His Birth Story

My apologies first and foremost to those that have been patiently waiting for an update from us.  Sleep deprived momma’s over here.

I never imagined that I would witness the miracle of birth.  I thought it was never in the cards for me; but boy was I wrong!  It’s one of the most …. scratch that.  It IS the most amazing thing in this world that one could experience.  The moment that you see your child being born, the realization that your life forever has been changed hits.

The weekend going into the 21st of January, we tried to relax.  We knew that it would be the last weekend of just the two of us.  We talked about how our world was going to change, our priorities have changed, our responsibilities have changed, and then it hit us … everything will change.  Not just a few things, but everything about the life we knew would be gone in an instant.

Okay, so it was not an instant.  Rather a very long delivery for Lynn.  Her mom and sister accompanied us to Texas for the delivery of our little man.  My parents made it in for the delivery as well (I was worried they would not be able to due to my moms job) – so needless to say I was relieved about that.

We checked into the hospital at 10:00pm on Sunday 1/20/2013 to start the induction.  There was a probe here and a probe there and everywhere we looked, Lynn was attached to something or another.  Just switching sides was a huge ordeal, if you have been hooked up to a ton of things before then you can relate.  After they got us all hooked up to the fetal heart rate monitor, the monitor to measure contractions, and the IV is when the real stuff started to happen.  The plan of attack was to start softening the cervix.  There are mutliple ways to do it, but our Dr. wanted it done via a pill that is inserted next to the cervix.  They repeat this process every 4 hours until the cervix is ripened (soft) enough for the baby to pass through.  Shortly after, Lynn started to have some contractions – but nothing major.  Just soft little ones that would measure on the little machine.

At roughly 03:00 am, they checked to see if we had dilated at all.  According to the nurse we had that evening, we had started to show some progress.  However, what the Dr. felt at 6am was something completely different.  He said she wasn’t even 1 cm.  Talk about frustrating!  Nothing was happening.  At roughly 8am, they started us on the pitocin.  One would think that this would really kick-start stuff .. nah!  Things moved slowly and I do mean so slow it was like a snail was racing us and had beat us to the finish line.  At 2:00pm, we were dilated to 2cm.  The doc made the decision at that point to break her water.  Now, what little contractions she was having before – she was feeling!  We opted for an epidural and that was put in at 4:00pm.  The doc thought that having the epidural would help Lynn relax and would allow for him to descent further into the birth canal.  Little did we know …. that was not happening.  Come 6pm, the awesome nurse (Kasey) came in and talked to us about having an internal monitor put on the cervix to get a more accurate reading of the contractions.  It was explained to us that if the contractions were not getting stronger and more consistent to do the job, then it would move us further into a c-section (we knew this was a possibility).

After having the probe on her cervix for two hours, this provided the doctor with enough information for a decision to be made.  During this two hour window, my sister-in-law took me to grab something to eat real quick.  I ate on the way back to the hospital and made it up to the room in just enough time!  The doctor was doing a cervical check when I made it back to the room.  He looked up at us and said .. “Let’s have a baby!”  Of course, my response was … “Right now?!?”  He said “Yes … we’re moving to a c-section.  This boy of yours is stubborn and is not coming down.”  (Side note here – I was expecting this, but wasn’t prepared for this!)  The nurse threw me some scrubs and told me to change and that we were ready to rock-n-roll as soon as I put on the scrubs.

Off I go to the bathroom to throw on these scrubs.  I hadn’t worn a hair net in many years, yet I did this night!  They didn’t tell me how to put on the booties for my shoes – so they were on sideways.  They all laughed at me, but I did not care one ounce!  As I come out of the bathroom, they are ready to take us down to the OR room that was prepped for the delivery.  Yes, I made sure my camera was in tow on my shoulder to be able to snap this very memorable moment in our lives.  After roughly 20 minutes in the OR room, the anesthesiologist asked me if I wanted to see him born.  Who am I to deny that awesome question??  Of course I watched!  As I stood up and was looking over the curtain that was draped over Lynn – I saw the most amazing thing happen.  With a push from the Dr. his head popped right out.  A few seconds later – the rest of him is out and he’s under the warmer and I’m standing next to him watching them give the APGAR test.  In which he scored a 9 and 5 minutes later another 9!  Yep, that’s my son .. an overachiever!

After they got him cleaned up, I was able to walk him over to see his mommy on the operating table as they are sewing her back together like humpty dumpty.

Our most handsome son was born on 1/21/2013 @ 21:13 weighed 7lbs 10.4oz and 21″ long.

It’s been a month since that most amazing miracle and so many things in our lives have changed.  He is learning to adjust to our schedule and we’re learning to be parents.  He’s a really good baby and doesn’t fuss a lot unless his belly is hurting.  I’ll post some more later on, but here he is at a month old.

“I see this big black thing in front of my momma’s face … what is it?”

It’s as though he is thinking “These gas bubbles in my tummy tickle sometimes!”