Isabelle Grace's Birth story
Isabelle Grace’s Birth Story
My due date was Oct. 19 or 22 depending on my midwife or the u/s date and I had been planning for an early arrival my whole pregnancy because my mom had early arrivals with all 4 of her pregnancies. I had told several people during my pregnancy that I would love for the baby to come on 10-10-10 because it would be a cool date for a birthday and it is also my mom’s birthday, but of course I figured the odds of actually getting that date were pretty low. I had my 38 week appointment on Thursday and confirmed with my midwife that the baby was in a good position for pushing her out (I was paranoid that she might have moved into a weird angle or something because I couldn’t tell at all what parts I felt when I poked around at my belly) Friday at work, I told the girl who I was training to cover for my during my maternity leave that I would probably see her Monday because I didn’t feel like I was going into labor any time soon. Saturday, we went to our weekly potluck lunch we have with friends. I was feeling great and enjoying my pregnant belly. My friends commented that I looked like I had dropped which I couldn’t tell if I had or not. DH and I both took a nap for about 3 hours Saturday afternoon during which I had one or two menstral cramp type feelings, but didn’t think anything of that since it had happened before. Also was not having any BH that day which I had off and on from 18 weeks pregnant. Saturday night we went shopping to look for curtains-didn’t find any we liked but got some baby items with a gift card we had. We planned to go out on Sunday to another store for curtains. We both stayed up until 2:30 a.m. watching a movie. When I went to bed I said, “well, I guess I’m not getting 10-10-10 after all, but I have a lot of stuff to do tomorrow so I guess that‘s ok. Come on Isabelle, you need to come tonight for 10-10-10!”
I went to bed and DH was doing some stuff around the house. I had just dozed off when I had a really strong menstral cramp type pain around 3 am that woke me back up. Dozed off again and another one hit me and woke me. They kept happening every 15-20 minutes, waking me up. I didn’t really think I was in labor, but was a little concerned that if I was, I was going into it with no sleep since I had stayed up watching the movie. I kept trying to doze in between the cramps, but then I started having really bad gas cramps and having to go to the bathroom especially when the menstral cramp feelings hit, so I spent a lot of time in the bathroom and was having a lot of soft BMs. Still didn’t have any bloody show and the cramp feelings just didn’t seem strong enough to be contractions to me (although obviously they were!) I kept getting up and down and at some point, I decided to go lie on the guest bed so DH could get some sleep since he had finally come in to bed. There was a pile of washed baby clothes on the bed and I spent a while folding them, putting them away and making trips to the bathroom. I kept thinking that I should be having a nesting urge and want to do more stuff around the house if I was in labor, but all I wanted to do was get the bed cleared so I could get some sleep so I would have enough energy. I finally got the bed cleaned off and DH came out and asked me what I was doing. He told me to just stay in our bed and not worry about disturbing him. It must have been 6:00 am or so by now. I went back to bed, but only stayed a few minutes because the contractions were now too strong for me to lie through- I felt like I needed to be up and moving around when I had them, plus I still felt like I had to have a BM every time although I think I was pretty cleaned out by this point. I got up again and went on the computer to read about false labor- I was still in denial that I was in real labor because I thought there was no way I would have actually gone into labor on the date I wanted. Started timing my contractions and they ranged from 3-6 minutes a part and were 50-60 seconds long. After about 4-5 of these, I went in and told DH he should probably pack his hospital bag just in case it was real labor. I still hadn’t called my parents-they live around 3 hours away and were planning to come for the birth. It was now around 7:30 a.m. and I decided I would shower before I called since showering would make the contractions stop if it was false labor. They were now very strong menstral cramp type pains and I would say “oh crap, crap, crap, that hurts!” and kneel on the floor when they hit. I took a shower and yelled to DH when I had them-they were between 3-5 minutes apart the whole time. As soon as I got out of the shower, I called my mom and said “I think I might be in labor, I’m not sure if it is false labor, but I’ve been having these cramps since 3 am and a lot of BMs, but I haven’t had any bloody show. I’ll call you back in a bit to let you know if they continue and if we are going to the hospital.” My mom told me later that she immediately was concerned about them getting here in time since she was sure it was real labor. She repeated what I said to my dad and he said he was going to sleep another half hour then get ready. About 5 minutes later he got up and said “I think I’ll start getting ready now, just in case!”
DH and I both kept getting ready-DH hadn’t packed at all. I had packed everything I could in advance, but I had a list of last minute things to pack and things to do-I went into my work email and turned on my auto reply, emailed my work replacement to let her know I was going to the hospital, got our snacks for the hospital together and a bunch of other things. Contractions were pretty steady at 4 minutes apart and I had to drop to the floor and rock and say my “oh crap” routine with each one. I didn’t feel like answering any questions from DH during them and didn’t want him to touch me either which I had thought I would like being massaged during contractions but that wasn’t the case. I started feeling really nauseous during the contractions and I finally threw up during one of them-DH held my while I threw up and that I didn’t mind. At that point I decided that this had to be real labor and I got a little scared that maybe I was having a super easy labor and had just hit transition or something. I told DH that we REALLY needed to leave for the hospital – I think this was around 9 or 9:30 am. I called back my mom and told her the update and that we were going in to the hospital. I tried to eat some cheerios after this so I wouldn’t have an empty stomach and would have energy later. We still didn’t end up leaving for the hospital until around 10:15 or 10:25 am-my mom called my cell as we were pulling out of the drive way and said they had just left. We said we were just leaving too-we had about a 25 minute drive to the hospital. My contractions continued around 4 minutes apart the whole drive-I was really glad it was a Sunday because there has been a lot of construction in our area and on work days it can take almost an hour to get to the hospital. I was worried about having contractions while sitting in the car, but they really didn’t feel much worse than when I was kneeling. I drank some juice in the car to get my energy up and because I was pretty thirsty. When we got to the hospital parking lot, we paid to park and DH was trying to ask the attendant about if we would have to pay for multiple days for an over night stay. I was having a contraction and I smacked him and yelled “Just park, you can find out later, it doesn’t matter!” We parked and walked in around 11:00 am-I wanted to drink another juice before we went to L&D but I asked at the front lobby if there was a restroom I could use and was told I shouldn’t use it in case they needed a urine sample. The attendant walked me straight up to L&D and into the ward so I didn’t get a chance to drink more juice before I was in their clutches :(. DH had to wait outside L&D until they decided if they would admit me. They hooked me up to the belt monitor and took my blood pressure. I was planning to be seen by the midwives on call and hopefully use the birthing tub, but unfortunately, my blood pressure was high and I was dumping protein into my urine (after having no issues with this the WHOLE pregnancy). Also the rooms with the tub hookup were all full. They hooked me up to an IV with some meds to bring it down but ultimately I ended up having to go to the OB side of the hospital since it didn’t come down. I was checked for the first time in my pregnancy and told I was 5-6 centimeters dilated. I said “YESSS, I didn’t come in too soon!” I was really happy about that since I had planned to labor at home as long as possible. They had me answer all the questions for the admitting paper work and then kept me in that room for about 20 minutes while they monitored me. I started getting really uncomfortable on my back and sat up after a while. That made one of the nurses come back in since it messed up their monitoring. I told her I needed to go to the bathroom and she said they needed me to lie down. I was like “so should I just pee on the table here?” and she said “no, just let us get a good reading during a contraction to make sure the baby is ok then I will let you go.” I was like “baby is fine, its just your monitors”, but I laid down through another contraction so they could get the reading they needed, then she let me go. I didn’t actually have to pee and I didn’t try too hard to have a BM since I figured at that point there was nothing left and I might be actually feeling an urge to push and didn’t want to make my cervix swell. I sat on the toilet for around 4 contractions or so just so I could labor in that position without them bugging me. While I was in there I saw I had started having bloody show. I could hear DH talking to a nurse outside the door, they had let him in since I was going to be admitted.-I was hoping I could wait until the nurse left to come out of the bathroom and sneak a juice from him since he had our snacks, but she didn’t leave and I finally had to come out. They told me they were taking me over to the OB side since my pressure hadn’t come back down and I would have to use the belt monitor. I wasn’t too happy about that, but I didn’t argue at that point because I was still able to deal with the contractions while on my back so I figured I wouldn’t make an issue of it unless it became too hard to handle them lying down. They put me in a wheel chair and took me to the delivery room. I told them I didn’t want a male dr. to deliver me, I wanted a female dr. or a midwife under a doctor’s supervision. I think this caused some issues for them since most or all of the OBs on call were male, but they found someone because all of the people who worked on me were female. When I got there, I stayed sitting on the bed for around 3-4 contractions. The nurse, Taylor, was very patient with me. Some other nurses or residents came in and she said something like “She doesn’t want a lot of interventions, but we need to get her lying down and on the monitor or she’s going to have every doctor in the place in here thinking something is wrong.” So I lay down and let them put the monitor on. Taylor offered to break my water and I told her “no, I’ve heard that makes your contractions harder”. She told me if she did she could put on an internal monitor on the baby so I could get up and move around in labor like I wanted. I was like, “no, I don’t want internal monitoring; I will deal with the contractions on my back”. Someone also offered me an epidural and I said No! and one of the other nurses/residents said “she is doing a natural birth and she is handling the contractions just fine”. After that no one offered me anything else. I continued to labor on my back and would squeeze DH’s hand during the contractions. It felt like the contractions were further apart than they had been at home, but when I asked, I was told they were coming 2 minutes apart. They still were about the same strength as when I was having them at 4 minutes apart and they felt like menstrual cramps from hell but they were not at all bad enough that I would have wanted an epidural, I had no problem taking the pain. The nurse left the room a couple of times and I made DH sneak me juice to drink when she did since they weren’t letting me have anything but ice chips. That was some good juice! I kept feeling like I had to have a BM and I asked the nurse to check me again because I wanted to know how close I was. She said that I wasn’t ready to push quite yet and checking would just cause unnecessary discomfort. I labored for what I remember as 1 or 2 more contractions but may have been longer since my sense of time was totally messed up at this point, then I told her that I felt like I had to push because I really wanted her to check how close I was. I didn’t feel like the urge was uncontrollable and I didn’t ever hit transition, at least not as its described in what you read. I just wanted to be close to the end. She checked and told me I was complete with a bit of a lip that she thought she could push out of the way so she had me push with the next contraction. I did not like pushing, a lot of women said it felt better to push than not to push or it was a relief after contractions-to me it was a lot harder work than I had anticipated and I actually preferred the passiveness of just letting the pain of contractions roll over me to the effort of pushing. I started pushing around 12:15 p.m. and my parents were still not at the hospital-they had called again a while earlier and were about 30 minutes away when they called. At some point while I was pushing, my mom came into the room and rushed over to me. She was like “your almost done, honey, you’re doing great!” and looked like she was more frazzled than I was! I said “this is HARD!” and she was like “I know, it IS hard!” She was also stressing because there was a miscommunication about how many people were in the room with me and they had not let my dad in and he had the camera to take pictures. She kept trying to go find someone to call down and get him in and Taylor kept telling her, “Grandma, your daughter needs you to hold her legs and help her NOW!” Someone did get the message down there because my dad came into the room a few minutes later. Taylor told me that I was doing 1 good push and 2 bad pushes with each contraction so I stepped it up and pushed super hard with each push which felt awful-it was like having the biggest bowel movement of my life-I don’t think painful is quite the word, it was more like the awful feeling when you throw up or have diarrhea cramps- a really strong, yucky expulsion feeling. With one big push I felt liquid and thought my water had broken, but apparently it was just me peeing myself :) Then with another big push, I felt more water and that time it was my water breaking-I think it was very close to the push when she came out. I couldn’t feel how close she was to being born but they must have told me as she started to come out because I was pushing with my eyes closed, but I opened them as she came out and saw her come out and the dr. catching her and lifting her up-she was bloody and slimy and pink. She was born at 1:00 pm on 10-10-10, around 2 hours after I arrived at the hospital and weighed 5lbs 11 0z and was 19 1/2 inches long. My mom said “Oh honey she’s beautiful!” They didn’t put her on my chest right away which I was disappointed about. I saw my husband cut the cord and they took her to the side and started cleaning her up. I didn’t hear her cry right away and I kept asking if she was ok and why I didn’t hear her crying. My mom kept reassuring me that she was fine. The dr. and nurses were massaging my belly to get me to deliver the placenta. I kept asking why I couldn’t hold her and have her breastfeed to help deliver it. It felt like they were massaging me forever-they did finally let me hold the baby for a few minutes then I handed her to my husband. At some point I pushed out the placenta and they checked me for tearing. I had 3rd degree tearing and had torn my sphincter. I told them to please give me a shot to numb the area before they started stitching me up. There were 3 women working on my to repair me and it felt like all six of their hands plus a truck were being shoved up both openings-the feeling was the same as when the baby was crowning which was awful-the numbing didn’t do anything and I made more noise during this than during all of labor and delivery. They kept offering me an epidural which I still kept refusing, I told them to ignore all the noises I was making and just keep working because I was fine. They were triggering my push muscles whenever the tried to stitch me so after a while they gave me something, Demerol I think, to make my muscles relax-they said it would make me sleepy. NOT! Whatever they were doing was painful enough that all that the drug did was make me kind of stupid (er :)) Finally after around an hour of trying unsuccessfully to sew me, they said that they HAD to take me to OR and either give me an epidural or general anesthesia to do the repairs properly. I was kind of stupid from the demerol and at first told them to give me anesthesia because I didn’t want an epidural (can you tell I REALLY didn’t want the epidural :) ), but they told me parents that it would be a lot better and I would recover faster if I had the epidural. When my parents tried to reason with me, it did sink in that the epidural was the lesser of the two evils, so I finally agreed to it. Before they took me to OR they also told me they had to take the baby to the nursery while I was in OR. I said I wanted DH to stay with her in the nursery the whole time and they told me he couldn’t go in the nursery with her because it was against hospital policy. I was like “I don’t care, that doesn’t make any sense, it’s a stupid policy” I told him to at least stand outside the glass and watch her the whole time and I repeated that I didn’t want her to get any formula or pacifiers. And I found out afterward that it wasn’t actually the policy and they DID let both my mom and my DH wait in the nursery the whole time so I don’t know why the nurse who said that thought that they couldn’t? After that, it was off to OR for the epidural- I remember thinking while they gave it to me that at least I didn’t have to worry about holding absolutely still during contractions so they probably wouldn’t miss! Once I had the epidural, the demoral worked and I was out like a light for whatever they did in OR. When I woke up, they told me they had successfully fixed me up and my DH would be able to come in the room shortly. He came in and told me he had been with the baby in the nursery which I was happy about. Once the epidural wore off, they took me to my room and I waited for them to bring the baby to me. There was a delay in communication and it took about a half hour for them to bring her-I finally got her around 6 pm My mom told me later that at around 5:30 pm the nurse in the nursery had told her it was policy to give infants formula after 4 hours and since it had been 4 ½ already they wanted to feed her. My mom told her I was already back in my room and could they please wait a little longer. My husband had gone back to the nursery and confirmed that he had just come from my room and I was in fact in there. Since Isabelle wasn’t showing any signs of distress they agreed to wait. So when they finally brought her to me, I was able to breastfeed her and she latched on right away and nursed great which was the absolute BEST feeling in the whole world! I was feeling pretty sore as the epidural wore off, but when she nursed I got a hormone high that took away all the pain while she was nursing. We were in the hospital until 9 pm Tuesday night-we were supposed to be discharged around noon but the dr. on call apparently couldn’t find time to put in my discharge in the computer? So that was frustrating, but the nurses were all super nice and helpful and overall I didn’t mind being in the hospital as much as I thought I would-I actually was kind of glad to have the help and advice from the nurses during that initial period.
Now that we are home, Isabelle is doing great. Breastfeeding has continued to go very smoothly which I am thrilled about and I am feeling much less sore as each day goes by. While I didn’t get to do as natural a birth as I had wanted, I feel like the interventions did not interfere with my bonding or establishing a good breastfeeding relationship and I am proud of myself for being able to labor and deliver without any pain meds even though I didn’t get to deliver with the midwives.
Pics of Isabelle:
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Lucas Daniel's Birth Story
Lucas Daniel
10/27/10 10:01 am
6 lbs 1 oz, 19 1/2 inches
I will start this on Mon 10/25. I woke up at 4:30 am w/ contractions which were about 10-15 min apart. I couldn't sleep and was sure this was it, so I got into the shower at 6:15 am. Well, during my shower the contractions disappeared. So I wasn't in labor after all :( and went to work that day and felt fine the rest of the day.
On Tues 10/26 I had my 39 week appt. My doc checked me and said I was between 1 and 2 cm, and about 80% effaced. She asked if I wanted her to strip my membranes, and I said sure, since I was so ready to have my baby already. I didn't get past 39 wks w/ my DD, so I was surprised I was still pg at this point. So she stripped my membranes, which really hurt, and she commented that she could feel baby boy as he was really low. She said if I wanted she would induce me on Thurs, since that was the day she was on call at the hospital. (There are 6 docs at my practice, so the one that delivers you is just whoever happens to be on call that day, and you see all of them while you are pg.) I didn't really want to be induced. I still felt good, baby was doing great, and I was terrified of all the negative side effects that could happen w/ induction. So she told me to call her if I changed my mind, and I went off to work. I had maybe a few more BH contractions than usual, but other than that not much effect from having my membranes stripped.
On Wed 10/27 I was 39 weeks and 3 days. I woke up at 3:30 am to go to the bathroom, and this is when I lost my mucus plug. I was very happy about that, but was having no contactions or anything, so I went back to bed. I woke up again at 4:30 am, this time feeling a contraction. I started timing them and they were very sporadic, but between 10 and 15 min apart. Keep in mind that this exact same thing happened at pretty much the exact same time 2 days ago, so I wasn't convinced that I was really in labor yet. Well, these contractions got intense and very painful pretty quickly. They were still very sporadic though. They would be 10 min apart, then 6 min apart, then 13 min apart, then 9 min. But I called the answering service at my OB at 6:15 am, because I was in a lot of pain. I had never felt contractions this painful w/ my DD except after they broke her water right before they gave me the epidural. So I was a little scared that my water had broken and that I just didn't notice it. But I had no fluid leaking at all and I was pretty sure I would notice at least a little something if my water had broken. I also had no bloody show. This was my biggest sign that I was in labor w/ DD, so I really expected that this time as well. Anyways, the on-call OB called me back about 6:30 am. I described how painful my contractions were. He asked how far apart they were and I when I told him, he said that they weren't regular enough, to wait until they were 5 min apart to go to L&D since I had no fluid leaking or bloody show. In the back of my head I knew better, but he was the doc, so I listened to him.
I decided at that point to get in the shower. This is what stopped my contractions the other day, so I figured if it was false labor that would stop them, and if not at least I would feel better taking a shower. I told DH to call my mom to get my DD though, since I knew I couldn't drive her to the sitter like this, and she said she would be there around 8:00 am. I stopped timing them in the shower, but I had to get my DH to come in w/ me to help me finish b/c I was having a lot of contractions by then and again they were pretty painful. Finally I got really dizzy and knew I had to get out of the shower. I barely made it to my bed, where I had a few more contractions. I just didn't want to move around at that point b/c it hurt too bad. I knew I had to get to the hospital ASAP, it just seemed to take forever at that point b/c I was stopping to breathe/yell through contractions every few min. I finally managed to get some clothes on w/ DH's help, and my mom had picked up Lily and taken her to the sitter. As soon as I could make it to the car, which was a slow process, we left to go to the hospital. Luckily it is only a 10 min drive from my house. I called my boss on my way to the hospital to tell her I wasn't coming in to work b/c I was definitely in labor!
When we got to the hospital it was 8:50 am. There wasn't anyone at the front entrance, so DH went and got me a wheelchair and we went directly up to L&D. I told the lady at the desk there that I was having a lot of painful contractions. She wanted to send me back down to registration! I said please, was there any way my DH could do that b/c I was in a lot of pain! She said okay, and they put me in a triage room. It had to be at least 9:00 am by the time I got there, and it was another 10 min or so before anyone came in to look at me. I labored through at least 3 or 4 more contractions while I was waiting, and all I could think of was getting an epidural and fast! I was never in this much pain w/ my DD's labor. The nurse came in and told me to undress and put a gown on and she would check me to make sure I was going to stay. She did comment during my contractions that she was pretty sure I would stay by the sound of it! Well, she checked me and said, um yeah, you're 8 cm, you're definitely staying! :eek: She also asked if my water had broken. I said no, but she kept saying she couldn't feel my bag of waters, although said it might just be b/c baby was so low and blocking it. At this point about 3 more people rushed in to get me transfered to an actual labor, delivery, and recovery room.
This freaked me out a bit. I knew the minute that she said 8 cm that I wouldn't have time for an epidural, even though I asked and they said they would try to hurry one through for me. I just couldn't believe that I went from feeling nothing to 8 cm so quickly. No wonder I had been in so much pain at home! I was happy to see though that 2 of my nurses were the same nurses that helped me when I had DD. And the on-call doc at that point was my favorite, even though it took them awhile to locate him! (He also happens to be the father of the same doc that told me NOT to come in at 6:30!) The other nurses asked my head nurse if she was ready to catch this baby if she had to! They kept asking if I felt like I had to push, but I told them I wasn't sure, since I couldn't feel it w/ my DD and didn't know what that felt like. I had just a few more contractions and was feeling a lot of pressure during them, so I told them that. The nurse checked and said I was pretty much complete, w/ just a little bit of a lip, and they finally found the doc then and set up everything so I could push. I'm not sure exactly what time all this was happening now, it was all happening so fast. So they set up the bed so I could push, and told me to push during the next contraction. I will say, I tried, but like I said, couldn't feel anything w/ my DD, so I had no idea what I was doing. They told me to hold my breath and bear down, but the contractions were so painful that I just wanted to breathe through them. Pushing hurt and I didn't like it! I asked if there was any other pain medicine they could give me, but they said nothing that would help at this point. I knew I was on my own! After pushing through that 1st contraction (well, trying to push, I definitely wasn't doing it right) the doc did something, and my water finally broke, at 9:57 am. I think that surprised him, since he was also commenting that he couldn't feel my bag of waters and they kept asking if I was sure my water hadn't broken. There just wasn't a lot of it apparently. This is also when I told him that natural child birth wasn't my idea and I was blaming his son who told me not to come in yet for this! That made him laugh! :D
Well, I felt another contraction coming on, so I told them that. I started to push, but only really half-heartedly b/c all I wanted to do was breathe through it and have the pain go away! I had my eyes closed. Well, my head L&D nurse said "Open your eyes and look at me! You need to hold your breath and push to get this baby out!" This got my attention. I held my breath and pushed as hard as I could, and out came his head! I know now the meaning of the ring of fire!!! I was screaming I'm sure, and wondering why the rest of him wasn't just sliding out. Then it occurred to me that I had to push the rest of him out. So I pushed again as hard as I could, and he was born at 10:01 am! My DH said the doc wasn't prepared for him to come out that fast, and had turned around for a second and almost didn't catch him! Well, I was in so much pain and shock still that I wasn't super concerned about my baby yet. I know that sounds bad, but that burning feeling just wouldn't go away yet, and I was still screaming and telling my nurse that it hurt! Then the doc needed to deliver the placenta, and I just wanted it out as soon as possible. I asked if there was anything I needed to do and he said no, but I think I kept trying to push it out anyways. Well it did come out a minute or 2 later, and I finally felt much better and at that point tried to figure out what was going on w/ my baby boy.
The doc said I had some minor tearing and needed 3 stitches. The nurses asked if I wanted some pain medicine at this point, and I said "YES!" So they gave me some Stadol, which miraculously kicked in pretty quickly, and the doc numbed me so he could stitch me up. During this, I told DH to get the camera and take pictures of our boy, b/c everything happened so quickly that we didn't even think of it earlier. He wasn't crying a lot, so I asked if everything was okay, and they said yes. His apgars were 8 and 9, and I was very surprised to hear them say he was only 6 lbs 1 oz! I had expected him to weigh at least a little more than my DD who was 6 lbs 4oz, seeing as how I had carried him a few days longer than her.
After they cleaned him up I was able to bf him. He latched right on and nursed for about 20 min or so. Then they took him to the baby nursery to get a bath and finish all his measurements, etc. They also wanted to monitor his body temp for a bit, since my DD had problems w/ hers, but luckily he was able to maintain his body temp just fine! This was around 11:00 am, and I finally got a chance to call my family and tell them the news, who were extremely surprised to hear that I had already had the baby! Well, DH and I talked for awhile about all the names we were considering that we liked, and we both agreed on Lucas, so I was happy he finally had a name! And we gave him my DH's name Daniel as a middle name, since we weren't going to name him a 3rd like my husband really wanted. The nurses helped me get up and go to the bathroom at this point, and I have to admit that the recovery was much quicker and I felt much better afterwards without the epidural. I just don't think I would chose to do that naturally again!
And so far everything has been going wonderfully! Luke is such a calm and easy-going baby, soooo much different from my DD. He does like to be held all the time and nursed frequently, but I am just enjoying it this time b/c I know that this doesn't last long, and most likely I won't have any more babies. The hardest part has been trying to change his diapers, it's a lot different w/ a boy! I've already been peed on more times than I can count. :rolleyes: LOL, but I'm getting better. And it's easier now that his cord has fallen off and his circumcision is healing. He was slightly jaundiced in the hospital, but we took him to the ped yesterday who said that his bilirubin levels look good now, and he must be a good nurser b/c he has been great at gaining weight! Of course here's a few pics of my sweetie.
With Mommy
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Our family (not a great pic, but oh well)
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My sweetheart:
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In his going home/Halloween outfit:
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