>Well, here I am blogging from the hospital. I figured it would be best for me to do so while I can remember everything the freshest. So here goes.
The whole time I was pregnant with Oscar, I’ve seen my doctor on Thursdays; Jeff and I decided out of the day of the week, that was the best day for us. So of course, I had an appointment on April 14th. I went in, and I was weighed, which I guess is my final pregnancy weight.. 141 pounds. Since I was 113 pre-pregnancy, that leaves my total weight gain at 28. That day, Jeff and the girls were with me. So, during my checkup, I had mentioned that Oscar’s movements were not as frequent as they normally had been.. for the duration of the pregnancy he was extremely active; I could feel him constantly waving his arms around as well as kicking his feet, and occasionally he’d pivot from his favorite position with his back on my left side and occasionally roll around to the middle, but he’d always go back. Obviously this is a sign of concern, so Dr J went ahead and finished checking me.. I was showing sizewise about 38 weeks and 5 days, and then she checked my cervix, which had gone to 4 cm and still quite thick, and of course Oscar’s heart rate which was fine. During the examination, I had been having contractions that were apparently obvious to her trained eye.
Due to his decrease in activity, which has been occurring sometime in the last few days prior to him being born, she had one of her nurses set me up on the heart rate monitor they have in office for about 20-30 minutes. While she was initially setting me up, I was having another contraction, which caused her to have to wait until it was over to properly set it up. And of course, in the time I was hooked up, I had probably 6 or so contractions. We had initially decided to do an elective induction slated for Wednesday the 20th , since while I have been able to tolerate the pain, I’ve been increasingly getting ornery and it wasn’t good. I had ambitions of having an all natural labor and delivery, but my changes in temperament was overriding any benefit from holding out hoping for natural delivery. So of course after being on the monitor, and seeing what was happening, she decided that it might just be better for me to just go down and get admitted to labor and delivery that day instead. She called down and then told us she’d be down to break my water before heading home. The admission occurred roughtly a bit after 5 pm.
She came down and was able to break my water a bit after 6, and noted that I had some minimal progress to 4 plus, which I guess means that I was almost to 5 cm. Since there was another mama having a C-section, the anesthesiologist was not available to give me an epidural until after she had sufficiently recovered. During the wait, I realized there wasn’t any way I was going to be able to labor naturally, because with every contraction, my uterus was putting pressure on the underside of the right side of my rib cage, which was pushing out and causing the pain to wrap around the middle of my back. Even now barely 25 hours after birth, my ribs are still VERY sore, and probably will be sore for quite some time.
Anyhoo, I was finally able to get my epidural sometime around 8:35 to 8:50; I only know the time because I was watching Bones, and I was able to gauge the time based on plot progression. I sort of missed the entire last half of the show; so I’m going to have to catch up on it later via Hulu… but that’s not really relevant, haha. After getting my epidural, the nurse -who was pretty awesome- checked me and I had progressed to a 5, so on came the pictocin, that probably came around quarter after nine. The nurse speculated that I would probably end up having Oscar after midnight, since I wasn’t progressing very quickly. And man, I was feeling the contractions VERY strongly at that point. There was super intense contracting going right above my pelvic bone as well as vaginally. We had to boost the epidural twice, and even after it had taken full effect, I was still feeling the contractions.
Anyway, since Jeff’s parents and youngest sister had showed up to wait it out for us, and the girls were getting really bored and restless -not to mention the c-section Mama had complained about the noise the girls were making, and we felt kind of bad for her- we all felt it was best that they go home with Shayla, and they could come back after Oscar was born. I was somewhat puzzled that Shayla wanted to come, but it ended up working out very well; thankfully we live super close! So while Jeff was gone, I was able to have a really nice chat with John and Wendy, and then Jeff got back probably sometime around 10:30ish. Just seconds after he got back, the nurse came in to check on me, and of course to check on my progress. Her face went from the ‘clinical professionalism’ to complete and utter bewilderment. I thought it was very odd, and then she said “Um. You’re fully dilated and effaced.” to which there was a collective “What?” and she said “You are ten centimeters dilated and you’re completely thinned out. I’m gonna go and call Dr J to let her know so she can come up.” We waited for about 15 minutes, during which time some additional nurses came in and set everything up; and of course there was a nurse from the nursery as well for Oscar on hand. Of course there was an air of shock, since I had been on the pictocin only for an hour and fifteen minutes, and I was able to progress THAT quickly. For some reason also, I could feel my emotions starting to shut down a bit -not negatively of course!- and I kind of entered this weird state of calmness and serenity, and I sort of felt an inward turn of focus. I felt almost detached, but at the same time very wrapped up in the moment. I have to admit, it was a very odd state to be in.. I guess that’s when my birthing instincts really kicked in! I had at least three or so contractions, and I could feel Oscar moving out just a bit each time.
Once Dr J got here, I was obviously ready to push! While I was pushing, we were all speculating how big he was going to be; she guessed on the smaller side, and asked how big the girls were (7lbs 6oz) so we were speculating he was going to be about the same size. After about 4 pushes, he was out! He was placed on my belly, and the first thing I noticed was he had a head full of THICK hair. And that it was black. The next thing I noticed was he was actually pretty hefty and solid. After the cord was cut, they took him over to get looked at by the nursery nurse. And that’s when we were hit with a big shocker.
He was 8 lbs, 9 oz!
I don’t think anyone in the room was expecting him to be that big.. I know I would NEVER expect that in a million years. Jeff and I were under the impression just based on the fact that the girls were the exact same length and weight, I had some sort of maximum capacity limit, and we were expecting him to be around that same weight range. I always thought that for my 4’11” height, and extremely petite frame, that I was only going to be able to carry a baby that was around seven and a half pounds.. considering that’s about average, I was totally content and perfectly fine with that. A lot of people are usually shocked that the girls were as big as they were, and that I was able to carry them to full term on top of that. I should mention that he was also 20.5″ long as well, so he was slightly longer than the girls were.
And the most amazing thing of all? I didn’t tear. I tore and required an episiodomy with both girls, but not with Oscar. Funny how things work out like that sometimes.
Sorry the post has no pictures; Jeff’s been taking home the camera, so any good pictures we’ve taken I currently don’t have access to. I’m so glad that I didn’t have to wait until next Wednesday either; I don’t want to know how much bigger he would have been.. I know for sure over nine pounds.
And I guess I’m going to have to change the blog name now too that he’s here; however that can wait.