Where to Begin?--Birth Story!!

I know it’s been a while but I really don’t even know where to begin, as you can imagine the past few weeks have been filled with the most life altering experiences I’ve ever encountered, every second of my day is filled with making sure Rob’s needs are met. Showers, phone calls, hot meals and makeup are all luxuries and take a backseat to feedings, diaper changes and pediatrician appointments. Rob’s naptime is my new happy hour! It is the best hard work you could ever imagine, without sounding like a major cheeseball, I love him more than I could have ever, ever imagined; he makes me so happy my heart hurts; it really is an unexplainable type of love. The minute I saw him I new I would die for him and I would do anything in my power to never let anything bad happen to him … with that being said, the first few nights were ROUGH!!! No matter how much you love your baby, it is still the biggest life adjustment you will ever experience! I breastfed through tears at first (we now have the hang of it but NO ONE told me how hard it was going to be!!!) I remember sitting in the rocking chair in the nursery the first night home, Rob was crying inconsolably, I was crying because I couldn’t soothe my baby and I remember thinking: “What am I doing?!? He might be an only child because I’m the worst Mom ever; I can’t even comfort my baby!” Even though that was only a few weeks ago, I can look back on that and laugh because every night gets so much easier and every day brings new challenges but also new blessings.

Enough rambling! I guess I need to start with Rob’s birth story:

My due date was August 21st and of course the date had come and gone with no signs of my little one wanting to budge so finally after much urging from my doctor, I agreed to a scheduled induction on Sunday, August 29th at 9 pm. I knew it was going to be a long road; I wasn’t dilated or effaced at all and he was still basically up in my ribcage. I had prepared myself to be in for the long haul … call it Mother’s Intuition already kicking in but I knew it was going to be a long process with an extremely high probability of the labor ending in a c section. When I arrived at the hospital (Methodist in the Medical Center), I was of course a little nervous but was quickly greeted by the sweetest nursing staff you could imagine. We got set up in our room (where we would be for the next WEEK) and they started the basic IV fluids – which would later make me more swollen than a stuffed hog. At about 10 pm they gave me the first dose of Cytotec orally; it’s a pill used to help start contractions and soften the cervix. I did start having some mild contractions, nothing too painful but definitely more noticeable than Braxton Hicks. At 3:30 am Monday morning I was dilated 1cm and about 30% effaced, not monumental progress but it was better than nothing! So then they gave me round 2 of cytotec and an Ambien so I could sleep and was I GLAD I got some sleep, it was the last night of semi-good sleep I’ve had since!

At 10 am Monday morning the nurse came in and started the Devil Water (DW), or more commonly known as Pitocin. (It’s an artificial version of the hormone Oxytocin that your body produces naturally when you’re in labor.) The Cytotec managed to help me dilate to 2cm and 40% effaced but now it was time to bring out the big guns. At first the DW started off on the lowest possible amount dripping into my IV, no big deal; I got up put on makeup, was checking email and facebook, talking on the phone, etc. But as the day wore on they upped the dosage every 15 minutes and before I knew it I was gripping the bed rails. I thought the pain was bad, but I had no idea what the next day would bring… my water had yet to be broken! So Tuesday morning rolls around and my doctor is like “okay, we have to get this show on the road, we need to have this baby today” so she broke my water at 5 am on Tuesday. Uh muh guhd. OUCH!!!!!! Whatever I thought were contractions before this point were a trip to the petting zoo compared to this. A lot of people say contractions feel like extremely painful menstral cramps, I just don’t see it. The only thing this had in common with those cramps was that the pain was in the same region. It literally felt like someone was ripping out my insides (sorry if that’s too graphic, there’s no other way to explain it!) It was unbelievable – so I had these contractions ALL DAY on Tuesday and didn’t opt for any IV pain meds until about 5:30 pm that evening (stupid), at 6 the doctor checked me and I was 4 cm and 60% effaced, she looked at me in agony and she said “Callie, I’m giving you two more hours and then we are going to have to do a C section.” At this point, any rationally thinking person would have said to themselves: “self, I’ve been in labor for almost 2 days and I’m dilated to a 4, she’s giving me 2 hours to get to a 10, lets’ just go ahead and get this over with” but me being stubborn, sleep deprived and now feeling the effects of the nubane coursing through my veins, I thought….maybe somehow I will just magically dilate to a 10 in two hours!!! Needless to say, that was two more hours of torture I could have done without and at 8pm the doctor started to prep me for a c section. First, she called in the anesthesiologist (at this point I wanted to name my son after her for putting me out of my misery) let me tell you …. GET THE EPIDURAL AS SOON AS YOU CAN!! I didn’t get it until 40 minutes before my son was born and after I did get it, I could have run a marathon while in labor simultaneously. Get the epidural.

So they wheeled me into the OR and Rob was out in about 15 to 20 minutes, pink, puffy and crying. That cry was like music to my ears, I had waited for an eternity to see him, hear him hold him and now it was happening I just couldn’t believe it! Here he was, after being 10 days late and enduring 46 hours of labor, he was born on August 31st at 8:44 pm weighing 8lbs, 3ozs, 20 ¾ inches long. He scored a 9 out of 10 on his APGAR test (already making me a proud Mama by acing tests) and as soon as we were back in my room I was holding him on my chest and he lifted his head up to look at me, turned it to the right and to the left and put it back down on my chest. He was just a FEW HOURS OLD!!! That is a milestone that a lot of babies don’t accomplish for a few WEEKS!! All the nurses, doctors and the pediatrician kept talking about how remarkable his head control was! Okay, sorry I’ll stop bragging about my child now 

Everyone asks if the incision and recovery of the c section hurts. Honestly, I didn’t think it was bad at all. I was up out of the bed the next morning and walking the halls that afternoon. We left the hospital on Friday and I never even filled my prescription pain meds. I went back for my 2 week check up this past Tuesday so the doctor could look at my incision and it’s already healed.

So we are getting settled into a routine, doing great with exclusively breastfeeding and I’m learning what all of his different cries mean. Now that’s not to say we don’t still have rough nights but more often than not he’s sleeping some good three and four hour stretches at night which is pure BLISS!! I will try and write more often but as you know, everything takes a backseat to my baby Rob right now : )