Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Welcome To The World Little Man

Strawberry Blonde Snugglebug
07-07-09
8 lbs 8 oz
22.75 "

Monday, July 6, 2009

Adventures in L & D

No. I have no baby to show for my night in the hospital last night. But I did have an adventure, let me tell you.

First, I'm quite sure this baby may at this point be far too comfortable and has decided to stay in indefinitely. Well, it threatens to come giving me an evenings worth of time able contractions, which play me out and I give in to sleep, only to wake up and have them gone.

So for the last couple of days I've been feeling off. Headache, blurry vision, weakness, all stuff I've never experienced in pregnancy and can actually be a sign of trouble. I decided after toughing it out the first day to call in to labour and delivery last night. The nurse said it can be indicative of a problem and all it would take is a few minutes on the monitor and a blood pressure and urine test to know for sure. But here's the kicker....hour and a half drive to get there. I thought to myself that if something were actually wrong or the baby was under some kind of stress, I'd never be able to live with myself not checking it out because it was too long of a drive. (Mothers would drive to the ends of the earth for their kids, so really what's an hour and a half, right?) That and it was an excuse for The Lumber Guy to eat a Macdonald's burger.

Everything checks out, the baby is really inactive, which it has been for a few days now, but no big deal. The nurse pretty much says everything is ok but lets wait for your doc to see you since she's on call and is coming in anyway. She also says you're only a finger tip dilated but the dr might want to check you herself. Ok this story is getting way too long. On to speedy version now... Dr comes, says you're 2 to 3 so we'll keep you for the night. Baby does what it has been doing, plays the yep I'm gonna come tonight, I do a few laps around L & D, get tired, go to sleep, wake up, nothing. Very depressing. Dr comes back this morning, and this is where the real fun begins. She tells me I'm about a 3 to 4 and I have two options. A) She can try to rupture membranes, or put me on a drip to augment labour and come back and break water at noon. B) I can go home.

Do I want to have my baby today? Heck yes! Do I want to slide down that slippery slope of intervention? Not a chance! I can see how a woman would go for this. After a week of stop.start.stop.start. it would be nice to have it over and hold my lovely little baby. But I just could not willingly sign myself up for that. I've never had my water broken before, or a drip. I have no idea what that would be like for me. What I do know is that I have been able to birth 5 babies naturally without any drugs or interventions. And I don't say this like I'm some kind of hero. I just know that I'm capable of doing it, and to tell you the truth the other option scares the living daylights out of me. I don't know how my body would tolerate an unknown medication. Maybe I couldn't weather the storm of contractions without my bag of water intact. I opted to come home and see what my body decided to do.

And it was not the decision the dr thought I should be making. She actually said, well I'm not on call anymore so I won't be following you around, and, I guess you want to have your baby in the ambulance.

I guess this didn't fit into her schedule as nicely as she would have liked. The nurse was super supportive. She told me she's only been a L&D nurse for 4 years but she's seen it a lot. One thing turns into another and you end up pushing your body to do something its not ready to do and all too many times the end result is a section.

So here I sit, blogging, and doing dishes and laundry and getting to spend the day with my little Peeper and Poopypants. I could have been hooked up to a IV all morning. Maybe I'd have had the baby by now. Maybe it wouldn't have been that bad. But I love where I am right now. I'm happy and comfortable, and I hope that means the baby is too.

P.S. Well not too comfortable you little stinker. You still need to come out and meet us.