Birthing Story

We have gotten a few comments from people wishing to hear my birthing story and I wanted to wait until I had some time to sit in front of the computer before I started reminiscing about it. Before I get into it though, I just wanted to add that Declan is doing great. For those of you who have asked how his name is pronounced, it is DECK-LAN with the emphasis on the Dec. There is not much of a nickname in it, but if he decides he wants one, he could always go with D.C. for Declan Curtis. Again, for those of you who do not know, my maiden name was Curtis so that is why we went with that middle name. That being said, he went in for his first appointment with the pediatrician on Tuesday and the doctor said that he looks great. He weighed in at 7 lbs 12 1/2 ounzes so he lost less than 5% of his birth-weight. I still can't believe that I had such a big baby! It makes sense now why I was in so much pain during the last few weeks of pregnancy. Anyway, Declan is doing great and he will have his 2 week check up later next week, at which point he will also have his snip surgery done. Thankfully Jeremy will be there with me while Declan is getting it done. I will let you know how it goes.

Now, on to the birth story...

On Friday morning November 2nd, I had my regular doctor's appointment. I was approximately 3 days overdue and so she decided to Strip My Membranes at about 11:30am. I was feeling fine so I went to MacDonalds to grab some lunch and then headed home to finish knitting a scarf that I was working on. Maya was spending the day at her grandparents and Jeremy was at work all day. At around 4:30pm I started to feel some cramping but I just thought that it was the MacDonalds I had eaten earlier so I did not worry about it. Then, Jeremy called at around 5pm to see if he could hang out at his parents house with Maya for a little bit or if he should come home. I told him how I was feeling and he decided to make his way home. I hopped in the bath-tub to see if the cramping would go away, but it just stayed the same. By 5:30pm I was feeling more pain, but nothing too unbearable. Jeremy arrived home around 6pm and that is when we started counting the minutes between each contraction. They were pretty irregular- aound 12-25 minutes apart. This lasted for about 2 hours before we decided to call the birthing center. The nurse there thought that I was just going through pre-labor so she said it was up to us if we wanted to take a trip to the hospital or not. We waited until about 8:30pm when the pain was getting worse and closer together. We called Jeremy's parents to come down to our house to be with Maya - but they live 45 minutes away so by the time they got to our house the contractions were already 4-5 minutes apart and VERY painful. I couldn't stand it any longer so I asked Jeremy to call his parents to find out where they were and I went outside to wait in the car. I felt like I was on THE BABY STORY because Jeremy managed to catch all of this on video - contractions and all. Anyway, we finally arrived at the hospital around 9:45 and they hooked me up to the machines and checked my dialation and the nurse determined that I was definitely in real labor. DUH!!! I was 5cm almost 6 and the contractions were constant at around 4 minutes apart. She set us up in my delivery room, called the Anesthesiologist, and got my IV started. We were the only people in the whole birthing center so we got a lot of attention! (No one even in the post-partum rooms). I was afraid to get the epidural because it was so painful when I had it last time, but I had a different man who did it this time and he had a new method that seemed to be less painful. However, the epidural did not work as well this time as it did when I was having Maya. I was numb right up until delivery - but I will get to that in a minute. By 11pm I was sitting pretty comfortably. The nurses kept monitoring the baby because the heart-rate would drop quite a bit. They also kept taking my blood pressure because it was so low a lot of the time. They mentioned that they might have to get me to use the oxygen mask, but thankfully it didn't come to that point. Jeremy and I tried to get some sleep but were pretty unsuccessful with so much comotion going on with the nurses coming in the room to check me every half hour. By 12am I was around 7cm and the nurses said that I would probably have the baby around 4 or 5 in the morning. So the nurses tried to let us sleep and told me to call them if anything happend. At around 1am, I felt a little gush and I wasn't sure if it was my water or something else. That's when I noticed that it was blood. I called the nurses and they told me that I was around 8-9cm and that the baby was almost ready to come out. They called my OBGYN and she was at the hospital within the next 15 minutes or so. By the time the doctor got there, the epidural had worn off and only my legs were numb. Everything else was in a lot of pain. When the doc checked me, I was 10cm and the baby's head was ready to come out but my water still had not broken yet. The doctor had to change into her scrubs so she ran to do that saying "Don't let you water break before I get back or else the baby will get here before I do!" So I breathed through the pain - mostly YELLED through it - and by the time she got back, I was ready to push. She broke my water and I started pushing immediately. On the second push, I was in so much pain that I aparently yelled "I CAN'T DO THIS!" and then started crying. The doctor got all worried because at that moment the baby was stuck so I had to move on my side. They were all yelling at me to push again and got the mirror so I could see how close the baby was, so I pushed a third time and the baby was out. Within a matter of 10-15 minutes, our little baby boy was born. I had to ask if it was a boy or girl because they were cleaning him off, and then I could hear Jeremy stumble through his tears "It's A Boy!" In that moment, we both broke down crying. It was 2:00am exactly when Declan came into this world.

We were awake for the next several hours. The nurses kept checking on us and making sure I was doing okay. They were a little worried about me hemmoraging because of my low blood pressure and the loss of so much blood, so they gave me some pitocin (after the delivery) to help get me back to normal. By early afternoon, Jeremy and I were working on 35 hours of awake time so we just wanted to leave the hospital and sleep in our own bed. I mentioned this to my OBGYN and she made a call to the Pediatrician and we were cleared to leave the hospital just 19 hours after our arrival. This is usually unheard of, but we were both healthy enough to be discharged early.

Life has been a whirlwind since we have been home, but we are quickly getting into a routine of our own. Our newest little baby is week old today. I can hardly believe it!!!

Well, that is about it. I hope I covered everything and I didn't bore you with so many details.

I will post more pictures soon!