Friday, February 17, 2012

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Gavin's Birth Story

I figure its time for me to document Gavin’s birth story while all the events are still fresh in my mind, although its unlikely Ill ever forget the highlights! The day before, Monday, January 30th Jason went in to work; however I stayed home with my Mom. I was scheduled for induction the next day at 5am. We went and ran a bunch of errands and around early afternoon I started having contractions and lost my mucus plug. The contractions started coming pretty close together and I wasn’t sure Id make it through the night. Jason came home from work around 6 and Mom, Jason and I headed out to dinner at Mama’s pizza. I had plans to go home that evening and try and go to bed really early, 3:45am was going to come bright and early! I laid down around 8:15 but didn’t take my usual Tylenol PM to rest because I was nervous I was going to go into labor over night and didn’t want to be groggy. As it turned out, I should have taken the Tylenol PM, because I definitely didn’t go into labor that night. My plans of going to bed early were squashed as well; I was entirely too keyed up. It was closer to 11 before I went to bed.

My alarm went off at 3:45 and I got up to call L&D to ensure they still had room for us to come in at 5am. Thankfully they did. I woke Jason up, we got dressed and loaded the car. We made it to the hospital right on time. We had to first stop by the registration desk and it took about 15 mins to finish up the paperwork. I was shocked to find out that they were asking us to pay before I had even been set up in a room!!!

Made it up to L&D and immediately there were 3 nurses that descended on our room. One was setting up my IV, the other was taking my blood and the 3rd was asking me loads of questions. I took a full bag of saline and the pitocin was started. I wasn’t contracting at that point. They also checked my cervix at this point and I was still dilated to only a 2 even after a week had passed since my last appointment. Should have known that was a bad sign.

Dr. Seligman came in bright and early around 7am to break my water and at this point the contractions started coming every 5-6 mins or so; however they weren’t anywhere near unbearable. My Mom arrived around 7:30 and brought Jason Whataburger breakfast. Dr. S was scheduled to do a surgery that morning from 8:45-11 so he asked the nurse to take my pitocin up very slowly. Should have recognized that was the 2nd bad sign. Around mid-morning the contractions started coming every 3-3:30 mins and around 11 I signaled that I was ready for my epidural. I didn’t end up getting it until about 1 so I labored for quite some time in significant pain. I was also experiencing a lot of back labor. However, the anesthesiologist was terrific and I was quickly out of pain and in great spirits. Aaahh, the glory of drugs.

The nurses were awesome the entire day and I ate my fair share of sugar free popsicles throughout the afternoon. Early afternoon I progressed to 4 ½ cm; however that was the last significant progress Id make until early evening. Late afternoon they decided to change my position and rolled me to one side and propped one of my legs up in a stirrup. They were hoping this would move Gavin down the birth canal. The position was surprisingly comfortable and that was the first rest I got all day. Ally, Jim, Jordan and Ashley were all there with us for most of the day. I was nervous about how I would handle the company, but it proved to be a great distraction. After the position change I did progress to 7 1/2cm.

By early evening Jason began getting very antsy by the amount of time Id been in labor and everyone started to get a bit on edge. Finally around 6pm they checked me again and I had made no further progress from 7 ½ so they said that Dr. S had gone home to have dinner but that he was only giving me 1 ½ more hours to make it to 10 before we had to start discussing a csection. At this point we were open to anything that would get Gavin hear safely. Dr. S showed up around 7, asked Jason to come back to the room and proceeded to tell us that he thought it was highly unlikely that Id be able to birth Gavin naturally. They were starting to see his heart rate dip in time with my contractions and they felt that this was because he was trying to move down the birth canal when I contracted but for whatever reason, was unable to. We trusted Dr. Seligman implicitly and quickly made the decision to take him via csection. Once the decision was made, everything moved quickly.

My room filled with nurses prepping me for surgery and we said our goodbyes to everyone before they wheeled me down the hall to the OR. Dr. Seligman gave Jason photography instructions outside the OR while they prepped me. Once I was prepped and ready, Jason was allowed back in. I remember Jason kept repeating over and over that I needed to breathe. I was so nervous! I just wanted our boy here safe and sound. It seemed like an eternity but between the decision to proceed with a csection and Gavin being delivered was only 1 hour. Dr. Seligman delivered Gavin at 8:01pm after over 14 hours of labor. I immediately heard him cry and felt a sudden surge of relief. I didn’t cry at first, actually I didn’t cry until I saw him and his head full of dark hair. I even exclaimed to Jason about his head full of hair. It was a subject we had discussed a lot over the last several months. I desperately wanted him to look like Jason and I definitely got my wish. In fact, I can’t identify a single feature that he might have gotten from me. LOL! Oh well! Jason and Gavin left the operating room pretty quickly so that he could be moved to the nursery and they could finish cleaning me up. It wouldn’t be until 11:45pm that I was able to hold or nurse him. Long day, long night but oh so worth it. He was healthy (9 out of 10 on the Apgar), perfect and of course we immediately fell in love! Our little miracle had finally arrived after a long journey!

Ill follow up later with more details on our extended hospital stay.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Pictures of Gavin's First Two Weeks!

Ill be back later with his birth story and pictures from his birth and first few days but in the mean-time Ill leave you with a few of my favorites from the first few weeks.