This Loved Life: Barrett is born!

A very detailed birth story for those interested:

Because Barrett was late, we made an appointment for induction on Monday, December 21. At my final appointment the previous Tuesday, the doctor only gave me a 10% chance of going into labor naturally before the induction, which was quite discouraging. I was not effaced or dilated whatsoever.

We arrived at the hospital at 6pm and they quickly got things started, with blood work, IV insertion, heart rate monitors, etc. The nurse started the cervadil at around 7pm. At that point, I couldn’t eat or drink for one hour and couldn’t get out of bed for two hours. Tim ran out to bring back Potbellys and I had a turkey sandwich and oreo milkshake for my final pre-baby meal. We spent the night watching tv and I took an ambien to make sure I got a good night’s sleep, to make sure I was rested for the big day the next day!

I awoke at 7am Tuesday and quickly took a shower before the cervadil was removed and the pitocin was started at 8am. I felt very small contractions through the morning. My parents arrived around noon, Jennifer arrived mid-afternoon, and Tim's parents stopped by in the evening. Jennifer couldn’t stay long, though, because Jack and Grant were with them and children weren’t allowed in the hospital due to flu season being in full force. At the early afternoon check, I was still barely dilated and was 50% effaced. The baby was still very high. We were told that if at 5pm nothing had still happened, we would have a choice of either a c-section or another night of cervadil to try to start things naturally and encourage the baby to drop. We chose another night of cervadil. I continued to feel strengthening contractions through the afternoon as the pitocin became stronger and stronger, eventually finalizing at 22.

That wasn’t to be, however, because at around 4:40pm, my water broke! I felt a slight trickle at first, stood up, and fluid started gushing out. Tim got the nurse, who came back in the room, verified that it was my water, and had me lay back down. I wasn’t able to get up and walk around, because the baby was still up so high, there was concern about cord prolapse. I was 2cm dilated and 50% effaced at this point. Progress happening at last!

After my water broke, the contractions became much more intense. I held Tim’s hand through them. I had really wanted to have a natural birth, but knew it’d be very difficult with the addition of pitocin. The contracts became horribly painful. At times, there didn’t seem to be an end to them, they grew and I’d have one right after another without an end to the initial contraction. I could handle one at a time, but couldn’t handle the five at a time without a break in the middle. At around 9pm, the contractions became too strong for me to take anymore. I asked the nurse for an epidural. The anesthesiologist was busy with other women before me and I wasn’t able to get the epidural until after 10. WOW. I had heard that it didn’t hurt to get it, but it definitely did hurt. But after it kicked in, I felt a million times better. I still could feel the contractions, but they were like the mid-afternoon contractions, slight pressure, instead of the horrible, torturous ones I’d been feeling. Once the epidural was in and the nurse inserted the catheter, she finally checked my progress. We all thought I’d be around 5cm dilated or so, so imagine my shock when I was still only 2cm! My response: “This is a joke, right? I’m on candid camera, right?” How could I possibly still only be 2cm dilated!! The “good” news was that I was 75% effaced, but that was little consolation. The doctor came in and talked to us about our decisions. She said that we could keep going with the contractions and see if anything were to happen. But she recommended a cesarean section. She said both she and the previous doctor thought my pelvis was small and thought the baby would be on the larger side. Tim and I talked it over. I really hadn’t wanted a c-section. I wanted to do everything I could to avoid one. But at this point, after being 11 days past my due-date already, with such little progress after so much intervention, I knew that things weren’t going our way and didn’t think another few hours of labor were going to help. Tim and I decided to go ahead with the c-section.

The nurses prepped me, put compression socks on, etc and they wheeled me into the operating room around 11:30 or so. The room was freezing! We ended up waiting another 30 minutes or so for the anesthesiologist, who had been paged to the ER. I was nervous the entire time in the operating room and was very scared. I was trembling a lot, partially the cold temperature, partially the anesthesia and partially because I was terrified. The nurses tried to keep me occupied and made predictions on the size of the baby, they guessed around upper 7lbs. Finally, the anesthesiologist returned, got the medicine pumping and we began around midnight. Tim finally joined me in the room, decked in his gear and held my hand the entire time. I could feel the pressure as they cut, stretched and pulled me. He had been residing in my left side all of my pregnancy and since he was still so high, they had to stretch and pull quite a bit to get him out. They told us he had quite a bit of hair and it made me so happy to hear they could see our precious little guy! It only took a few minutes to hear his little cries, as they lifted him out of me. It was the sweetest sound in the world!

He was 7lbs, 1oz and 19 1/2" long at birth. A whole lot smaller than anyone expected. I guess he knew what he was doing by cooking a few extra days!

We spent the next few days in the hospital, including Christmas Day. We headed home on Dec 26 and have been adjusting and recovering since!

Huge and ready to go!