Augie's Birth Story

So it's taken me a while to sit down and write about this. We've been adjusting to lots of new daily adventures. And every minute of it has been a blast. I can say I have no complaints! Life as new parents is great and I can only see it getting better. We're adjusting to our different sleep schedule which is really helping our mental health...haha. Andy heads  back to work on Monday next week and I can say I really will miss all of the help that he has provided Augie and I over the past three weeks. He's an amazing husband and father.

So here it goes-

Sunday, the 15th, we slept in, ate left over pizza for lunch, celebrated birthdays at Andy's Grandma Jeanette's...I ate something like three different kinds of cake and ice cream (and I think I went back for a second round of sweets), hung out at my parents for a bit, then came home and ate macaroni and cheese, from a box. Not our usual day of fairly healthy eating, but that's what we had. After dinner we were relaxing on the couch. I felt a little funny but nothing unusual for being 39 weeks pregnant. I thought I might be having a few contractions, but up until this point I had not felt much of anything...just was feeling pretty darn good. All of a sudden I had a huge urge to go to the bathroom. I stood up quick from the couch and ran to the bathroom as my water was breaking. What a strange feeling. *NOTE: I'm so glad this didn't happen at work, as I planned to work up until my due date. I would have been SOOOO embarrassed and made quite a mess.*

I stood in the bathtub yelling for Andy to grab my phone so I could call the OB/GYN. We felt as prepared as we could be as we had made a "dry run" just the Sunday before...that time turned out to be a false alarm. *I had been having mild contractions every 5 minutes, but nothing significant and they sent me home at that time.* This time, the real deal time, we had everything packed and ready to go (minus a few of our electronics...ipods, etc). So we loaded up the car. And the shaky two of us headed to the hospital (I was literally shaking. I think from adrenaline). We were there by 9:15 and went to the wrong entrance. Every entrance at the hospital, excluding the ER entrance, is closed after 9pm. We had to get back in the car, drive around the hospital and get to the ER entrance. We finally made it in, were wheeled up to labor & delivery and it was game on.

The nurse hooked me up to the external fetal monitor. I was having contractions but still mild. I couldn't feel them really. The oncall doc came in and said they would allow me until 5am the following morning to make progress before they would have to induce me. I didn't want to be induced. My doc was aware of that, but once your water breaks you have a certain window of time before the risk of infection increases. I was agreeable and just wanted to make sure our little dude was healthy and arrived safely. We tucked in to sleep as much as we could throughout the night and hoped that things would progress along.

5am rolled around and I hadn't made much progress. I was 3cm and 75% effaced. I had a ways to go. They gave me pitocin (the dreaded drug) in the smallest dose possible (per my request) and things progressed quickly, along with the pain. I planned on not having pain meds of any kind. Well the pain increased and finally I agreed to some dilaudid. I was not going to go the epidural route. I had an epidural when I had a knee surgery at 16 (so I could watch the surgery on a TV screen along with the docs...don't ask). I didn't really care for it. It made me feel terrible. So for this, I chose to go with the dilaudid. As soon as the dilauded went into the IV I felt drunk, my speech was slurry and I was high on life. I made Andy get out the 3D glasses that we have used in the past for fun pics, and we had a good time while we could (lots of weird thumbs up and silly, "drunken" smiles). The dilaudid made me nauseous. They gave me zofran to offset that nausea. It didn't really do much of anything.

Things really started progressing rapidly. After reading 4 prego books, scouring personal pregnancy blogs of others, and searching thousands of articles on reputable websites over the past 10 months my plan was as follows:

• no drugs
• walk around, use the birthing ball (big exercise ball to sit on, etc) and other alternative methods for pain management
• take a shower if I needed too or get in the whirlpool tub
• NOT lay in bed the entire time....

None of the first three bullet points happened. The last bullet point did...Once they induced me and said I could walk around if I wanted to in the room. I didn't want to move from the recliner. When I did finally have to move to the bed, I just lay there on my side with my eyes closed for most of the time. I opened my eyes between contractions to see what was going on and actually speak to Andy & the labor/delivery staff. From 5am until 11:40am I progressed from 3cm to 9 cm. Everyone was surprised, including my doc, who actually told me at one point to stop what I was doing because they weren't ready and she had to get the rest of the team into the room. One hour and 17 minutes later Augie was here. He was born at 12:57pm.

Dr. Ephriam (my OB/GYN) & Augie

Andy was amazing throughout the whole process. He was more than supportive. He played music on the iPod that he had specifically put on a playlist for this occasion  (which the nurses said not too many people do). He made me as comfortable as he could. He didn't pass out!!!! He even cut the umbilical cord. He saw things that he planned on not seeing, but has since informed me that he has a better appreciation for the whole process. I'm pretty sure I squeezed the crap out of his hand...but luckily didn't break anything.

We left the hospital on Wednesday and we have been settling in well. It's hard to believe that in just 2 days he will be 3 weeks old. He has a healthy appetite...knows just what he wants, when he wants it...and he's growing. We are pretty sure he is above the 8lb mark now. I hope this week to write about his first 3 weeks and show off some more pics!