Supermom Chronicles

These are the flowers from the clinic - thank you!

After spending the first few moments in the outside world on mommy's tummy, I wasn't too happy about getting cleaned off...

Party of five...

Aren't I gorgeous?

My first footprints. Baby toes are so cute!

Well, after almost 48 hours with no name, we finally decided on James Alexander (John came up with it in the middle of the night, a tribute to his father). No, this name was not on our final list, go figure. But the other choices just didn't fit.

Delivery day was strange and not what we expected to say the least. But all's well that ends well. We got to the hospital at 7am for induction. When I arrived, the nurses informed me that my doctor had decided to postpone pitocin until 10am since he had some morning appointments to tend to, and I tend to have speedy deliveries. So we spent the first 3 hours in the delivery room just visiting. I was hooked up to all the monitors and having pretty decent contractions every 4-5 minutes (I had been doing that for several days now).

Then they started my bag of IV fluids (no pitocin yet) around 10am. This diluted out my natural oxytocin and my contractions completely stopped. They started the pitocin at 10:42am at a very low dose and increased it every 15 minutes. Nothing. No contractions. The whole family was making jokes because we all expected this to be quick.

Finally my doctor arrived at 12:30 and broke my water (I was still 4cm dilated, 70% effaced - no real change since my arrival that morning). It took another 30+minutes before real contractions started kicking in. I remember it was 1pm when I told John to go ahead and cut the tv off in the room because things were finally starting up. Then once my contractions started, they took off in full force. They stopped increasing the pitocin because things took off so fast.

I had planned on trying natural childbirth because of my history of quick labors - I figured I could do anything for a short while - WRONG! Actually, John & I did really well as far as I'm concerned. He did a great job of coaching me. There's no way I would have made it as far as I did without him. The problem was the pitocin. I remember with Cole's delivery I got a break in between unbearable contractions. This time, my uterus stayed very tight and never really released between contractions. They were literally non-stop. I couldn't hardly talk or open my eyes between contractions.

So when I asked for the epidural, my doctor was actually trying to encourage me to continue with natural childbirth (this surprised me). He checked me and I was 6cm. He said based on my previous deliveries, I would be pushing within 20 minutes. I said, "I don't care. I can't do this another 20 minutes." So in comes the anesthesiologist. After hitting a nerve root on my left side twice (not fun for me or John who got kicked pretty hard), he finally got the epidural in. It seemed to take forever - I had at least 4 contractions while he was working. Anyway, by the time I lied back down in bed, I was giddy. I remember just giggling and asking to see the kids one more time before it was time to push. And guess what? Sure enough, 16 minutes after getting the epidural, James Alexander was born. But I have no regrets. That was the happiest 16 minutes of my life.

When it came time to push, I had John & my mom with me. My doctor told my mom it wouldn't take much for this little guy to come out, and he wasn't kidding. I pushed 3 times during 1 contraction and he was out! He came out very healthy with no signs of prematurity (he was born only 15 days early). He weighed in at 7lbs 14oz, 20.5in long.

Now we're all home and pretty tired. He's a very quiet baby (thank goodness) and sleeps a lot. He is absolutely precious and I am filled with joy.