Delivery

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Baby Boy Rez is finally here! The evening of the 25th, I started having lots of Braxton Hicks contractions and a lot more cramping. I went to bed wondering if it might be time soon…

The next morning I awoke to what felt a lot stronger than Braxton Hicks, and it seemed to come every 5 minutes or so. I was still able to talk through them, so I sent Dave to work to pick up his laptop so he could work from home just in case. I had a laundry list of things I wanted to take care of that day: go grocery shopping, wash the sheets, vacuum the floors… But as the contractions got stronger and came closer together, I had to come to terms with the fact that most of those things were not going to get done. By the time Dave returned to the house, the contractions were every 2-3 minutes so we called the the doctor.

The doctor told us to come in to the hospital, so we drove to Palo Alto, and brought the birth ball, the camera and all our suitcases up with us. We were prepared. But unfortunately the car ride had slowed thing down to about 5 minutes apart, and we were only dilated to 1 centimeter. They said it could take a while, so we went home to rest and wait it out.

On our way home, I wanted to stop at Safeway to pick up a few things so we would have lots of food in the house. I was uncomfortable and had to stop every few minutes to breathe through a contraction. Dave later told me that there was a lady at the store that gave him the nastiest look, like “This poor girl who is obviously in labor. Why would her husband drag her out to do errands?”
Little did she know it was MY idea.

When we got back to the house, I laid down in bed to rest. I grew more uncomfortable right before my water broke. Dave helped me to the bathroom so I could wash off and we realized there was meconium in the water. I panicked. I worried about my baby and his safety. Here we were about an hour away from the hospital during rush hour with contractions that were now about a minute and half apart and meconium in the water. What do we do? Do we call an ambulance? Do we divert to a closer hospital? We decided to proceed as planned and call the hospital on our way. I am so glad we kept the original plan, because it turned out we would need the best doctors available.

The car ride there was awful though. I couldn’t get comfortable sitting in the passenger seat. The backseat was full with the birthing ball and car seat, so I unbuckled and was on my hands and knees, holding onto the parking break with one hand and squeezing Dave’s arm with the other. Traffic was the usual Silicon Valley chain of metal, but we made good time and got to the hospital in about forty five minutes.

As soon as we were admitted, I asked for an epidural. I was unsure about an epidural earlier, but I thought it had to be better than this. The only problem was I couldn’t get comfortable enough to have them place it. They needed me on the bed so they could start an IV, but sitting through a contraction was the last thing I wanted to do. Somehow we got through it and they were able to do a combination spinal/epidural. I felt relief almost immediately. I was able to lay back in bed and just rest while my body did all the hard work. I didn’t even feel the contractions, but still had enough mobility to move my body in different positions without help. I thought to myself, “Why would anyone go through labor any other way?”

I was 6 centimeters when they admitted me, but by the time they placed the epidural, I had progressed to 9.5. However, the epidural must have slowed things down because getting to 10 centimeters took several hours. I laid in bed, chatting with the nurses and Dave and watching the hours pass by and wondering would baby come today or tomorrow? We didn’t start pushing until around 11:30, and we pushed for about two and a half hours. I couldn’t really feel the contractions so I didn’t know when to push, but the nurses were great coaches. Baby finally came at 2:08 AM on the 27th. They placed him on my chest and I got just a short glimpse and say “Oh, he’s cute!”

But he was immediately taken away because he wasn’t breathing! There were a cluster of people huddled around him trying to get him to breathe. Dave later told me me intentionally stood with his back to me, blocking my view of what was going on. In between Dave and all the doctors though I could see a small blue arm that was very still. I grew more afraid with every second the passed by. I prayed and tried to have faith that he would be okay. After what seemed like forever, I heard him cry. The doctors suctioned out fluid and meconium from his nose and mouth.  His first breath had been with the help of a machine, but he was finally breathing on his own. He was returned to me.

It was a terrifying start to life, but our adorable baby boy was here and doing fine now. We stayed in the hospital for three days, and I made sure to ask every question I had regarding his health and safety. The doctors assured me he was normal and healthy and shouldn’t have any lasting problems. Between doctors, nurses and lactation consultants checking up on us, family filtered in to meet our little guy. I don’t think I slept more than two hours the entire time we were there.  I was eager to go home, but grateful for the help we received while we were in the hospital. By the time we were discharged, I had learned so much that I felt more confident in my ability to care for this precious little human.

 

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