Locke's Birth Story!

Wednesday, June 23rd started out a pretty normal 3rd trimester pregnancy day...that is, at 3 am, with an urgent need to pee ;). When I stood up to head in the direction of my bathroom, I felt the tiniest little trickle of what I suspected could be amniotic fluid. Wide awake all of a sudden, I went to the bathroom, but there was no tell-tale gush, or wet undies, or any other indication that my water may actually have broken. I ruefully concluded that I'd imagined it in the first place, so I decided to try to go back to sleep.

Sleep was, of course, elusive; it's amazing how much excitement a tiny little squirt of liquid, real or imagined, can generate in a 39 weeks pregnant woman. I laid there in bed next to my husband, mind blazing with the possibility that I could have been right, trying to decide whether to call my doctor just in case. I rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position to get back to sleep, and I felt it again. Just a few more drops, I'm sure, but it felt like a fountain.

I got back up at this point, and decided to conduct myself as if I were sure it was time, even though I was still debating with myself fiercely about whether or not I was imagining things. I took a shower first. Then I heated up a couple of packets of instant oatmeal for breakfast...probably not what the doctor would have wanted me to do, but I knew all about the no food except for ice chips policy at my hospital, so I wasn't about to go in there with a completely empty stomach. I'd just thrown the dishes from Tuesday night's dinner in the sink, so I washed those next...by hand, so I wouldn't even have dirty dishes sitting around in the dishwasher for a couple of days. Just in case.

By the time I'd finished the dishes, I decided I was calling the doctor for sure, even though I'd more than half convinced myself that I was overreacting to a little normal discharge. At 5:20 am I woke up my husband, and in my distracted state, I believe the first words out of my mouth were, "I don't think you should go running this morning, because I think my water might have broken." In retrospect, not the most politic way to drag a dude into consciousness, you know? ;)

While Matthew was drinking his morning coffee, I called my obsetrician's answering service, and explained what had happened. I have to admit I couched this conversation with a lot of "maybe's" and "I'm not sure's," but when the doctor called me back less than five minutes later, she told me to get to the hospital to get checked out. When I apologized in advance for possibly wasting her time, I believe her response was "oh, hush," or some similar, which made me feel a lot better. I do like my doctor quite a bit. :)

I spent the next half an hour putting a few last minute things in my hospital bag, while Matthew got his shower, and we were at the labor & delivery ward by 6:15 am. I was put into a triage room, and hooked up to the blood pressure cuff, baby heartbeat monitor, and contractions monitor, and a nurse came in to check me for amniotic fluid. The surface check was negative, which didn't surprise me. In fact, before we'd left our apartment, I told Matthew that I thought there was a better than even chance that I'd blown all of this up in my head, and we'd be sent back home (full disclosure: he predicted the opposite).

But then, the nurse performed an internal check. I was 3 cm dialated, and the amniotic fluid test paper came out bright blue, which was positive. It was official; I was having my baby today.

Let me tell you, having your water break but not actually having contractions start is the only way to start out a labor. They brought me tons of paperwork to sign, and asked lots of questions for their computer database, and I didn't have a haze of pain to try and concentrate through in the process. I called my parents, and my brothers and sister, and was able to have coherent conversations with them to tell them it was go time. Matthew brought in our hospital bags, and I even managed to read peacefully for awhile. It was a lovely and exciting morning.

At about 9:30, they started me on pitocin, because I still wasn't having any contractions. Apparently my uterus only needed a little kick to get things rolling, because they only upped my dosage once. My contractions came on quickly, and they came on strong. I needed my epidural by 11:00, and once it had kicked in, labor was once again a peaceful and lovely experience.

They started turning my pitocin down when they saw how quickly I was progressing. By 2:00, I was 10 cm, and they turned it off completely. For the next hour and a half they let me labor down, mostly because the doctor was in the middle of delivering another patient, and wanted me to wait to push if possible.

At about 3:00, my room started filling with the medical team that would be helping me deliver my baby. The stirrups came out, and they got me into position. They found a mirror for me, so I could watch my son coming into the world. At 3:25, everything was in place, and it was time to push.

Matthew held the back of my neck when I curled up to push with my contractions, so I was able to see everything that was happening. I am amazed to say that with the very first set of pushes, I was able to see the top of Locke's head...definitely something to be said for that laboring down stuff. ;) It all happened so fast...his head was out completely, and then they were sucking his mouth and nose clear, and finally without any help at all from me, the rest of his body slipped right out. They put him on my belly and let me hold him for a second, and I started crying. I barely caught Matthew cutting the umbilical cord out of the corner of my eye, and then they whisked Locke away from me to get him cleaned up and to check his vitals. He was born at 3:38 pm...it only took thirteen minutes.

Apgars were great (8, 9), but I started worrying when I heard that he was only 5 lbs, 8 oz. At my last ob appointment, the doctor said that she thought he'd be kind of a little guy, but 5 1/2 lbs sounded ridiculously small to me. At 39 weeks, he was full term, and I had measured perfectly at all of my ob appointments leading up to the main event. I still don't know how it is that I came to have made such a little baby, but to my great joy and relief, he appears to be perfectly healthy. He may be the size of a preemie (certainly he only fits into preemie clothes at the moment), but he doesn't have any of the potential health issues that you sometimes see in premature babies.

One thing I will say for having a little baby...recovery hasn't been so bad. I only needed one stitch, and I'm feeling a lot better at 4 days post partum than I expected. I'm kind of feeling guilty about other people taking care of me right now...I could be doing my own laundry and cooking my own dinners and all that stuff. It's nice to have help, though. :)

So there you go, that's the story of how Locke Thomas came into the world. His father and I are still in awe of how beautiful and wonderful and perfect he is. Here are a few pictures of our new little guy!

38 weeks

Yesterday's appointment was back to normal. Good blood pressure, good measurements, Locke sounded good...makes me kind of wonder what was up with me last week. I kept being asked, were you not feeling very well that day? Or, were you nervous? And the answer to those two questions, respectively, are I felt fine, and I was a lot more nervous after the high blood pressure reading than I was before. In fact, I was worried that my anxiety over what had happened last week was going to skew my numbers this week, but clearly this was not the case.

So I'm very grateful for that. Now it's back to the waiting game. I think that in the absence of this insane heat, I wouldn't be all that anxious to evict my little copilot. But I'll be honest, I'm ready to roll whenever he is...and I'm starting to root for sooner rather than later. At yesterday's appointment the doctor told me she'd see me next week (for my next appointment), so I think they've come off their prediction that I may not make it to the 30th. Slightly depressing, but if he doesn't want to come, he doesn't want to come, ya know?

Not really much more to add to that...I mean, at this point, what little I have to do to get ready is just tweaking here and there. Oh, and convincing my husband that he really does need to pack a hospital bag for himself. :) And even that isn't very pressing, as we live more or less across the street from the hospital.

Wish me luck...

First trip to Labor & Delivery

Well, yesterday was interesting.

I went in for my 37 week appointment (which, for the record, folks, is currently what is considered full term by the majority of the medical community, and though I still read 38 weeks in some places, I'm going to go ahead and claim it). It was actually better than most have been lately, time-wise...I only had to wait in the exam room for about 15 minutes to actually see the doctor, which made me think, gosh, I didn't need to bring my Kindle after all!

Everything looked and sounded good, as usual...except for one leetle detail. My blood pressure was up. Now, we're not talking insane numbers, here...they checked me twice, and got 130/90 and 128/90. Up to now I've always been under the 120/80 threshold, so I knew that it would raise the doctor's eyebrows a bit that I was high, but I figured in the absence of any other symptoms of anything bad going on with the baby, I'd be told to rest, watch my sodium, and be sent home.

Instead, I got sent to the labor and delivery ward of the hospital to be given the full battery of tests that they'd need to decide whether I have pre-eclampsia.

The last words that the doctor said to me on my way to check out were, "well, you're full term now, so if your test results come back bad, we're going to have a baby today."

O.o!!

It's hard to describe how I felt in that moment. Unprepared, nervous, a little bit numb...distracted. Luckily, the L&D ward in the hospital is just downstairs from my obsetricians' office, so I didn't have time to stress much betweentimes, though I did have time to stop off at a restroom on the way and leave my Kindle on the toilet paper holder in the bathroom stall. (I had already changed into the sexy sexy hospital gown when I realized it was missing, and had to throw my clothes back on and dash out there to reclaim it. The nurse tried to find it for me, and came back empty-handed, but she was looking for a white or silver gadget; mine has a black cover on it and it blended right in with the tp. Luckily, she didn't check my blood pressure for another 15 minutes after that, because I think it might have skyrocketed there for a minute ;).)

So I was hooked up to a bunch of monitors, just like I'd have been if I was there to deliver Locke. There's one for his heart, to make sure he's doing okay, and one to measure the contractions I wasn't having (she said it was hospital policy to hook me up to that one...needless to say, the line on that graph stayed nice and level), and a blood pressure cuff that took a reading every 15 minutes. She took some blood for lab tests, and mostly left me alone for 2 1/2 hours to read my Kindle and watch Mythbusters.

Getting to listen to Locke for all that time was definitely the highlight of this adventure. Every time he made a movement, I could hear it on the ultrasound thing they use to simulate his heartbeat, which was really kind of cute. Little boy was extremely active the whole time, and his heart rate fluxuated between about 140 and 160 bpm, hovering mostly in the 150s. I take that to mean he's a stout, healthy boy, regardless of what mommy's stupid blood pressure was reading. :)

The longer I laid on the bed, the lower my blood pressure readings got, which is more or less what they seemed to expect. I got down to a respectable 114/73. But when I got out of bed to give them a urine sample, and she checked me again as soon as I was laid back down and cuffed back up, it was up to 127/86. The nurse didn't seem concerned at all about that reading, but given that my doctor was unhappy with 128/90, I figured that wouldn't have passed muster upstairs...

But every other test, I am happy to say, came back good. They discharged me at about 3:00, and given that I hadn't eaten since a small snack at 10:00 that morning, I came home and inhaled about half of the contents of my fridge. ;)

Poor Matthew was stuck at work for all of this, getting updates on my situation from time to time when I was texting him. I found out later that I'd stressed him out quite a bit...in fact, I think he was sweating it more than I was. Good thing daddy's blood pressure wasn't being monitored or they'd have admitted him for sure. ;)

What does this mean for the rest of my pregnancy? Well, the official diagnosis, in the absence of pre-eclampsia, is pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH). That often turns into Pre-e, which would be very bad. I imagine next week's blood pressure reading will be examined very closely by the doctors. If it's back to normal, they'll assume this was a one-time fluke, and it could have been anything from nerves to what I'd eaten in the past few days that gave me the bad measurements yesterday. If it's not...well, I don't actually know for sure what they'll do. Maybe send me back for another round of testing (just because I don't have pre-e this week, doesn't mean it can't or won't develop before next Wednesday). Or they might decide that at 38 weeks, I'm far enough along to go ahead and induce, just to negate the chance of PIH turning into Pre-e. (Note that I don't think they'll just ignore it and say, oh, your levels were all fine last week, they'll probably be fine again this week. I have 3 nurses in my family and all 3 completely blew off the notion that any of the testing I'd received was a waste of time, in spite of the negative results, lack of any other physical symptoms, and not-all-that-high blood pressure reading. Blood pressure is serious business in pregnancy, I have come to learn.)

I'm hoping that it was a fluke...not that I don't want to meet my son, but being induced because of a complication is not exactly how I wanted it to happen. Besides, the closer to my due date I get, the better it is for Matthew's school and work schedule, and my brother and his wife will be in Vegas next week. All very good reasons for me to chill out and hope the blood pressure goes down.

So now I'm torn. Should I engage in a tizzy of last minute cleaning and preparation, just in case they tell me next week that they want to induce me, so I'm as ready as possible for the baby? Or should I relax and take it easy, which would probably help keep my blood pressure down? Errm...maybe I'll tizzy first and rest later in the week. We'll see.

Belly pic!

So here I am, in all my huge-bellied glory. Actually, this picture is about two weeks old as of this writing (it was taken at 34 weeks and a couple days). I'm not a big fan of how I look pregnant, so I haven't allowed all that many pictures to be taken of me (not like people are queueing up to get pictures of me, I'm just saying).

I think a lot of pregnant women get comments that annoy them about how they look. You know, the "do you have twins in there?" type of thing, or "you look like you're about to pop!" My personal annoyance has been "gosh, you don't look that big for (insert number of weeks here)."

Yes, there are a lot of advantages in this pregnancy experience for us long-torsoed women. I get less acid reflux, I never had breathing problems (except my normal seasonal allergies and a bout of bronchitis--sucky, but not pregnancy related), I probably even had less baby on the bladder issues than most (though, since my little man dropped, I'm catching up on that one, at least). So I'm not saying I'd trade it away. But one thing I'll never have is that cute, perfectly rounded baby silhouette some people get. Shoot, I never even looked actually pregnant until about 7 months along.

Hence the photo avoidance. But I did take this shot for Locke's baby book, so I thought I'd share. It's probably the last one I'll (willingly) take before go time. And afterwards, they'll all be pictures of the baby and not of me, so I think I'm safe for the duration. :D

It's June at last!

Well, my son is due this month. He's due the very end of the month, which means that if I'm like the average first time mom, he'll actually be born in the first week of July or so (I keep reading that the average gestation for first timers is 41 weeks, 1 day, which I think would put his debut on July 8th). But his due date is on the current calendar page, so it counts! And I'm allowed to be excited. :)

This week, I had my first exam where I was checked to see if I'm getting ready for labor, and without going into any gory details at all (you're welcome), I'll say that the doctor guesses I may not make it until my due date at all. This seems a little odd to me, because I haven't been plagued with the Braxton-Hicks contractions I keep hearing other mothers complain about...in fact, to my knowledge, I've only had one, and it was more of an, "oh so *that's* what they feel like!" experience than a "dear God in heaven, how will I live through 20+ hours of these?!?" one. I always just assumed that those contractions would be obvious, but I learned in labor and delivery class yesterday that many moms never feel them at all. I appear to be in the lucky not feeling them subgroup, and let me tell ya, I'm not complaining. Nope nope. ;)

The idea of possibly going early does have me a little freaked out, though, for a few reasons. One, I've got this magic 38 weeks number stuck in my head. At 38 weeks (June 16th or later), he's full term, should be fully developed, and should be completely ready for his debut. Right now I'm 36 weeks, 2 days. Little buddy needs at least 12 more days of cooking time, and if laying in traction for all that time would help that along, I'd do it!

Secondly, there are more days in June that it would be inconvenient for my family and friends for me to give birth than there are good days, and the bad days are clustered at the beginning of the month.

Let's see if I can figure this out. Well, first off, Matthew is in MBA school, which meets every Saturday, so all Saturdays in June are out. (5th, 12th, 19th, 26th). The 12th is out twice over, because I am supposed to be babysitting my 7 month old niece all day that day. On the 7th, my husband has his expectant fathers class to attend at the hospital. On the 8th I have the baby shower his workplace is throwing for me and another lady who is married to one of his colleagues. On the 9th, Matthew is helping teach a CLE credit (one of those classes that lawyers have to take to keep their licenses active). And I may as well throw today, the 6th, the 10th, and the 11th in there because the guy who is coming to stay with us after I give birth has work to finish in his lab before he can drive down for the big event.

Skipping to the next week, my brother and his wife are going to Las Vegas the 15th-18th, and on the 15th I have an appointment with the pediatrician I'd like to use for our son. The 19th-21st are bad, because my sister's new clinic (she's a nurse practitioner) is opening on the 21st, and she'll need the days running up to it to get everything ready. And anyway, the 20th is bad, because it's a) Father's Day, and b) my dad is holding a big family cookout at his house that day.

By my count that leaves me with the 13th, the 14th, the 22nd-25th, and the 27th-30th. Ten days out of 30.

I suspect that if Locke comes in June, he will be disobliging to at least one of his relatives, eh? ;)

There are days in the beginning of July that are likewise bad (a poker party and a 4th of July party to start with) but I'm not even going to think about those times unless I'm overdue. Screw July. ;)

Labor and delivery class was another good one. I expected a lot of gory videos, and while, yes, we did watch a video of a lady giving birth, I reacted to it differently than I expected. I thought I'd get a bit grossed out, to be honest...never been a big fan of the TMI ;). But actually watching it made me teary eyed. Pregnancy hormones are ever unpredictable, eh? All I could think about was giving birth to Locke, and how special that was going to be. So now I've had a sneak preview into what I'm going to be like, five seconds post partum...I'm gonna be a weeper. ;) Good thing Matthew was with me...he has been warned. ;)