Nathan's Birthday

My baby  boy is already 7 weeks old.  Jonathan just said to me the other night, "I can't imagine life without him." A thought I've had myself a few times. I guess maybe that is part of the reason I constantly relive the day he was born in my head. It's just hard to believe he wasn't always with us, so I have to remember how he got here.

I think I'll start this at the beginning of the week. Warning: This is long and possible TMI, especially if you are male :)

Monday- My due date. Jonathan and I spent the weekend walking like crazy hoping something would happen. I wake up that morning with some light contractions, but I can't time the intervals- so I'm pretty sure they aren't real. I have a midwife appointment that morning, and Jonathan stayed to go to the appointment with me. They do a NST. Nathan looks good on the monitor. We schedule my induction time for Sunday night. The midwife says we are going to schedule it, so that we don't need it. I secretly believe that we will need it, especially since the full moon is not until Monday. They check me, and not much is happening. We leave, with plans to come back Thursday for another NST. Jonathan goes back to Knoxville, and I go back to lying on the couch. Everybody and their brother calls to check on me.

Tuesday- I sit around and ponder whether I really should have quit working this week. What if I take this whole week, and he doesn't come until my induction date. But then remember I can hardly roll off the couch. Scout and I spend our days watching crime dramas (the only thing on tv) and our nights taking a walk around the apartment complex. It's too hot to do any walking until after the sun goes down. I manage to clean my car. I drive it though the car wash, vacuum it, and clean the windows. It has been dirty a long time, and I am so happy to have it clean finally. I talk to Jonathan on Skype at night when he's off work.

Wednesday- It's 2 o'clock in the morning, and I am awake. Baby Nathan is doing a dance in my belly, so I can't sleep. It's actually mildly painful. I stay awake until he finally calms down which is at 5ish o'clock. I sleep late. Then when I'm finally up, I clean the kitchen. It's been dirty for so long, so I clean it top to bottom including wiping down the cabinets and mopping the floors. Then I do more of lying around on the couch. Jonathan and I skype when he gets off work. Scout and I take our walk again. Several people call to ask how I'm doing. I go to sleep without taking a shower thinking I'll get up early enough to do it before my midwife appointment in the morning.

Thursday- It's 2:30am, and I am awake again. I watch tv. As I am lying there in bed with the tv on playing candy crush on my phone, I hear/feel a pop.
What was that? Nothing happens immediately, but shortly I realize that was my water- it broke. And I know by the color of it that there is meconium in it. First thought- NICU will be at my delivery. I had figured that would happen from the beginning. I call the on call service and wait for the midwife to call back. I call Jonathan while I wait since I know he's going to have to get up and drive. He is startled out of his sleep, but he wakes up fast and is excited to hear from me. The midwife calls back and tells me to come on in. I call my mom to let her know, so she can start her drive too.
Now I know why people tell you to have your bag already packed. Mine mostly was, but I had always figured I would remember to throw the extra last minute stuff in there, but it's hard to remember what exactly I need because I have so much adrenialine flowing. I rush around grab a few things. Debate if I should get the car seat. I decide I'll take it. Jonathan's grandma calls to see if I want a ride, but I decide it's better if I just meet her there. No pain at the moment. Make a few trips out to the car. My dog is going crazy trying to figure out what is going on. I get everything in there, lock the front door, and I'm on my way.
Because it's 4 AM, I have to go in through the ED. Yuck. I give them my name, etc. They give me a wheelchair and a ride up to triage. I get settled in up there and shortly after Jonathan's grandma arrives- she must have been sleeping in her clothes all week. She got there so fast! We wait around in triage for a while. Apparently it's a busy night. The midwife finally comes in to assess me, and shortly there after I get moved over to my room in L&D.
It is almost time for shift change by the time I get over to my room. My poor nurse gets me settled in right before it's time for her to go. I get put on the monitor, and I get a GIANT IV. I think it was an 18 gauge. They put in a vein I often stare at myself thinking it would be a good one to stick- weird nursing thoughts. One of the NICU night shift charge nurses, Mary Claire, comes in to check the bed. We talk, and she tells me to try and hold out till tonight. She'll be back then. I tell her I'm going to try. I really want night shift to be the ones to come because they are my people.
About 7:15 Jonathan arrives. He is so excited, and I am glad to see him. No more worries about him missing the birth. Somewhere in here I call my dad to let him know we are waiting on Nathan. He is shocked I didn't make it to the weekend. He was betting on the full moon to work it's magic. He will begin his drive to see us as well. Shortly after all our family arrives, including my brother in law. It took 26 missed calls to wake him up, so he could get on the first flight out of NYC.

Me and the hubs

Me and mom

Nicholas was my comic relief all day. Here he is

breaking in the boppy with an afternoon nap.

We spend several hours in the room on the monitor. I can tell I'm having contractions, but they are mild.  I'm not sure what time it was, but midmorning the dayshift midwife comes in. It happens to be my primary midwife- Sohyll. I remember thinking at my first appointment there was no way she would be the one to attend my birth- Ha! So she checks me- not much happening, so we talk about our options. There is some strong talk about pitocin, which makes me a bit nervous, but I just think whatever is best for Nathan I will do. But before that happens, I'm getting up. I take a shower. I can really tell a difference in the contractions now that I am standing up. I enjoy my shower even though the water is not near hot enough.

Then Jonathan and I start our walking. They say we can walk all around the 4th floor if we want, so we start taking laps. He downloads a contraction timer to his phone and starts timing contractions for me. We take a lap then go back to the room so the nurse can run a strip during a contraction. We do this for a while. At this point we still think pitocin is a possibility, but we find out later that it was no longer needed.
We took birthing classes. I thought they were silly. Jonathan thought they were silly, but some what useful. We were both wrong- they were useful! All during my walking, we used techniques we learned in class, and it helped me lots- Ha!
Eventually I get tired of walking. They make me eat lunch. I manage a coke and half a bowl of broccoli cheese soup. Jonathan eats down in the cafeteria.
I stay in the room and stand up at the end of the bed trying to let gravity do it's thing. My L&D nurse, Kari, goes to get me a labor ball. I am convinced this is really what opened everything up. I labor with the ball for a while, and then I crawl into my bed. Things are getting a bit more intense.
I am very uncomfortable. My mom says something about an epidural. All I can think is there is NO way could sit still for that. My plan from the beginning was to try the nitrous first (We are delivering at one of the only hospitals in the country that offers it for pain relief.) My sweet husband hits the call light and asks for it. There is anasthesiologist there pretty fast. She brings in the nitrous tank and explains to me how to use it. In her explanation she says it will only cut my pain down to a 7 on the pain scale- WHAT?! I decide to try it anyway.
After a few tries, I get the hang of it. I make sure to start taking deep breathes as soon as I fell a slight tighting. As long as I do that, by the time I really hurt, I don't care. My pain score is really more like a 3. I am grateful to have the relief. I remember one of the first times it worked looking over at Jonathan, Nicholas, and my mom and telling them I was drunk! I really felt like I drank about half a bottle of wine. My only complaint was a started to get thirsty, and I wanted a drink of water. I couldn't do it though cause I was breathing in my nitrous.
I'm not sure how long it was after I got my nitrous that a conversation was had with my nurse about being checked again. She said she would let the midwife know I wanted to be checked again. Sohyll came in shortly there after and explain very sweetly that she preferred I wait it out until the night shift midwife came on. She had good reasons to wait, so I agreed and she said her goodbyes for the night.
Apparently, after she left Kari, my nurse grabbed Sohyll to talk to her about the last strip she had gotten. I guess something on the last strip really made her want to get the midwife's attention. While they were talking, I was in the room breathing my nitrous, and the last few contractions I had felt like I needed to push. I told Jonathan, and he pressed the call light to let the nurse know. Both my nurse and midwife were in the room fast. Sohyll checked me, and I was complete and ready to push.
They set everything up in the room pretty quickly. It actually trapped my mom in, so she got to stay for the birth. After a few tries, I finally got the hang of pushing. I remember my nurse saying, "Let's get your baby out." She said it after we were having a hard time keeping him on the monitor. These words meant "I'm worried" to me and helped me try even harder. At some point Sohyll and Jonathan have an exchange about him possibly not cutting the cord depending on how Nathan did when he came out. There was lots of thick meconium coming out too. They were worried about my boy. NICU was standing in the corner by the warmer waiting on him to come out.
Finally after about 30-40 minutes of pushing, out he came. I heard Sohyll say nucal. Jonathan said it was loose, and she got the cord fro around his neck really quickly. I heard a little cry from him, and thanked the Lord because I knew that meant he was going to be ok.

My NICU friends

I looked just as Jonathan cut his cord. Poor guy was COVERED in meconium! Even though he cried, they handed him off to NICU to check him out. They cleaned him off for me, and then Helen, the NNP, handed my sweet boy to me. I was so thankful he was ok. Jonathan and I both know how bad it could have been, but our boy was ok.

His first picture

I did it!

all cleaned up

                                                                              

finally got my little man

We snuggled, and he made his first attempt at eating. He was grunting too much to be successful though, so I asked my new L&D nurse to get him suctioned out. After that, he was much better. Then, we spent the next few hours introducing our little fellow to family and friends. It was an amazing experience. And to this day I am still amazed and thankful our little guy came out ok and that everything went as well as it did!
                             

Failed to mention my awesome push present.

Earring and a necklace with Nathan's birthstone-

Rubies!