Right on time

Ok, so maybe I was a bit harsh in my previous post. Turns out this baby might have promise as a journalist after all. Little Richie came right on time at 12:15pm on Friday, August 1st 2008 (that's 01.08.08 by how they tell dates in NZ), which was the original due date given to me by my doc based on the old fashioned calendar method.

I wish I could say the birth was everything I hoped for, but as often happens it was mostly everything I feared. But the end result was worth it, a healthy baby boy. For those who want to know the details of the birth read on. If not have a look at the obligatory mom looks like crap after no sleep for 24 hours but isn't the baby cute pictures and skip to the next post.

As I mentioned, I was one of the lucky ones who had labor pains for weeks with Braxton Hicks contractions throughout the 3rd trimester. Starting on Wednesday 30 July, I started have much stronger and regular ones, which kept me wondering "is this it?" But as everyone says "you'll just know when it's time," and that proved true in my case.

I woke up at midnight on Friday with much sharper pains that took my breath away and they were coming about every 7-10 minutes. I told Paul this was it and to get ready. I was hoping to stay at home at least until dawn. So we got out the physio ball and I tried rolling on that during the contractions, we went to the living room and tried watching a "That 70's Show" DVD and finally we hooked up the TENS unit Paul got from work. By 4am they were about 5 minutes apart and we had a 30 minute trip to the hospital ahead of us, so we decided to leave.  We had the baby's car seat all set up in the back seat, but Paul had heard in our prenatal class that many women end up on all fours in the back seat for the trip to the hospital so he took it out and cleared it out for me. I told him he was being silly but sure enough there I was moaning crawling around in the back seat of the Nissan on the expressway with Paul going about 120 km/hr. I vaguely remember telling Paul that being in labor is a bit like being a schizophrenic because you are two totally different people during a contraction (bellowing, moaning lunatic) and between contractions (your normal self). 

 

We made it to the hospital at about 4:30am and I went into the birthing pool (basically a round bathtub) to wade out the contractions (ha, pun intended). I made it to about 5cm dialated without any drugs for pain relief but then when the doctor examined me at about 7:30am he told me that the baby was in a posterior position (facing forward rather than my back so the baby's spine is in line with mine and puts pressure on the spinal cord), which means that the delivery would be much more painful and probaby require assistance. The added bonus of a posterior position is that you get excruciating back pain in between the excruciating contractions so with the prospect of at least another 8 hours of labor without break, I said "epidural please."
Even that ended up taking a while to get right but thank goodness I got the epidural when I did because by 11 am the baby's heartbeat started dropping and the doctor brought in a specialist to consult on whether this baby would be able to be born vaginally. They put a scary looking oversized oxygen mask on me to get more oxygen to the baby and decided to let me try pushing for about 15 minutes with the aid of a vacuum device. That didn't work so after much rushing about they rushed me to theatre (Kiwi speak for operating room). By this time there were about 10 people involved (my GP, 2 residents, the OB chief, 2 midwives, etc...) but I distinctly remember that with all these people around it was Paul literally running down the hall and pulling me in the bed with him to the OR (bless him). He used to work at this hospital so he knew the way and didn't want any delays!
Then it was time for a flurry of consent form signing, and they were going to try a forceps-assisted delivery but in the end opted for a C-section after yet more adjusting of my epidural. Within a few minutes we heard a wail and they showed us a very healthy looking boy over the screen (the first thing remember thinking was "I think that's penis" before they told us it was indeed a boy). Paul's first words were a sailor's rendition of how large he thought the baby was, which I won't repeat here.
I was unable to hold the baby for skin to skin contact while they sewed me up so they gave the baby to Paul who held him under his scrubs while sitting next to me. A few minutes later, the anesthesiologist said "what's going on here?" and everyone in theatre started laughing. Turns out Richie initiated Dad with a huge black, tar-colored poo that went right down his shirt, down his pants and on his arm. Dad hadn't even noticed! He had to hit the showers big time as soon as they moved me out of the OR.
Richie was weighed when we got back to the room and came in at 7 pounds 8 ounces, but I contend he was a full 8 pounds before the poo.
So that's the story. It wasn't what we planned but in the end we got what we came in for and a couple good stories to torture Richie with in the years to come