On April 30 I went into my final doctors appointment with Dr. Nay. I was dilated to a two at this point (thanks to me moving my girls bedroom furniture around!) and my doctor stripped my membranes for good measure. We were hoping that since my body was making progress I would go into labor on my own, but we scheduled a trip to the hospital for Friday, May 4 just in case.
All week I tried to keep progress going. I cleaned my entire house, moved a box spring and mattress into the girls' room for my mom to sleep on while she is here, we went on a walk and I pushed a grocery cart full of kids and groceries all through Walmart. Matthew was nervous every night that I would go into labor in the middle of the night...I think our experience with the girls scarred him a little bit! But, nothing worked. Friday rolled around and I didn't feel like my body had made any big changes.
We got to the hospital Friday at 7:00 a.m., and I was right--I was only at 3 cm. We hooked me up to the monitors and soon learned that the baby's heart rate was dropping when I had contractions. My nurse thought that either the baby had the cord wrapped around his neck, or that he was at least squeezing the cord. She had me try laying on my left side to see if that would help the baby's heart rate, and he did much better after that. The picture above is what Matthew saw all day!
At 8:40 a.m. I was still at a 3 so we started me on a small dose of Pitocin since the baby seemed to be okay with me on my left side. At 12:15 I was almost at a 4 and I decided to just get my epidural put in since my doctor was at the hospital, which meant I wouldn't have to wait for him when I decided the pain was too bad! Haha! Around 2:00 the baby's heart rate started to become irregular again so we turned off the Pitocin as it can sometimes put added stress on the baby. At 2:20 my water broke and I was now at about 7 cm!! The nurse was taking bets that we'd be delivering the baby by 3:00 - which sounded great! Also, if Axel's birth was any indication as to how things would go, I agreed with her! Things moved so quickly with Axel, especially after my water was broken! But, 3:00 came and went...4:00 came and went and at 4:45 I was starting to feel more pressure (my epidural was probably the best one I've ever had...I thought I could feel everything but the pain with past epidurals - minus the spot that didn't get numb when I was birthing Axel - but I know now that that wasn't the case. I knew when the baby dropped, I knew when I was having a contraction, I knew when it was time to push, and I know when I was crowning, when the shoulders were born, everything! With no pain! It was so great!)
I started to feel like I had to push to the point where I thought I was going to have to let the nurse know the baby was coming with or without the doctor if they didn't hurry! Luckily that wasn't the case! Haha!
I pushed through four contractions and after Eli's head was born the doctor unwrapped the cord from around his neck and he was a healthy little boy! Doctor Nay rubbed him until he cried and started to pink up a little bit, then they placed him right on my chest where I got to snuggle him for a few minutes before they took him to suction him and weight and measure him.
He was a healthy 8 pound 5 ounce baby boy. He was 21.5 inches long and he was born at 5:12 p.m.
As soon as they were done weighing and measuring him, my nurse gave him right to Matthew! I was so grateful! Usually they just give me the baby...which I loved, but I thought it was pretty neat for Matthew to get to hold him first - well, kind of first, other than when he was on my chest, of course!
The kids wasted no time to get to the hospital to meet him! The girls were old pros...they were so excited to hold him and meet him. Lyla is so glad that we named him Eli. Alya is okay with the name that we picked, even though she wanted us to name him Balto. Axel was pretty confused when he came in the room but I think he warmed up to the baby pretty quickly! He kept pointing to Eli and saying "baby!" and he was so excited to sit on my lap to hold him! He loves his little nose and ears!
Our family of {SIX}
We are so in love with this little boy! I'm almost a little heartbroken knowing how fast time is going to fly -- I already want to slow down time!
No comments:
Post a Comment