|
On Wednesday, the 27th, Michael and I met with Dr. Calabrese to discuss a possible induction. Dr. C didn’t want to do anything since I was not experiencing anything that deemed it medically necessary to induce. Once I reminded him that each baby got bigger by one pound, he found his medical necessity. He called the hospital and scheduled me to go in on 12/29 at 5am to start the induction process. After he hung up he said, “Now, 80% of the time when I schedule an induction it means that I’ll deliver the baby tonight or tomorrow.” We laughed and told him we’d probably see him tomorrow!
That very next morning at 7:15am, I woke up to go pee and before I got out of the bed I felt a *pop*. I thought to myself that maybe that was the popping sound that mothers hear when their water is about to break. Sure enough, when I got up I felt water flowing and I knew I wasn’t peeing. I got to the toilet as quickly as possible and when I did I had a HUGE gush of fluid. I waited a few minutes before grabbing a towel to put between my legs and went to tell Michael what happened. I’ll never forget how his eyes pinged open brightly when I said, “My water just broke!”
The kids woke up, we told them what happened, I showered, and called down to my mom to tell her, too. Shortly thereafter we headed to the hospital but not before stopping for coffee and a bagel (There’s always time for Tim Horton’s). I knew they wouldn’t feed me anything and I needed some kind of energy. We got to the hospital at about 8:45am and I’d had a couple contractions but nothing worse than any of the braxton hicks that I’d been having for weeks. I was sent to Room 1, given a gown and I quickly got undressed and settled. A couple nurses came in and got some information from me. One nurse, Christine, asked me about pain meds and I told her that I would not be having any. Just at that time another nurse walked in and they began to fight over me.
“She’s my kind of birth.”
“No, she’s my kind of birth.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at them. Christine won and she became my labor nurse. She was great, too. Very sweet, thorough and funny. She fit our bill, for sure. Dr. Calabrese came in around 9:40am and we all laughed about the event and how I didn’t make it to the induction. He instructed Christine to call him when I hit 8-9cm because he needed to go to the office and did NOT want to miss our baby being born.
I had contractions, sporadically, and upon an internal exam by the labor & delivery midwife (Jessie) it was determined that I was 5-6cm dialated. At 12:30pm my pitocin drip was upped to 4 and my contractions started to pick up. I started to alternate from left to right, hoping that it would do something and for sure my contractions intensified. They got to about 3 minutes apart, then 2 and then they were about a minute-and-a-half apart and VERY intense. I counted and breathed right through them and tried to focus the pain away. They were pretty painful and I began to sweat and tremble. I was in active labor!
Jessie checked me again at around 1:45pm (those cervix checks are not fun, at all) and I was 8-9cm dialated. Dr. Calabrese was called and he told them that he was on his way. At this point I felt the need to pee, and in between contractions I got up and made my way to the bathroom. I sat down, had a horrible contraction, peed, and got up to have another contraction. I made my way to the bed and sat down on the edge. I didn’t want to lie back down b/c I just felt better sitting up and then another contraction came. With this one I wanted to push; I wanted to push sooooo badly and Jessie told me to do so. I pushed and when the contraction was over, I lied back down. Dr. C came in and examined me (OUCHIE) and told me I was fully dialated and that he wanted me to push with every contraction from that point b/c the baby had a way to come down (this was at about 2:20-2:25pm).
The pushing was really hard. I felt like I was getting no where and at one point looked at Michael and said, “I just want to be done.”
In this time I also got a new labor nurse. Her name was Shannen and she was great! I was so grateful to have her, Jessie, and Michael there with me during the pushing. They were awesome.
With every contraction I pushed, they pulled my legs back, I pushed, Dr. C massaged my perenium and I pushed some more. Dr. Calabrese then left the room b/c he felt that I would get further without him there. His exact words, “I leave the room and a few minutes later get called back frantically b/c the baby’s right there!”
I pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and cried and pushed and cried some more. Finally, I could feel that the baby was there and asked Jessie if she could see his head and she could. All the while she was doing some pereneal massage, too. Dr. Calabrese was still not in the room and then they quickly got him in b/c within the next couple pushes the baby would be out. He took his sweet-ole-time getting his gown and gloves on and I felt the need to push.
“I HAVE TO PUSH!”
“Don’t push, honey, the baby’s right there and will go into the garbage can. Blow it away. Don’t Push!”
“I HAVE TO PUSH!”
[everyone in the room] “DO NOT PUSH!”
Finally, Dr. C got to me and I pushed two or three times and out came this beautiful baby boy of ours. Oh My God. Instant relief. He was on his back, on my stomach and Michael says that as soon as he came out he opened his eyes and looked around at everyone. He made it to the party we were having for him!!! *giggle* I could do nothing more than stroke his head and exclaim “Thank You God, thank you God, thank you, God!!”
They took him over to get cleaned up and weighed and everyone was clammering about how big he was. They got him on the scale and everyone was in shock. ELEVEN POUNDS THIRTEEN POINT NINE OUNCES. Holy big boy, batman! He was wrapped up and all the vitals were taken. He scored 9/9 on the apgars but it was feared that his glucose level was low because of his size. We decided that his name would be “David Alexander”. Dr. Calabrese thought we should call him “Goliath” instead.
After Dr. C was done with delivering the placenta and giving me one stich on the minor tear that I had, David was given to me to hold and I just couldn’t believe how much he looked like Mikey when he was born. He was alert and when he heard my voice, I’ll never forget the way he looked at me. Ahhh…..another sweet baby to love..
David Alexander Lane
December 28, 2006
3:21pm
11lbs 13.9oz
21.25″ long
Davey had to spend six days in the Special Care Nursery.
1) Hypoglycemia due to size which was remedied by giving him an IV w/ fluid/sugar and monitoring his levels. Once he was weaned off the IV he had to have three good readings on his own.
2) Jaundice. Remedied by phototherapy.
3) Desaturization of O2 coupled with higher respitory rate. Had a chest x-ray and echocardiogram only to find out that he had some excess fluid in his lungs and that the are a tad small for his big body. Nothing to worry about and totally over needing oxygen therapy.
4) Decreased urine output. He had a rough 24 hours with the previous one so he didn't eat as much which caused low urine output. Still, they did an ultrasound on his kidneys and ran metabolic tests. All of which came back normal and in the clear.
Sooooooooo.. basically, he just had a few issues with being so big, at birth, but they are all resolved and he's home with us, healthy and happy!!
Oh and to top it all off...5) He was circumsized.



|