Birthing Babies

Up to this point, the past few posts have been done by Hubby, as I have been recovering from giving birth to Baby. It was a long and hard process, here's the story as Hubby told a friend:

Rachael went into labor at 2:00am on Tuesday morning.  Contractions reached 4 minutes apart, 1 minute long and painfully strong by 11:00am, so we headed to the hospital, only to learn she was only 1 cm dilated.  They evaluated again after 90 minutes and she showed some progress but was still less than 2cm.  They offered us the choice to admit, or head home for a while longer, so we opted to head home.  

We came back that night at about 8:00 - the contractions were getting a bit longer and definitely still getting stronger, strong enough to make her cry out almost every time.  But when we got back, she was still at 2 cm but they admitted her right away because she was definitely progressing and needed some help managing the pain.  When they gave her the pain killer, it knocked her a little silly, which allowed her to sleep between contractions - a real blessing and it let her gather her strength.  This was some crazy stuff, I couldn't really see straight and it made me all sorts of loopy. But I slept, bit time and it was beautiful.

They evaluated again at 1:00am and she had progressed to 6cm.  She got on a birthing ball at that point and the contractions were coming close together and quite hard as she went through transition.  Rachael asked to be evaluated again at about 3:45 when she started feeling an urge to push.  Sure enough, she was at 10cm so we got ready to push and the on-call Doctor was there.  The Doc examined through a few contractions and noted that Rachael's water seemed to be making it hard to get his head properly in the cervix, so we broke the water at about 4:00am. (can you believe that, 26 hrs of hard labor and the water hadn't broken!)

We pushed for about two hours, until Rachael was completely exhausted.  The doctor said his head still wasn't quite seated correctly, so the pushes weren't making incremental progress, but she was going back to square one each time.  With mom exhausted, we weren't entirely sure what to do.  The plan we hit on was to give her an epidural to allow her to rest between the contractions as well as relax some of the muscles in hopes of causing a re-alignment.  Hopefully once the head lined up, she would have some energy to push again.  

With the epidural she was able to snatch a few moments sleep at times, though she still had a lot of pain (a different pain, a sharp pain in each hip). It was very strange, with each contraction, I'd feel a sharp, sharp pain in the front of each hip. It might have been there with the contractions, but the pain of the contractions covered it? Who knows. It seemed to be giving her rest, but Samuel's heart rate was slowly descending.  First it came out of the green zone and settled at about 110, but then it slowed again to a new base at about 100.  That when the Dr talked to us and we agreed to go ahead with a C-section.  Because the epidural wasn't blocking the pain, she had to go under general anesthesia.  Samuel was born, healthy and crying strongly at 8:17.   8 lbs, 1 oz and 21 inches long.  

He's been doing well, clearing his lungs and passing lots of meconium.  Mom is also recovering well - she's gotten rid of the IV's and everything that came with the recovery from anesthesia.  Nothing but a mess of hospital bracelets now.  Samuel is also doing nicely - he's having a little trouble latching, but once he does, he seems to be a fairly good nurser thus far.  We'll be talking with the lactation consultant in a few hours to see what might be done to help him latch better.  

I'm having a hard time getting it through  my mind that baby has finally been born, he is before me, I'm nursing him, changing his diaper, talking to him, loving him and praying for him. Its beautiful, and I'm loving these moments. I let him fall asleep on me and waiting till he is totally out before putting him in the bassinet. No, a c-section was not what I had dreamed of, but it has all worked out okay. Baby is healthy, sleeping well, and is an aggressive nurser today. I've had amazing nurses who have cared for gently and kindly, a doctor who was willing to work with us to give me the opportunity to have what I wanted and has been gently encouraging me as I heal from what I didn't want (but at times the ends makes the means worth it). I am so blessed by friends who are rejoicing with me, a son who is already living up to his name (Isaac means laughter), and a Hubby who is so generous.

This has been one part of the continuing story of God's faithfulness and His good timing.

Such a technophille --  its the afternoon of having a c-section. I hold my new baby, hooked up to IVs  and ox-pulse monitor, etc, and yet I take time to check my email!