Aidan's birthday story

Here you go.  FYI - it's long.

Wednesday (3/9/2011)

This was the first day I was starting to work from home the rest of the pregnancy.  It was so nice.  Hope went to MIL's house and I had the house to myself.  I got what I needed to done for work and was even able to do my 3 mile run on the treadmill (approx. 32 minutes).  It was raining so I couldn’t run outside.  It was a pretty good feeling run though.  It was a little hard to get motivated, but once I got on there, I knew I could do it.  I also packed a hospital bag for baby and me.  I picked Hope up at 4:30pm and headed home to make dinner.  Again, around 7pm, contractions started.  I got back on the couch with Hope and started timing them.  I started writing them down again.  They started at 7 minutes apart, then 6 minutes apart.  Again, when Adam called to tell me that he was on his way home (around 7:45pm), I told him I was having contractions again.  I told him they weren’t painful at all, just some tightening again.  Adam came home and put Hope to bed for me.  The contractions started to get closer, about 6 minutes apart.  By the time we went to bed, they were 5 minutes apart according to my chicken scratch so I got my Timex out to measure how long they were lasting.  To my surprise they were about 1 minute apart.  Well contractions 5 minutes apart and lasting for 1 minute is kind of when you should call the doctor.  And Adam was insistent that I call.  I told him, they were not painful contractions and were probably not even dilating my cervix at all, but he insisted.  I called and to my surprise, my OB was on call.  I told her what was going on, and she asked if I wanted to come in and get checked out.  I told her no because they weren’t painful so I doubted I was progressing any.  She said ok, but if my water broke, I had to come in immediately because things could go very quickly.  After that, I tried to go to bed.  Adam, on the other hand, started freaking out.  He was not ready for baby.  He started adding to my hospital bag all of his stuff.  He was a man on a mission.  He was running around cursing and worrying.  It was 11 days before my due date and Adam was planning on me at least getting through the weekend.  He even snapped at me.  I said, hey, I am one having the contractions.  He apologized but wasn’t mentally or physically ready for the baby to come tonight.  Finally, he had enough packed up and got back into bed and put on in a movie for us to watch. 

Thursday (3/10/2011)

I woke up and still had some contractions, but still not painful.  Adam and I decided that I would take Hope to her Mother’s Morning Out Program, but that I would then take Hope’s car seat over to my mother-in-law’s along with Hope’s bag in case I went into real labor.  I had a doctor’s appointment at noon that day, so I went home and worked until my appt.  I wasn’t timing the contractions, but I know they weren’t getting closer together.  I think they were pretty far apart actually.  My OB (Dr. Sun) saw me and I told her I was still having some contractions but they were pretty far apart right now, but I was still having them.  Last week she checked me and I was ½ cm dilated and the baby was pretty far up.  Today she expected to see some progress.  She checked me and I was 3 cm and she suspected all that dilating came from last night’s contractions.  She also did a quick ultrasound and the baby’s head was still down and even turned the right way, head facing back.  She said I could go to the hospital or I could go home.  I said I wanted to go home mostly because the contractions were still not painful and at She said I could go home, but if my water broke I had to rush it to the hospital.  I said ok.  I called Adam and told him that Hope needed to stay with his mom, because we were probably going to have a baby today or tomorrow.  I had been progressing and the contractions were still around.  Actually while at the hospital, I got very nauseous and a few of the contractions were uncomfortable.  He asked if he should come home.  I told him no, that I would keep him updated, but until I was feeling the contractions, there was no need to do anything different.  He also had an important conference call at 2:30pm that I wanted him to take if he could.  So I was on my way home, not feeling well at this point, and thought, hey, this might be my last day being pregnant and I haven’t had any fast food all pregnancy, so I stopped at a combo fast food joint (Arby’s and Wendy’s).  I got a large frosty (chocolate) and a medium curly q fries.  I went home and ate those and got my laptop and went upstairs to my lay in my bed.  I continued to work and rested and started timing my contractions through an online calculator.  The contractions had slowed down to 6-7 minutes apart.  I started to lose my mucus plug at 1:20pm.  I called my sister Val and told her that if my water broke, she would probably have to leave work immediately and drive me to the hospital because Adam was too far away to leave work, come home, and then drive me to the hospital.  Well, Val was a little concerned about me being home alone, so she went ahead and left work and came over.  She hung out with me on the bed and watched me work.  The contractions were 6-7 minutes apart lasting about one minute but not painful.  Adam called before his conference call and I told him I was fine.  Around 4pm, I sat up instead of laying down and folded laundry.  My contractions jumped to 5 minutes apart.  Around 4:30pm, I decided that Adam’s call was over so I could start moving around more and see if it did anything for me contractions.  The bloody show started at 4:30pm.  I decided to take a shower and dry my hair.  My contractions were then 2-5 minutes apart, still lasting about one minute.  Adam called at 4:40pm and said that he either needed to come home or he would go to a function he was supposed to go to.  I told him the contractions were coming closer together, although not painful, so he should come home.  He got home around 5:10pm and got changed and started putting the last of the items into our bag.  He also wanted to get pictures of the nursery and pictures of me like we did before we had Hope.  Around 5:30pm, I stopped laughing during contractions and joking around and started feeling them.  I told Adam, we should plan to leave for the hospital at 6pm if this continued.  I had no idea how far along I was.  I had non-painful contractions all day and now they were started to get painful.  So in between contractions we took pictures and got things ready.  I wanted to change the sheets in the bedrooms so when we got home everything would be nice and clean.  I also put away all of the laundry (yeah).  Well at 6pm, we left for the hospital.  The contractions were mild to moderate, so the ride the hospital was fine.  I wasn’t in that much pain, so it was fine.  As I was calling my OB’s office to tell them I was on my way (my OB was on call again that night, double score), my OB called me to see how I was doing.  I told her I was on my way.  She said she would call the front desk and tell them I was on my way, have the nurse check me and then give her an update.  We got to the hospital and the contractions were getting stronger.  I got checked in relativity quickly and got to my room (D-1).  It was 6:50pm.  We got settled and got some paperwork out of the way before I was too uncomfortable.  I told her I didn’t want drugs and that I didn’t have an epidural when I had my daughter.  She did not have me sign the epi page.  She checked me and I was so hopeful.  Then she said, you are 3-4 cm dilated.  What???  I hadn’t progressed at all.  This was not good in my mind.  After one hour of contractions, I was dying.  I told Adam I might need the epi.  I was hurting so bad.  I asked the nurse to check me again because if I hadn’t made some decent progress, I was going to need some drugs.  I was dying.  She said they didn’t like to check patients very often because it could introduce bacteria.  I was annoyed!  I didn’t know this at the time, but Adam felt like he was failing as my coach because I was wanting drugs and he knew how important it was for me to go natural.  He got on his blackberry and googled labor and positions and breathing techniques (something that we had not revisited since having Hope.  He said, let’s change potions.  I thought I don’t care about changing positions, I am dying here.  He said “Let’s sit you up and lean on me when you have a contraction.  I will rub your back and listen to my breathing and repeat it.”  Well that next contraction was much more manageable and I immediately thought that it must have been a weaker contraction (I couldn’t see the monitor when I was sitting up. Adam encouraged me and told me how well I was doing and that when we got here, the contractions were only in the50’sand now they were in the80’s and I was doing great.  I was shaking like a leaf.

At 9:00pm, my OB, who was on call for the evening, came in to see how I was doing.  She knew I didn’t want drugs, but I told her I was in a lot of pain, the contractions were coming very close together, and I didn’t get much rest between them.  She asked if I wanted her to check me and I said “YES!”  She said that I was about at 5 cm.  In 2 hours, I have progress about 2 cm.  She asked if I wanted my water broken.  I said “NO!”  I told her I was afraid the contractions would come even harder and faster, but not really help me progress that much.  My OB said that she thought I would progress much faster if my water was broken.  She said that if I didn’t, then I could get the epi because I had to go through an entire bag of saline before I could have the epi anyway.  I said ok.  So at 9:05pm, my water was broken.  Not much came out, but what did come out had meconium in it.  I was shocked.  He was 10 days early, so I was surprised there was any meconium.  It wasn’t like he was 10 days late.  So that meant, we had to have a special time in the room when I delivered.  It also meant that he couldn’t be brought on my chest after I delivered him.  That really bummed me out.  I got to do that with Hope and I really felt like that was a big bonding moment for Hope and me.  One contraction later, my OB checked me again, and I was already 6 cm.  A few more contractions, again still sitting up leaning on Adam and him rubbing my back, and my OB checked again, and I was 7-8 cm.  I was progressing fast.  Thank goodness!  Adam was helping me with my breathing too.  I had to start my deep breathing before the contraction was painful to really focus or I wasn’t going to get through it.  That was the nice thing about having no drugs.  I could feel the contraction coming on before the monitors picked it up, so I could tell Adam that I needed him and he could come over and take his position.  He didn’t have to wait for a monitor to tell him anything.  He just listened to me.  He told me to focus on something.  He said for him it would be palm trees like the ones in Hawaii (Hawaii is our favorite place in the world).  I tried to do that, but I was having real trouble with the whole focus point.  I was focusing on Adam’s green shirt instead.  I did notice that my OB had put on some.  All of a sudden during one contraction, I felt the urge to push.  She checked me and said all I had left was a little lip but she thought she could get the baby around it.  I started to move around to get in position during the next contraction as everyone rushed in and they were changing the bed around to put the stirrups in and as a contraction started I asked if I could push.  My OB said yes, so as they are changing the bed, setting up the baby station, etc. I started to push halfway through the contraction.  As the contraction finished, my doctor said, he’s right there, I can see his head.  I replied “I know.”  I could feel his head had come way down and was right there.  I told everyone that the next contraction was coming.  No one was holding my feet or anything.  There was no counting to 10.  I just bared down and pushed as hard as I could.  It took the entire contraction, but with it, my little boy was delivered at 9:44pm (40 minutes after my OB broke my water and just over 4 hours after contractions really started).  At first glance, I thought he looks smaller than I had expected.  Adam had the camera ready and was getting pictures immediately and gushing over his son.  FYI – I got no love from anyone.  My OB quickly suctioned him out and asked Adam he wanted to cut the cord.  Of course Adam did and then my son was whisked away over to the baby station.  He was already crying.  He was crying loud which sounded so good to my ears.  Adam went over there to take pictures and check on our son.  I was now freezing, shaking more, and needed to be fixed up.  All of sudden, I start hearing that my son (who still has no name yet) isn’t holding his oxygen levels and is requiring O₂.  Are you serious???  I had gone most of the pregnancy with minimal problems, he has to be ok.  Finally it was decided that our little boy was going to need to go to the NICU.  I wanted to cry.  They hadn’t done any of his measurements, given him a bath or anything.  They wrapped him up and brought him over to me.  They let me hold him for about 30 seconds.  I looked into his eyes and started talking.  He finally stopped crying.  I told him to be good and I would see him later.  They put him in the incubator and took him away from me again.  I told Adam I was fine and that he needed to go with our son and make sure everything would be ok and give me updates since I was still being fixed up.  I think Adam finally gave me a kiss and he went up.  I texted our families that our son was here.  They immediately got in the car, but I told them he was in the NICU and who knew if they would see him.  Adam called and said he was doing better and they had done his stats.  His apgars were 8 and 8.  He weighed 6lb. 5oz., 19 ¼ inches long, head circum. was 12 ½ inches, and chest was 12 ¼ inches.  He was 5oz. smaller than Hope.  I was surprised.  I told him not to come down again until he named our son.  I was all fixed up (2^nd degree tear) and given motrin.  I was moved up to my room and 3+ hours later, my son was returned to me with a clean bill of health.  He had just been given formula so I had to wait a few more hours before I could breastfeed him.  I was so happy to have him in my arms, and I don't plan to let him go forever.