OK, so I have been getting a lot of requests to tell Owen's labor & delivery story. I will try to tell is with as few of the messier details as possible :)
On July 1st, I had my 40 week apt, where I was hooked up to monitors to have a non-stress test to make sure Owen was still ok in there since he was showing no signs of making his appearance. Everything was A-OK with him in there so I just got to keep on waiting! I was told that if I hadn't gone into labor by Monday morning (July 6th) that I should call the hospital to set up a time to come in to be induced. Of course, my midwife was "sure" I would go into labor before then. Yeah, not so much!! Since I was already overdue, I stated hoping for a 4th of July baby.... but as we all know, that wasn't going to happen either. So on the morning of the 6th I called the hospital and was told there was room for me to come in immediately. We weren't really expecting that, because this hospital's maternity ward is almost always full to capacity. We thought we would be told to call back later. So we rushed around getting ready, and arrived at the hospital about an hour later. By 9:30 or 10am I was hooked up to monitors and my IVs and was ready to get started. My midwife Joyce told me that since I was still only 3 cm dilated (same as my appt on the 1st) that for the first 4 hours I would be receiving a small dose of Pitocin to gradually put my body into labor. So, Jason and I watched about half of The Office season 3 episodes, and then switched to watching Kings on Hulu.com. (a quick side note- if you haven't seen the show Kings on NBC, I highly recommend watching it on Hulu.com to catch up. There are new episodes currently airing on Saturday nights. It is an awesome show!!) Anyways.... 4 hours in I was having very mild contractions, and my pitocin drip was turned up. So, we kept watching Kings until about 6:oo. By then my contractions were getting somewhat stronger, and my other midwife Kristen showed up around 6:30 to check my progress. She informed me that I was only 5 cm dilated!!!!! WHAT?!? I've been here all day and have only progressed 2 cm?? At this point I was getting discouraged, and was thinking I was going to be there all night. Around 7:00 Kristen broke my water, and almost immediately my contractions became stronger. I decided it was time to ask for an epidural, some my nurse put a call in to the anesthesiologist. Within about 25-30 minutes my contractions were so strong that they made me physically ill- it was not pretty. Jason had to help me to the bathroom, and well, I had heard that sometimes labor gives women diarrhea, and now I know first hand! I would have been mortified for Jason to see me like that, but I was in too much pain to care. My nurse came back in and found us in the bathroom. She immediately called Kristen and they told me they thought I might be fully dilated! They helped me back to bed and it turned out I was 10 cm and ready to push. Now- some people I have told this to have said things like "wow, that great that you progressed so quickly." I must say, it was not great at all! Because it went so fast, the pain was super intense. Yes, it was over within an hour, but i wasn't sure I was going to survive that hour. Obviously there was no time for pain meds of any kind, so I got to feel all 9 lbs 5 oz of that kid coming out!! I only had to push for about 10 minutes, but that 10 minutes was full of screaming, crying, hyperventilating, and then apologizing for the previously mentioned behavior in between my contractions. I'm sure it was quite a sight to see! But, in the end Owen was born a perfect little boy, so that is all that really matters. He is a really good baby, and is sleeping fairly well for a 2 week old. So far he seems much more mellow than his brother, which is probably a very good thing! One Dylan is enough! Speaking of Dylan, he is adjusting well to having Owen in the house. He loves his brother so much, and always gets excited when he sees him. He is also doing some acting out to get our attention, and has developed a "listening problem" but this is to be expected. We are doing our best to give Dylan the attention he needs while dealing with having a baby again. Every day we get a little better at it. Being parents of 2 is a lot more work that being parents of 1, but now that Owen is here, we can't imagine our lives without him.
