I finally got a few minutes during work, over the last few days, so I thought I would get started on writing up Colby's birth story. His story will probably be pretty short, simply because it was a fast and relatively easy birth. I have very few complaints this time around and am VERY grateful to all of the help I had, not only from family but at the hospital and from my doctor.
In the effort to have a little more bulk to the story, I should probably start his story at my 37 week appointment. I had been feeling frustrated because I felt like I hadn't progressed at all. At each appointment we went to, from 37 weeks on, they had me do a non-stress test to measure his heart beat, movements and my contractions. I would wake up each morning with mild contractions and have them all the way there, until I was hooked to the machine. Then they would stop and I'd have nothing until we'd leave the appointments and get home. Then they'd start up again, almost immediately. I could tell that they weren't REAL contractions but it was frustrating because my doctor would tell me at each appointment that I needed to call if they ever got down to 5-10 mins for more than an hour. I wouldn't have contractions that close until I started work each night, then I'd have them in the 3-5 minute range for 4 hours, until I stopped working. I never wanted to call in at that point because I didn't want to bother my doctor at home after hours.
I wanted to be checked at 38 weeks because of how things worked out with Riann but my Doctor wanted to wait another week so I went a head and put it off. When 39 weeks came around I was finally checked. I was told that I was 3cm and 75% effaced. This bummed me out quite a bit because I thought that I had done more work than just 3cm based on how I was feeling. After that appointment I scheduled my next appointment on my due date so that we could make a decision then on whether or not we were going to wait or get induced. We tried all week to get me to go into labor naturally but he was a stubborn kid. I could get up and walk and get my contractions down to 1-2 mins apart but the minute I stopped walking or sat down to rest they'd stop 100%. Overall I was still feeling great but I was super frustrated that I couldn't get any feelings on what was going to happen. When the 30th, the day before Halloween, came around and I could tell that nothing was going to happen I decided to take a break. I really wanted to spend one last Halloween with just Riann and with Halloween falling on a Sunday this year we celebrated with our friends and ward on Saturday. I wanted to dress Riann up and go to our trunk-er-treat out at our church and do all of the fun things you're supposed to do on Halloween. So that night we went out and celebrated and had a really good time. I was still feeling pretty good so I was glad that I got to create those last memories with Paul and Riann, as we were in our last moments of being a family of three.
When I had first found out my due date all I knew at that point was I didn't want to have a baby on Halloween. So when I was positive nothing was going to happen on the 30th I was determined that nothing was going to happen on the 31st either. We would have stayed home that Sunday but we were getting a new bishopric and I really wanted to know who was called. About a year ago we had split wards and I still wasn't 100% familiar with all of the new members in our ward and knew if I didn't go that Sunday I wouldn't be able to recall who our new bishopric was without seeing them. Because I wasn't sure how soon we'd be back to church after having the baby we decided that we would go and make sure we got in one last Sunday before we would be "off" for a while. It was a great day to go. Not only was our sacrament meeting fantastic but all of the meetings had a special message just for us that day. We also found out from a neighbor/ward member, who works up at the hospital in labor and delivery, that there were no inductions scheduled for the next day, so if we did decide to go in there was a great chance they would keep us.
With that news we came home and talked it over. We decided that if I hadn't progressed on my own we would see if our doctor felt comfortable with us being induced and we'd go from there. Monday rolled around and we all packed into the car and went off to our appointment. I was having mild contractions all morning but of course, once I got into the office and hooked up to the monitoring machine nothing happened. While they were monitoring us Colby's heart rate stayed a little level, it should peak every now and then, and they weren't getting enough peaks on the monitor so they had me drink some cold water to see what happened. Once I got the water in me he started to look more "normal" so we stopped the test and completed the rest of the appointment. When he checked me I was still at 3cm and hadn't effaced anymore than before. With how my appointments panned out with Riann and how I felt at this appointment, I figured I was still a week out from him coming on his own. We had worked it out that my mom was flying in that night and we wanted her around as much as possible after Colby came so while we were waiting for the Doctor to come back into the room, after he checked me, we talked over getting induced. We decided to have the office call the hospital and see what their schedule was like. If they would take us we were going to go in that day. If they couldn't fit us in we'd give it a little more time. When our office called, the hospital gladly said we could come up (we found out later that there was only one other mother in the whole labor and delivery unit so they were bored and tired of cleaning). We scheduled our check in time for an hour later and left for home to get ready.
Our wonderful neighbors had offered to take Riann for us when it was time so we came home, grabbed my bag, Riann's bag, a couple of movies for Riann and our neighbors to watch and ran back out the door. Once we got Riann settled we rushed back up to the hospital to check in. We got back up to the hospital about 12:30pm and my doctor was in our room to break my water within the hour. Once my water was broken I started having contractions about every 5-10 mins. They started me on a low Pitocin drip shortly after 1:45pm and we waited and watched TV. I had decided I wanted to wait for an epidural because I wanted to get a good idea of what "real" labor was like. With Riann I had gotten my epidural before my water broke, so I never felt the really painful contractions. Because of that I didn't know how to push when the right time came and that started a whole string of complications with her delivery and my recovery.
I think we waited for about two hours before my nurse wanted to get things going a little faster. She checked me and I had progressed to about 5cm but my contractions were still a little slow and not as intense as they needed to be. When I was checked this time around I was REALLY frustrated because I felt like going from 3cm to 5cm in two hours wasn't quick enough for the pain I was feeling. My nurse was great and tried to tell me how good I was doing. I feel bad because I was shocked that I hadn't moved that far along and got really sarcastic when she told me my progress. I think I shocked her because she gave me a surprised look and me and said she was going to tell me she thought I was doing great and moving quickly. Shortly after checking me she decided to increase my Pitocin to see if she could get my contractions closer together and get things moving. The pain I had been feeling since my water was broken wasn't too bad and I still wanted to wait a little longer to see what I could handle before getting an epidural, however, once my Pitocin was increased I realized it was time to get the meds. I had three or four big contractions before calling the nurse in and asking her to call the anesthesiologist. Little did I know, the epidural would be the hardest part of my delivery. It took about 30-45 minutes for our anesthesiologist to get the epidural in. I was having a hard time bending in the way he needed me to and so it took longer to get it in because I couldn't get positioned right, and now Paul tells me he was Seinfeld each time I tried to readjust.
Once my epidural was in he started my first round of medicine and left. He was going to go work on a few things and then come back to check on how I was feeling. We got all of this done and going about 5pm. Once I was settled again we decided that I had enough time to send Paul off to grab food because we hadn't thought about lunch before checking in, and I didn't know you couldn't eat once your water was broken so we skipped getting food before I get started thinking I would have plenty of time to eat while I was waiting and before I got my epidural. Paul had been waiting to see how things had progressed before going to get food and once I was all set up and not feeling much anymore he felt comfortable taking some time to go do that. While he was gone, about 15 minutes after my epidural was in, my nurse was in the room checking up on a few things. Paul came back and started in on his food. I started to feel a little uncomfortable so I had made the comment to her that I didn't know if I was right because I didn't experience any of this with my first pregnancy but I thought that I felt the urge to push. She looked at me a little funny because we had just gone through the whole checking situation shortly before but she decided that she was going to check me just to make sure everything was okay. As she was checking my the anesthesiologist came back in to see how I was doing. Both the nurse and I told him I was feeling the urge to push, and I could still feel a good portion of my contractions, so he decided to give me another round of medicine. Once he got that into me the nurse looked at shocked and said "I'm going to go call your Doctor". In the 15 minutes after getting my epidural I had progressed to 10cm and was ready to go. She told me to relax as much as possible and we'd get working as soon as our Doctor got into the room. Timing was almost perfect because his office was just closing and he was able to come up right after work. After calling our Doctor she got the room set up and by the time she was done he was there and Paul finished up his curly fries. We pushed for about 5-10 mins and Colby was here.
This time around pushing was SO much better. It was nice to have a doctor who was invested in everything really going smoothly for me and to have a nurse who cared about the outcome as well. I also felt relaxed pushing this time around and because I felt more with contractions this time and I was able to effectively push. I also trusted my Doctor and nurse and that changed the experience for me. Mid-delivery, after I realized the TV was still on and I noticed we were all stopping to watch the second episode of Seinfeld I turned off the TV and looked up at Paul and asked how everything was going. He looked at me and looked down at the baby and all he could tell me was "he has hair"!! I was shocked that I was halfway done and excited to get to see him shortly.
From the time I started pushing to the time he was out, it had probably been 10 minutes. It was so much better than the 3 hours of pushing we did with Riann. At 5:22pm we had a beautiful baby boy. He was immediately cleaned up and had his tests done and was given back to us. He was 8 pounds 8 ounces, and 20 inches long. He was the perfect size and so far he's been the perfect baby. He lets you know when he wants to eat and be held, which is about 100% of the time, and he has a cry that isn't too loud, even when he's going through a super dramatic moment and boy does he have those.
My recovery this time has been amazing. I had some mild pain but with how wonderful Colby's birth was it wasn't hard to get back up on my feet. I also had a ton of reminders from Paul this time around to not push myself too hard. There have been days where I've thought I've been doing good but he's been good at helping out and not letting me do much and that has been great because without him I would have done something that I would have regretted.
I'm going to get pictures up soon. I really want to show everyone comparison pictures between him and Riann because I think they look a lot a like, in their birth pictures, but I need to learn how to set up Picasa collages first. If anyone wants to send me a tutorial on how to do that I would really appreciate it!!! I can't figure out for the life of me how to set it up on my own. As for now you can access the pictures I have of him on Facebook.
Riann has been wonderful with Colby and seems to love him more and more every day. I can't wait until Colby can acknowledge her and show her how much he loves her back. She has been so patient with him and with us. We have had to relearn communications tactics with each other but we're figuring it out one day at a time. She is such a huge help and is eager to do anything we ask, as long as it involves her little brother.
We want to thank everyone for all of their help, kindness and patience as we've gotten our feet back under us. I'm so grateful for everything I have right now. I thought that the change to two kids would be very hard but while parts of the transition have been difficult, like getting less sleep, overall everything seems so natural. I keep reminding myself that Colby has only been with us for three weeks now. It seems like he's been here forever, like there was never a moment without him. I'm so excited to watch him grow and see how he changes here in the next little bit. I will try to update as often as possible so you can see how he changes too.
In the effort to have a little more bulk to the story, I should probably start his story at my 37 week appointment. I had been feeling frustrated because I felt like I hadn't progressed at all. At each appointment we went to, from 37 weeks on, they had me do a non-stress test to measure his heart beat, movements and my contractions. I would wake up each morning with mild contractions and have them all the way there, until I was hooked to the machine. Then they would stop and I'd have nothing until we'd leave the appointments and get home. Then they'd start up again, almost immediately. I could tell that they weren't REAL contractions but it was frustrating because my doctor would tell me at each appointment that I needed to call if they ever got down to 5-10 mins for more than an hour. I wouldn't have contractions that close until I started work each night, then I'd have them in the 3-5 minute range for 4 hours, until I stopped working. I never wanted to call in at that point because I didn't want to bother my doctor at home after hours.
I wanted to be checked at 38 weeks because of how things worked out with Riann but my Doctor wanted to wait another week so I went a head and put it off. When 39 weeks came around I was finally checked. I was told that I was 3cm and 75% effaced. This bummed me out quite a bit because I thought that I had done more work than just 3cm based on how I was feeling. After that appointment I scheduled my next appointment on my due date so that we could make a decision then on whether or not we were going to wait or get induced. We tried all week to get me to go into labor naturally but he was a stubborn kid. I could get up and walk and get my contractions down to 1-2 mins apart but the minute I stopped walking or sat down to rest they'd stop 100%. Overall I was still feeling great but I was super frustrated that I couldn't get any feelings on what was going to happen. When the 30th, the day before Halloween, came around and I could tell that nothing was going to happen I decided to take a break. I really wanted to spend one last Halloween with just Riann and with Halloween falling on a Sunday this year we celebrated with our friends and ward on Saturday. I wanted to dress Riann up and go to our trunk-er-treat out at our church and do all of the fun things you're supposed to do on Halloween. So that night we went out and celebrated and had a really good time. I was still feeling pretty good so I was glad that I got to create those last memories with Paul and Riann, as we were in our last moments of being a family of three.
When I had first found out my due date all I knew at that point was I didn't want to have a baby on Halloween. So when I was positive nothing was going to happen on the 30th I was determined that nothing was going to happen on the 31st either. We would have stayed home that Sunday but we were getting a new bishopric and I really wanted to know who was called. About a year ago we had split wards and I still wasn't 100% familiar with all of the new members in our ward and knew if I didn't go that Sunday I wouldn't be able to recall who our new bishopric was without seeing them. Because I wasn't sure how soon we'd be back to church after having the baby we decided that we would go and make sure we got in one last Sunday before we would be "off" for a while. It was a great day to go. Not only was our sacrament meeting fantastic but all of the meetings had a special message just for us that day. We also found out from a neighbor/ward member, who works up at the hospital in labor and delivery, that there were no inductions scheduled for the next day, so if we did decide to go in there was a great chance they would keep us.
With that news we came home and talked it over. We decided that if I hadn't progressed on my own we would see if our doctor felt comfortable with us being induced and we'd go from there. Monday rolled around and we all packed into the car and went off to our appointment. I was having mild contractions all morning but of course, once I got into the office and hooked up to the monitoring machine nothing happened. While they were monitoring us Colby's heart rate stayed a little level, it should peak every now and then, and they weren't getting enough peaks on the monitor so they had me drink some cold water to see what happened. Once I got the water in me he started to look more "normal" so we stopped the test and completed the rest of the appointment. When he checked me I was still at 3cm and hadn't effaced anymore than before. With how my appointments panned out with Riann and how I felt at this appointment, I figured I was still a week out from him coming on his own. We had worked it out that my mom was flying in that night and we wanted her around as much as possible after Colby came so while we were waiting for the Doctor to come back into the room, after he checked me, we talked over getting induced. We decided to have the office call the hospital and see what their schedule was like. If they would take us we were going to go in that day. If they couldn't fit us in we'd give it a little more time. When our office called, the hospital gladly said we could come up (we found out later that there was only one other mother in the whole labor and delivery unit so they were bored and tired of cleaning). We scheduled our check in time for an hour later and left for home to get ready.
Our wonderful neighbors had offered to take Riann for us when it was time so we came home, grabbed my bag, Riann's bag, a couple of movies for Riann and our neighbors to watch and ran back out the door. Once we got Riann settled we rushed back up to the hospital to check in. We got back up to the hospital about 12:30pm and my doctor was in our room to break my water within the hour. Once my water was broken I started having contractions about every 5-10 mins. They started me on a low Pitocin drip shortly after 1:45pm and we waited and watched TV. I had decided I wanted to wait for an epidural because I wanted to get a good idea of what "real" labor was like. With Riann I had gotten my epidural before my water broke, so I never felt the really painful contractions. Because of that I didn't know how to push when the right time came and that started a whole string of complications with her delivery and my recovery.
I think we waited for about two hours before my nurse wanted to get things going a little faster. She checked me and I had progressed to about 5cm but my contractions were still a little slow and not as intense as they needed to be. When I was checked this time around I was REALLY frustrated because I felt like going from 3cm to 5cm in two hours wasn't quick enough for the pain I was feeling. My nurse was great and tried to tell me how good I was doing. I feel bad because I was shocked that I hadn't moved that far along and got really sarcastic when she told me my progress. I think I shocked her because she gave me a surprised look and me and said she was going to tell me she thought I was doing great and moving quickly. Shortly after checking me she decided to increase my Pitocin to see if she could get my contractions closer together and get things moving. The pain I had been feeling since my water was broken wasn't too bad and I still wanted to wait a little longer to see what I could handle before getting an epidural, however, once my Pitocin was increased I realized it was time to get the meds. I had three or four big contractions before calling the nurse in and asking her to call the anesthesiologist. Little did I know, the epidural would be the hardest part of my delivery. It took about 30-45 minutes for our anesthesiologist to get the epidural in. I was having a hard time bending in the way he needed me to and so it took longer to get it in because I couldn't get positioned right, and now Paul tells me he was Seinfeld each time I tried to readjust.
Once my epidural was in he started my first round of medicine and left. He was going to go work on a few things and then come back to check on how I was feeling. We got all of this done and going about 5pm. Once I was settled again we decided that I had enough time to send Paul off to grab food because we hadn't thought about lunch before checking in, and I didn't know you couldn't eat once your water was broken so we skipped getting food before I get started thinking I would have plenty of time to eat while I was waiting and before I got my epidural. Paul had been waiting to see how things had progressed before going to get food and once I was all set up and not feeling much anymore he felt comfortable taking some time to go do that. While he was gone, about 15 minutes after my epidural was in, my nurse was in the room checking up on a few things. Paul came back and started in on his food. I started to feel a little uncomfortable so I had made the comment to her that I didn't know if I was right because I didn't experience any of this with my first pregnancy but I thought that I felt the urge to push. She looked at me a little funny because we had just gone through the whole checking situation shortly before but she decided that she was going to check me just to make sure everything was okay. As she was checking my the anesthesiologist came back in to see how I was doing. Both the nurse and I told him I was feeling the urge to push, and I could still feel a good portion of my contractions, so he decided to give me another round of medicine. Once he got that into me the nurse looked at shocked and said "I'm going to go call your Doctor". In the 15 minutes after getting my epidural I had progressed to 10cm and was ready to go. She told me to relax as much as possible and we'd get working as soon as our Doctor got into the room. Timing was almost perfect because his office was just closing and he was able to come up right after work. After calling our Doctor she got the room set up and by the time she was done he was there and Paul finished up his curly fries. We pushed for about 5-10 mins and Colby was here.
This time around pushing was SO much better. It was nice to have a doctor who was invested in everything really going smoothly for me and to have a nurse who cared about the outcome as well. I also felt relaxed pushing this time around and because I felt more with contractions this time and I was able to effectively push. I also trusted my Doctor and nurse and that changed the experience for me. Mid-delivery, after I realized the TV was still on and I noticed we were all stopping to watch the second episode of Seinfeld I turned off the TV and looked up at Paul and asked how everything was going. He looked at me and looked down at the baby and all he could tell me was "he has hair"!! I was shocked that I was halfway done and excited to get to see him shortly.
From the time I started pushing to the time he was out, it had probably been 10 minutes. It was so much better than the 3 hours of pushing we did with Riann. At 5:22pm we had a beautiful baby boy. He was immediately cleaned up and had his tests done and was given back to us. He was 8 pounds 8 ounces, and 20 inches long. He was the perfect size and so far he's been the perfect baby. He lets you know when he wants to eat and be held, which is about 100% of the time, and he has a cry that isn't too loud, even when he's going through a super dramatic moment and boy does he have those.
My recovery this time has been amazing. I had some mild pain but with how wonderful Colby's birth was it wasn't hard to get back up on my feet. I also had a ton of reminders from Paul this time around to not push myself too hard. There have been days where I've thought I've been doing good but he's been good at helping out and not letting me do much and that has been great because without him I would have done something that I would have regretted.
I'm going to get pictures up soon. I really want to show everyone comparison pictures between him and Riann because I think they look a lot a like, in their birth pictures, but I need to learn how to set up Picasa collages first. If anyone wants to send me a tutorial on how to do that I would really appreciate it!!! I can't figure out for the life of me how to set it up on my own. As for now you can access the pictures I have of him on Facebook.
Riann has been wonderful with Colby and seems to love him more and more every day. I can't wait until Colby can acknowledge her and show her how much he loves her back. She has been so patient with him and with us. We have had to relearn communications tactics with each other but we're figuring it out one day at a time. She is such a huge help and is eager to do anything we ask, as long as it involves her little brother.
We want to thank everyone for all of their help, kindness and patience as we've gotten our feet back under us. I'm so grateful for everything I have right now. I thought that the change to two kids would be very hard but while parts of the transition have been difficult, like getting less sleep, overall everything seems so natural. I keep reminding myself that Colby has only been with us for three weeks now. It seems like he's been here forever, like there was never a moment without him. I'm so excited to watch him grow and see how he changes here in the next little bit. I will try to update as often as possible so you can see how he changes too.
3 comments:
congrats! I can't wait to see the pictures.
Thanks for sharing. I'm glad it was much easier for you!
I'm pretty sure I was the other mother in the mother baby unit. We stayed a whole day and a half in the delivery side because there wasn't anyone on the other side and they didn't want to move me! Thats funny. I hope you are still feeling good, I am excited for pictures!
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