Baby Has Arrived!
Hi everyone!
Short Version:
Baby Bardric Aquinas born September 9, 2003 at 5:00 PM sharp. 10 lbs and 7 oz (no wonder I was looking reeaally big
), 21 1/2 in long. Healthy and a very good eater. I feel pretty good, but I am really tired.
Long version:
Had no idea on Tuesday morning that I was going to go into labor. I had had some sustained contractions on both Sunday and Monday that both just petered out and went nowhere. At 10:30 am, just after bible time with the kids, I had a contraction and then 5 min later another, and then 5 min later another. I was supposed to meet my sil to take the kiddos over night, but I becamed concerned that even if this was another false alarm I'd better not drive anywhere. And boy was that a good decision. I called my husband at work, who wanted to come home immediately, but I said that I wanted to moniter the contractions a bit longer because I didn't want to pull him off the job unneccesarily.
At 11:15 am I decided that I'd better call the dr's office, because my uterus was not relaxing between contractions, and they were getting really painful and were 4-7 min apart. I was told to get everyone home and to get to the hospital right away. We were able to leave for the hospital at 11: 45 and my contractions at this point were very intense and painful. I knew now that this was no false alarm. We got to the hospital and the first thing I asked for was my epidural
. I was between a 6 and a 7 at this point and if I'd gone without the epidural, he probably would have been born fairly quickly because this labor was moving pretty fast. But I am an old, wimp now, with very little pain tolerance, so they got me hooked up and I felt so relaxed
. At about 4:55, they gave me permission to push and I gave one large push and he crowned. Then I gave a couple of smaller pushes and he was out!
The first thing that I was concerned with was that he was healthy, because our last child has down syndrome and a heart defect, was unable to nurse or even suck a bottle, which meant pumping my breast milk and feeding him through a nose tube for nearly a year. I was glad to do it, but it was exhausting. So when we saw that this little one was healthy, I just started to sob uncontrollably and thank and praise God for His mercy and goodness. Bardric latched on to nurse almost immediately and that also was a relief.
The only difficulty that I had was that I had to be cathatarized (spelling?) for both nights that I was in the hospital. It is typical for me to be cathatarized the first night after I give birth. For some reason my body just reacts to labor this way, but Bardric being as big as he was, caused an unusual amount of swelling, so I had to stay another night in the hospital, because they won't discharge you if you can't pee. By this morning, I still couldn't go on my own, so they were going to send me home with a catheter, which seriously bummed me out, but because I had a healthy baby, I didn't want to grumble, so I just accepted that this was the way it was going to be. Just as they were getting Dr's orders for the catheter, I tried again and went:7 . And then again:7 . I have not been that happy about bathroom habits for as long as I can remember:7 :7 . Anyway, they let me go home with no catheter and everything seems to be returning to normal. I really need to work on building up my pelvic floor, because it is extremely weak. I feel really good, very little pain, etc. I am just really tired.
Anyway, you are all very sweet to wonder about this little(?) baby and me.
Shopaholic--you are next and I can't wait to hear. Keep us posted.
Maggie
who is all done being pregnant for now.