The Story of the Birth, Part 2
Mommy May 19th, 2006
…So Tuesday morning wore on and there was still no progress, despite the water being broken. So the doctors offered to "move things along" with a pitocin drip to induce stronger contractions. Mommy was scared that pitocin-induced contractions would be painful, so she opted to have an epidural placed about the same time.
After the epidural was placed, Mommy started feeling really funny, and it was discovered that her blood pressure was about 70/30. That’s a scary feeling! She was given drugs and fluids to raise it back up. Apparently, this is not an uncommon occurrence when epidurals are placed, but it was annoying 3 days later when the 2 bags of fluid that were pushed through the IV showed up in Mommy’s legs & feet!
Mommy was feeling pretty good most of Tuesday afternoon after the epidural stabilized, and so we waited some more.
At dinnertime, Mommy was really hungry, but she was restricted to a clear liquid diet, so she ordered a "feast" of vegetable broth, jello, juice, and lemon ice. Unfortunately, it all came back up even faster than it went down! But the nurses and doctors said this was a good sign that labor was progressing.
As the contractions started to get stronger, the epidural medicine had to be slowed down so Mommy would be able to push. That made quite a difference in Mommy’s comfort level! Finally, about 10:00 pm Mommy announced that she was feeling the urge to push. So she started pushing…
…and pushing…
…and pushing…
…And when she thought she couldn’t possibly push again, she heard the doctor mention the possibility of a C-section, so she pushed some more!
And finally, at 12:44 am on Wednesday, May 10, Alex arrived!
As you might be able to tell from the pictures, Mommy felt very good and relaxed once she saw her precious baby. But soon things got difficult again. Alex was breathing fast right after the breath, so the first breastfeeding attempt had to be postponed. Then when it was time to try, Alex wasn’t interested, and Mommy almost reached her wit’s end trying to get him to eat before he was 12 hours old (because it’s a rule that baby’s have to eat in the first 12 hours). She finally had to give in and pump the colostrum out to feed him from a bottle.
Since feeding got off to a slow start, we stayed at the hospital until Friday morning, and by then we were ready to leave and get on with Alex’s first week at home. Stay tuned for pictures from that first week!
- Birthday
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