Early Arrival

As it turns out, two of us here on Bloomin' Babies delivered on the same day. (HUGE congrats to Teacher Bud)

This is going to be long as its been an adventure the last two weeks, but I wanted to fill you all in on why I've been 'missing'.

On September 27th I went in for my weekly appointment. I was about 37.5 weeks. They did my vitals upon arrival. Blood pressure was up 10 points (140ish/80ish) range. Weight had jumped up 4 pounds in a week. Then my urine came back that I was spilling more protein. I was being watched prior to that appointment for signs of Pre-Eclampsia and it seems I was crossing over into officially having it. Since I was full term, my doctor decided it was go time to get the baby out of there. I had to call my husband from the doctors office (he was at work) and the doctor arranged for a non-emergency transport from her office to the hospital...a grand total of a half mile distance.

A few hours later I'm told that my cervix was starting to dilate on its own (went from 1 to 2.5 in that time period) and that Pitocin was the best option to start up labor. This is when I realized that things may not go as I'd hoped for this delivery. I'd hoped for as intervention-free as possible. With pitocin the baby has to be on monitors constantly, meaning I'd be pretty much restricted to however far the monitors could reach. Add to that the blood pressure cuff...and yeah, I was having to ring a nurse if I needed to use the restroom.

I continued to labor overnight with pitocin. Not much progress was made. I think I got to about a 3cm by 6am that morning. They gave me a little break from the pitocin, let me eat something for the first time since noon the day before (crackers and Jello have never tasted so good) and then we went back at it.

A prime example of my labor not going according to my birth plan. Taken at the end of labor, that's pitocin, magnesium, saline & antibiotics on the IV pole.

Sometime that afternoon (time is becoming a blur at this point), I get the "We need to either break your water and hope that jump starts labor or we need to proceed with a c-section" talk. I opted to have them break my water. Not the most comfortable thing for the record. Once the water was broken the relatively mild pitocin contractions I'd been having kicked into high gear. I went from being able to talk through the to scaring some poor student with the amount of pain I was in who was coming in to ask for permission ti study the placenta to help further understand Pre-E.

Not long after this point I was pretty much begging for an epidural. The pitocin induced contractions were one on top of the other and were really intense. Plus the nurses were having trouble getting my contractions on the monitors (to which I assured them I was having them as i writhed in pain) and getting an epidural would allow them to monitor them internally and start the dreaded magnesium drip. The epidural was wonderful and provided some much needed relief. Amid an occasional wave of nausea (thank you magnesium drip), I labored on. At this point I could feel the pressure as my cervix was dilated and occasionally I could feel break through pain of the contractions.

Sometime after 3pm the doctors started talking about checking me around 4pm to see how I was doing for progression. At this point I was starting to get the first signs of a fever courtesy of having my water broken. I remember chiming in that they might want to check me before then. I could feel him down really low. No urge to push, but I knew he was further than they seemed to think he was. I was right. I was at a 10 and it was go time.

The pushing stage is kind of a blur to me. I'd been laboring for 24+ hours at that point and was spiking a fever. I felt incredibly weak and remember telling them that I didn't know if I had the strength left in me to get him out. They must've believed me, because they called the vacuum guy in to take a look. He didn't end up helping out (I hadn't progressed far enough).

After that I started to get the hang of pushing. I was pretty much a train wreck...in addition to all the fun down below associated with delivery, I also puked for the first time in my entire pregnancy during the pushing phase. I'd like to blame the magnesium as a known side effect of it is nausea, but the truth is that sometimes women puke during labor. Kind of frustrating to make it to about 20 minutes before I'm no longer pregnant before tossing my cookies though...but it is what it is...

Dylan James joined our family on September 28, 2011 at 4:21PM. He weighed 6lb 2oz and was 19.39 inches long. He came out kind of bluish pink, the doctors say courtesy of the magnesium I had to be on (Apgars of 6 & 9) and had to be worked on a bit to get his lungs cleared. He also got a 4 hour stint in the NICU and 2 days of antibiotics courtesy of the infection I developed during delivery. Him being taken to NICU was so hard as I was stuck in L&D getting myself fixed up (2nd degree tear) in the meantime and couldn't leave. My husband went with him, but it was so hard to not be there...

We ended up with an extended 5 day stay in the hospital courtesy of my Pre-Eclampsia. My labs weren't coming back how they were supposed to and my blood pressure wouldn't drop. In fact, it wasn't until just yesterday after I'd been put on blood pressure meds that my BP has gotten back to normal. The extended stay in the hospital in some ways was a blessing as we had some breastfeeding issues to overcome. Due to the babies slightly early arrival, he didn't have the stamina to put much effort into feeding until my milk came in on Day 4. We actually had to supplement with formula some in the hospital for blood sugar reasons (fed by tube, not bottle), but we've since weaned off of that and are 100% breastfeeding now.

We're now at home and doing well aside from myself and the baby having a head cold.

Without further adieu, here are some pictures of our little man

Riding home from the hospital.

Posing for the camera yesterday.