Birth Story

By this point I think most people have read R's blog and have figured out that our son was born. Hudson was born on Saturday November 3rd at 7:21pm. Despite being a few weeks early (37w3d) he was a healthy 8lbs 2.8oz and 20 inches long. Although again, I think most people know that he was born via c-section, I thought I would give my point of view on how the day went for me.

Contractions were nothing new for me. I had been contracting regularly for 7 weeks. The contractions were usually every 5-8 minutes unless I exerted myself with strenuous activity such as walking to my car from my office and then I would contract every 3-4 minutes. The contractions were never painful, just more of a nuisance. My belly would get quite hard and my heart rate would speed up a bit. I had monitoring twice per week which in addition to documenting my contractions would also check the baby out. He always tolerated the contractions quite well so we really weren't too worried.

On Friday morning I went in for my usual antepartum monitoring. Despite not having exerted myself, I was contracting every 2-3 minutes on the monitor. As always the antepartum nurse was at a loss for what to do with me. I worked all morning and then had an OB appointment during my lunch hour. My cervix was still totally closed by the OB thought I might be starting to thin out (she guesstimated I was 50% effaced). However I had contracted for 7 weeks without any changes to my cervix so this slight change was nothing to worry about.

That night R and I decided to have a date night, not knowing how many more nights we would have just the 2 of us. We headed to our favorite sushi restaurant were we ordered cooked stuff - not very exciting but it was our date. That evening I started having some mild cramping. My contractions were so close together that it was hard to say whether the cramps were all the time or just when I was contracting. At this point they were mild so I pretty much just ignored them. Overnight the cramps got a little worse and included low back pain. I always get low back pain when I'm going to get my period so had I not been pregnant I would have thought that I was about to get the mother of all periods (I guess in a way I was). The cramps actually kept me up that night but again, nothing worth going to the hospital for.

Saturday morning, R and I went out for bagels as I had been craving bagels. I knew that I might be in labor and probably shouldn't eat but I wanted bagels and really no one should deprive a pregnant woman a bagel. As the day went on the cramping continued and got a little more intense. I could still walk and talk through them but I was not comfortable.

The mail came shortly after noon and with it arrived a belly cast that my mother in law had sent us (she thought she had sent it earlier). Now seemed like the perfect time to do the belly cast. So while contracting away (and of course this is when things intensified and I had to close my eyes and breath through the contractions), R did my belly cast. I do not recommend doing this while in active labor. I became super bitchy during this process. I really thought I was going into transitional labor since in our birthing class they say women become extra emotional (i.e. grouchy) during this phase. Anyway, our belly cast is done - with not a moment to spare!!

After showers and getting ready, I finally called the on call OB who suggested I come into the hospital. Around 3:30pm we headed in to the hospital. They immediately hooked me up to the monitors and my contractions were pretty much every 1 minute - hmm, no wonder it seemed like my cramps never went away. The OB checked me and my cervix was still closed. Apparently I have a really tight cervix and it's unlikely that even if Hudson had been head down, he still would not likely have made his way out of the birth canal. So based on the contractions, the OB decided that this was real labor unlike my weeks of contractions and it was time for us to meet our son.

I don't think I had given much thought to how I would react when the time finally came. I had gotten so used to my contractions that somehow I forgot to give real labor any real thought which was probably a good thing. I didn't have any preconceived notions of how I would act. I surprisingly remained very calm. I didn't get all giddy or even nervous. I was just very matter of fact and calm. This is not how I would have ever guessed that I would have reacted.

They drew some labs to make sure I was ready for surgery (considering I'd been on heparin since the day of the IUI back in February) and they put me in a labor room while we waited for the lab results to come back and the OR to be ready. Suddenly while sitting on the bed, I felt what I thought was some gas in my intestines followed by a huge gush of water. My water had broken!!!! I had really wanted to experience my water breaking and was actually quite disappointed that I didn't think I would get to experience this. What felt like gallons and gallons of fluid rushed out of me and every time I moved or I contracted more fluid gushed out. This was not the subtle trickle that some women experience, this was more like the "clean up on aisle 4" water breaking that is usually reserved for the movies. The nurse was very amused about how excited I was about experiencing this.

Speaking of the nurse, we had an awesome L&D nurse. She had been through IVF herself so she "got it". I also mentioned to her that my one disappointment about having a section is that I wouldn't get skin to skin time right away. She said that she would go speak to the OBs and the anesthesiologist and see about doing skin to skin in the OR. This is not the norm but the hospital is really pushing skin to skin so she thought it would be worth a try. I can't say how much that meant to me that she went out of her way to make this happen for me.

About 20 minutes after my water breaking I was wheeled into the OR. They did the spinal which wasn't too bad. The lidocaine before the big needle was the worst part and that only lasted a few seconds. It was a total of a maybe 30 seconds of discomfort so not too bad. The anesthesia takes effect pretty quickly. It's weird not to feel your lower extremities - I was actually pretty much numb up to the nipple line. They prepped my belly (the nurse had already shaved my girl parts while we waited in the L&D room - kind of weird to have someone else shave you down there but then again, I really hadn't seen down there in a few months and with everyone else checking me out "in there", someone shaving me "down there" was no big deal). R was then allowed to join me. She looked like some sort of medical tourist with her paper scrubs, camera and camcorder.

It seemed like only minutes later they announced that they boy was out. I eagerly awaited the cry, not being able to see over the curtain, I needed to hear that reassuring sound of the baby's first cry. It seemed like forever but he did eventually give out a big cry which immediately triggered the tears in me. After a minute or so being looked over by the peds team they brought him over to me for skin to skin time. It was just perfect!

I couldn't have asked for a better day. I got everything I wanted - a taste of labor, my water breaking, an easy c-section and a perfect little baby boy to top things off and all with my wife by my side. I feel incredibly fortunate. I still can't believe that he's here and he's ours. It's surreal. And to think there are 2 more on the way! (OK, this post is really long and it's taken me several days to write it - I'm exhausted. Sorry the end came so abrupt).