Jason's Birth

I never posted details, and I promise for the sake of those who will read this, to be as ungraphic as possible.

We checked in at 5:30am. Went to our room, and I got hooked up to the monitors - which confirmed that yes, everything I had been feeling for 2 weeks was really labor. They checked under the hood, and called my doctor to report my progress, and she said that I could have my epidural whenever I wanted.

Louren: Now is good for me.

Nurse: Ha ha ha.

Louren: No really. I would like it now.

Nurse: um, well, you have to wait for the shift change at 7:00.

So right before the shift change at 7, the nurse that I (thankfully) only had for 90 minutes decided she needed to get more done before she passed me off. So she enlisted the help of another nurse, who was CLEARLY ready to get home. The two of them proceeded to hook me up to the IV. Or at least attempted to. I hate needles, and the 5 minutes they spent digging around in my left hand was excruciating. Finally I suggested that they could stop, and perhaps try the other hand, which of course worked much better. My left hand was then swollen the rest of the hospital stay.

So then the crazy nurse left, and the nicest nurse in the world came on duty. She truly rocked. She was sweet, brought me ice chips before delivery, was encouraging during delivery, and was very helpful with all of the yuckiness that ensues after delivery. It was almost as if I had hired a doula to be there, instead of just a labor nurse who was on duty.

The wonderful nurse of course immediately ordered the epidural, and the anesthesiologist arrived shortly and hooked up the drugs. (see, spared you the gory details) They were then able to crank up the pitocin (contraction causing synthetic hormone) so that the contractions could be more productive. Of course, this made me want to hit the "more drugs" button on the epidural, which my body didn't appreciate. After my blood pressure dipped to something around 100/50 (ask Will, I am sure he remembers specifically), and they shot me up with ephedrine, I was back to normal and all was well.

My doctor broke my water at 8:30, I was ready to push by 11:00, and at 11:22 - after only 4 contractions worth of pushing - Jason entered the world.

The baby nurse in the room declared that he looked like a 9 pounder, and when they weighed him, I only heard the last part "9...2" which I took to be 9 pounds 2 ounces - and I was about to be absolutely floored as to how Kerry had accurately predicted Jason's weight, even though she had never seen me this pregnancy. I was starting to have great thoughts about Kerry, MD (as Trav said) and her amazing psychic doctor skills (wow, Kerry's super power is amazing birth weight detection!), when they repeated the weight as 7 pounds 9.2 ounces. Oh well. So much for that theory.

So less than 6 hours after checking in, we had our beautiful baby boy. And the recovery was so wonderful - due largely to not having to change rooms ever during my stay, to the awesome personal attention from the very caring staff, to the super nice night nurse who seemed to anticipate my pain, bringing me more drugs in the middle of the night, right as I was about to hit the call button, and especially thanks to the jacuzzi-like tub in my bathroom.

Sorry to post so long, but I thought some people might want to know more about the birth. And I think I kept it G-rated.

And yes, again I am up in the middle of the night.