D-Day

D-Day (as in Delivery Day;)

We arrived at L&D at 8:30pm on the the 2nd as instructed. Just in time to get the last room with a decent view. They started an IV and gave me cytotec to help start things off, but no change except that I started contracting every 2-3 minutes instead of every 4 minutes like I had been doing for months. In the middle of the night they gave me another round of cytotec, but still no change. At 7:30am Dr. Houk came in and broke my water and told Tonja (our sweet nurse) to start the Pitocin even though I had not made any progress on the cytotec. All the soon-to-be grandparents were put on alert that this baby would be here within the next 24 hours even if it meant a C-section. Mimi and Papa were in our room in no time.

I wanted to be dilated to at least a 4 if not a 5 before starting my epidural, but after things drug along all morning at a 3 maybe a 4 all morning, I was grabing the bedrails with discomfort, and being a little crabby towards Jeremy, Tonja decided it was time to call in the anesthesiologist. When the anesthesiologist appeared in my room he had some young male student with him. He began explaining the procedure and that the student would assist. I just nodded and told them to hurry and get it done. Before I knew it I was having a contraction, told to be perfectly still and to relax (both of which are extremely hard to do during a contraction), the blood pressure cuff was squeezing the daylights out of my arm, and this student was sticking a giant needle into my spine and asking questions that revealed that he had never done an epidural before and really didn't know what he was doing. Suddenly I was ripping at the blood pressure cuff and seeing visions of myself as a paraplegic! I was relieved a few minutes later to find the epidural actually working despite my doubts.

Soon after my epidural the baby began having decellerations in his heart rate and I was contracting every 1-2 minutes, but the contractions were not making any progress. Tonja and Dr. Houk decided to stop the Pitocin. They planned to give me a Brethine shot to stop all contractions and start everything all over again with cytotec and then pitocin. It looked like it was going to be a long day. Tonja predicted that Noah would arrive before midnight, but definitely not before 7pm. 30minutes after stopping the pitocin and dilated to a 4, Tonja said I was a 7. Only 2 minutes later, I then sat up in bed to get more comfortable and told Tonja that something didn't feel right and I was feeling a lot of pressure. She told me that I was okay several times and that I was only a 7, but that she would get the anesthesiologist to give me a bolus on my epidural. I told her again that I felt a lot of pressure. She looked and was shocked to find Noah ready to enter the world. Tonja ran out into the hall and told Jeremy and Mom to quickly finish the sandwiches they were eating and to get into the room.

Before I knew it I was pushing, but I had to wait through several contractions until Dr. Houk (who got stuck in the hospital elevators) to arrive. After 4 pushes Noah James entered the world at 3:09pm at 7lbs 4oz 21inches long and a 14in head circumference (just as the proud new Papa burst into the delivery room because he was accidently paged a little too early). He had nuchal cord x1, but still had apgars of 9 and 9 and was beautiful.