OK so I'm only two weeks late to this but oh well, better late than never, right? On Tuesday August 6 at 2:02 pm we welcomed our precious baby boy, Finley Patrick, into the world, all 7 lbs 13 oz and 19.75 inches of him! It was a pretty dramatic entry but he's a pretty dramatic little guy, Ellis says he gets that from me :o) I wanted to post the birth story so that I have it documented somewhere so if it's not your cup of tea, feel free to skip ahead to some ridiculously cute pictures!
On Monday night (8/5) Ellis and I went for a walk after dinner, trying to get this baby out, and to run some errands. On the way home I noticed my vision was a little weird. That went on for about 10 minutes and then went away but then my hand went numb for a few minutes and then my tongue. I wasn't too concerned because this had happened before when I learned I get migraines with auras. But for the sake of being careful, since I was 2 days past due, we checked my blood pressure, which was slightly high for me but not concerning. Either way we went into L&D just to make sure all was well. We got there about 10:30 pm and I was hooked up and monitored for about 2 hours with nothing out of the average. At one point the nurse came in and asked how I was doing with the contractions, my response "I'm having contractions?". Apparently they were 4-5 minutes apart, but I never felt a thing. Once they deemed me healthy and ready to leave they decided to check my amniotic fluid levels since I was past due. Turns out fluid was pretty low, so after checking my progress (2-3 cm and 50% dilated) and consulting with the doctor on call, they decided to admit me and induce. I've never seen Ellis smile so big, poor guy was ready to meet this baby!
So at 1 am they moved me to a room and at 2 they started Pitocin. After a few hours my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and I still felt nothing, it was looking like my no epidural plan might actually work. At this point the only real issue was his heart rate kept falling so they had to dial back the meds to give him a break between contractions. Then came 7 am. They came to check my progress and there was a lot of blood, they said nothing worrisome just a little more than expected. Then 7:30, it got worrisome with a lot of clotting. I had a low lying placenta so we knew this was a possibility but after another ultrasound they said the placenta was more than out of the way (turns out all the bleeding was from it pulling away from the uterus). At this point the doctor came in to 'talk', which meant an extra IV for me (in case I needed a transfusion) and an epidural (in the likely event of an emergency c-section). About 10 am they decided to break my water to get things moving, except when they ruptured the membrane there was no fluid...poor little guy was in there with nothing. At this point they started pumping fluid in to wash out the blood and get him stabilized in there. At this point I was only about 4 cm. I spent the next few hours on my left side to keep him stable, with an oxygen mask on, and only a half a working epidural (thanks to laying on my left side). Finally at 12:45 they checked me again and I was at a 9.5 and almost ready to push! Again, BIG grin on Ellis' face, I had to reality check him that I could easily push for a few hours before we were done. Thankfully by 1:30 pm the pressure was WAY too much to handle and they let me start. I was only allowed to push every other contraction because his heart rate was still not stabilized (which was NO fun, I never believed those women who said they couldn't stop pushing but man do I now!). Finally after 30 mins of pushing and screaming I couldn't do it anymore we had our sweet boy at 2:02 pm. Ellis cried, I didn't (I blame exhaustion).
Unfortunately, after delivering the placenta I was bleeding again, a lot. And yet again the talk of transfusion came up. It took them about an hour to get it stopped, apparently my uterus didn't want to contract enough to stop the bleeding from delivery. I spent another 12 hours in L&D hooked up to IV fluids trying to get my blood levels up enough to release me to the maternity room. During this time the first doctor I had the night before came in (all the doctors were on rotation so she wasn't there for the delivery) and said that she was shocked to see that I had delivered vaginally, she had given me an 85% chance of c-section given all the bleeding and his heart rate issues.
After getting super excited to get this little man home, we were told that he had a mild case of jaundice, nothing major but enough that they wanted to keep him overnight under the UV lights to take care of it. Unfortunately, they only allow one parent to stay overnight in the pediatric unit. So began a very long and exhausting mommy/son night. He wasn't eating very well and therefore, wasn't sleeping very well, which meant a very fussy little man. Especially since he had to keep a ridiculous looking head piece and eye wear on all night. Thankfully, he kicked that jaundice and we were able to bring him home the next day!
Now, for those ridiculously cute pictures:
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| Our poor little blue smurf baby under the bili lights |
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| Welcome home sweet Finley!! |
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