would be in around 8:00 to break my water and start pit. Amazingly, both Nate and I were able to sleep a little in those 4+ hours. 

The doctor didn't end up coming in until closer to 8:30 (time goes SO slow when you're just waiting...) and she checked me first. Keep in mind here, I had been having pretty serious contractions off and on for about a week. One night we even called the hospital and were planning to go in because they were less than 10 minutes apart for over an hour. Unfortunately, they slowed down so we never went in. So anyway, the doctor checked me and I was BARELY a 3. After quite a bit of effort (not sure why it was so hard...), she managed to break my water and I sat there for the next 2 hours, leaking uncomfortably and having nothing else happen. No increase in contractions or anything. The doctor didn't give me pitocin, but said she would come back at lunch time to see how things were going. We convinced the nurse to start the pitocin around 10 or 10:30 since breaking my water had done absolutely nothing. 

Still, even with my water broken and the pitocin started,  basically nothing happened. I would have occasional contractions, but nothing consistent or even very painful. A little after noon, the nurse increased the pitocin enough to where they were starting to be painful. I got an epidural sometime around 1:00 or 2:00 (can't really remember...) but the nurse was getting a little frustrated that the contractions really weren't consistent - 7 minutes, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes. In fact, she told me I have a "stubborn uterus." The doctor did come in around 1:45 and checked me - I was only at about a 6 at this point. Nate asked me if I was depressed and I think I was either too tired or in too much pain to have a real response. 

From 2:00 or so until about 4:00, I slept or watched TV off and on. I couldn't really concentrate on anything and could still feel a little of the pain here and there. The nurse was coming in every few minutes to check how things were going. She said at one point early in the afternoon that she thought he was "sunny side up", meaning his head was facing up instead of down like it should be. She kept having me lay in these really awkward positions to see if we could get him to turn and at one point she thought he had. 

Around 4:00, apparently I was complete or at least very close, but the baby still wasn't moving down - I think I was still at a -2 or -3. The nurse decided to have me start pushing a bit to see if I could get him to come down a little more before we had the doctor come in. I'm going to be completely honest: from this point on, things are a little blurry for me. I remember this nurse had me push off and on until her shift ended at 5. At that point a new nurse came in and I pushed off and on (but more frequently, as my contractions were now 1-2 minutes apart and I was pushing every few contractions, but not every one). At some point in all this, I realized I was feeling all of the pain - ALL of it. I mentioned it a couple of times and since I wasn't really getting much a response I finally just said "I can feel everything and I shouldn't be - can you please have the anesthesiologist come in?" He came in and gave me a super shot of that amazing drug, straight into my IV. THEN he decided to check the epidural line and realized it had come unhooked. NO WONDER I was hurting, yeah? 

Once we got the epidural fixed, at some point the doctor came in and we started pushing for reals. Oh. My. Ouch. I have never done anything so hard in my whole life. Keep in mind, when I had Karly my doctor didn't want me pushing because of my high blood pressure, so I pushed 4 times and he pulled her out with forceps. In the end, with Tanner, I pushed for nearly 3 hours. He never did turn, so he was facing up which makes it MUCH harder to get through the birth canal. AND this kid was nearly 10 pounds! Anyway, I'm not sure how long it was, but Nate was holding one leg, the nurse was holding the other and the doctor was telling me to push - "keep pushing, keep going, you're almost there!" I'm pretty sure I heard that for a solid hour. Nate confided later that he just sat there saying as little as possible because every time I pushed, his head would move out a little, but as soon as I stopped pushing, it would slide right back to where it was. He was basically stuck behind my pelvic bone and for a good part of the time, I was pushing wrong (oops?), so we were making very little progress. Once I started pushing right, the most helpful thing was one nurse would count to 10 and I just had to keep pushing until she got to 10. The doctor and nurses saying "keep pushing, keep pushing!" really didn't make me want to keep pushing. For some reason the counting thing helped though. I was so tired that I was falling asleep between pushing (which was maybe a minute between each contraction, so not a lot of sleeping time) and started telling the doctor to just pull him out. I literally could not understand why she wasn't doing that. At one point, she did mention using the vacuum, but deep down I really didn't want her to just pull him out. :) I kept saying I couldn't do it and everyone in the room kept saying I could. I really wasn't sure how much longer I could do this. FINALLY (with the help of an episiotomy literally right before my last push) he came out! Once his head got through, the rest of him just kind of slid out. 

When the doctor pulled him out, she said "wow, he's over 9 pounds," but everyone in the room was shocked when the nurse weighed him and he was 9 lbs, 10 oz. No wonder it was so hard to get him out! I held him for a second and then Nate held him and they just kind of cleaned him off a little bit and said they would do a full bath later. 

Then came the fun part [I really wish there was a sarcasm font]. Apparently really big babies have the same problem as really small babies - they have a hard time regulating their body temperature and blood sugar levels. We decided to let the Tanner sleep in the nursery that first night so we could get a little sleep; I just told the nurses to bring him to me when he needed to eat. I think we gave him to the nurses at around midnight. At 1:30, the nurse came in to say Tanner's blood sugar was a little low and asked if it was okay to give him formula to get his blood sugar numbers up. I said it was fine - I just wanted to make sure Tanner was okay. They also said that for the next day we should probably supplement his feedings with formula, just to make sure his numbers stayed high. Well, the lactation nurse came in the next day and told us that the nurses probably didn't need to give him formula - his blood sugar level was 39 and normal for a baby is 40. She also said that a newborn's stomach holds about 7 ml and that the nurses had given him 23 ml! Granted, Tanner was a bigger baby, so maybe he needed more milk, but the lactation nurse definitely thought that was way too much. By the end of our hospital stay, Nate was SO sick of the nurses and lactation nurses because it was obvious they weren't talking to each other - they were just giving us their own advice. Also, can I just say here how much I HATE the nurses saying I had to wake him up to eat? I'm sorry, but I firmly believe a baby is not going to let himself starve. He will wake up when he needs to eat (and we have definitely learned that since he's been home - when he's hungry EVERYONE in the house knows it). Anyway, it all turned out fine (though I kind of think part of the reason Tanner is not good at nursing is because he got used to a bottle before he had nursing figured out). 

So anyway, we love this little boy and are so glad everything went well. Despite all the pain and frustration of getting him here and right after, there was so much that could have gone wrong and didn't, for which I am very grateful. We are doing really well now, except for nursing. This kid sucks at sucking. I have had to pump on one side for over a week because it's so torn up, a lactation consultant I met with told me not to nurse on it until it's healed. I got mastitis on the other side and had to take an antibiotic for a week. I am hoping that eventually we will get it figured out, but I'm preparing myself for the idea that I may not be able to nurse as long as I'd like. Tanner does seem to be doing better, but we'll see...

I will be amazed if anyone is still reading at this point. :)