He had a single artery umbilical cord, so he needed to be induced at 39 weeks. 39 weeks landed on July 19, but Dr. Parrett was out of town that day so we had Monday, July 22 as his scheduled induction date. I got checked on the Friday before and was only dilated to a 1, so they wanted me to come in Sunday night instead of Monday morning to start getting me dilated and ready for pitocin on Monday morning. They told us to be ready starting at 6 PM on Sunday night, so we took the kids to Greg and Kathy's and were ready to go. We just sat around waiting and eventually called the hospital; they said it was really busy so it might not be until the middle of the night. We finally went to bed around 11 and they called at 12:30 and told us to come in. We were in the worst mood about it because I really wanted to be able to be well-rested before the birth. We got there and they checked me--I was 2.5 cm dilated, so they decided they could start me straight on pitocin!
I think it was around 3:00 they ended up starting me on pitocin. They upped it every 30 min or so. Cameron just slept. I tried to sleep too, but they had to check my blood pressure every 30 min before they upped the pitocin, so it was hard to rest. They wanted to break my water early in the morning around 7 or 8 AM, but the anesthesiologist was in a C section, so he couldn't give me an epidural for an hour. I decided to wait to break my water, because they said it would probably move pretty quickly once they did that and I wanted an epidural first. It ended up taking a couple hours before the anesthesiologist could come in. I think I got my epidural around 10:00 or 10:30? I was only a 4 or 5 at this point. They broke my water after the epidural was in.
I hadn't been in too much pain before the epidural (I think this was actually my least painful birth), but it was still nice to have it in and be more comfortable! I settled in to take a nap and sent Cameron to get some lunch. I even told him he could just eat the lunch in the cafeteria cause I "knew it would be a while" since I was only a 5. I settled in to take a nap, but woke up feeling a lot of pressure. It mostly just felt like I needed to pee. I figured I surely couldn't be ready to start pushing, since I was just barely at a 5. But then a nurse came rushing in to check me because she said the contractions/baby's heart rate were looking crazy and she thought I might be complete. Sure enough, they checked me and I was a 10!
Everything moved super fast (I think they wanted him out ASAP), so I started texting/calling Cameron telling him to hurry back. Of course he didn't get any of the messages. I sent several texts finally sending one like, "I'm about to start pushing! You're going to miss this birth!" And just then he came casually through the door with his lunch tray. (He hadn't seen any of the messages.) He came back to the room because my mom told him she was on the way to visit. We ended up inviting my mom in for the birth. He was born after just a few pushes at 12:43 PM! He was 7 lbs 6 oz and 20.5 inches long.
The hospital stay was a little bit eventful. The first day in the hospital he wasn't breathing as well as they would have liked. He was having to work too hard to breathe, so they gave him chest x-rays and watched him more carefully. He eventually snapped out of that (they figured he was just having a hard time transitioning).
He came down with an eye infection the morning we were supposed to leave the hospital. It was super goopy and looked pretty bad so they had him stay an extra day in the hospital while I went home. We were going to take him home the next morning, but they called and said we needed to admit him to Primary Children's. We checked him out of IMC and drove him straight there. We started in the Emergency Room, where we spent most of the day. He had to have every test done to rule out a body-wide infection--even a spinal tap. :( It was very, very, very sad. He was eventually admitted and diagnosed with an E. coli infection in his eye, which he had contracted at birth because of a cyst next to his eye that didn't allow it to drain properly. They did an IV with antibiotics and antibiotics in his eye. He stayed two nights and finally got to come home Saturday morning! They actually thought he'd need a surgery to remove the cyst, but the cyst resolved itself a couple days before the scheduled surgery. It was truly a miracle that we feel so grateful for.
We're so grateful for this sweet little boy and his presence in our family.
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| All hooked up and waiting! |
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| his poor little eye! |
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| Primary Children's ER |
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| His room at Primary Childrens |
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| Ready to bring their little brother home! |
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