Friday, January 20, 2012

The long OVERDUE birth story

So, if I even have anymore readers - here is our precious one's birth story.

Owen Patrick Archer was born Wednesday November 23, 2011 at 9:39 am.  He weighed 7 lbs and 12 oz and was 21 inches long.  My due date was the Sunday the 20th and I went to the doctor on Tuesday the 22nd and she checked me, I was at 4.5 cm. She mentioned an induction but we discussed waiting since everything had progressed naturally thus far. So home I went to walk and rest and walk some more. I had become so uncomfortable as he was moving down further, but I was determined to walk as much as my body would let me.  It was a warm day so I even did a little yard work.  John came home from work around 5:30 and we hungout on the couch for a bit then decided to order some dinner as we had become lazy with cooking meals in our days up to delivery.  Around 6:45 he called in a to-go order and I was in the nursery doing some yoga. I only got thru 2 poses when the next thing I knew I felt something - my water had broke. I yelled for John to come to the nursery, and told him my water had broke. He responsed, "Are you sure?". I went straight to the bathroom and confirmed I was sure.  He was on his way out to pick up dinner so he tried to call and cancel but the order was ready and they wanted him to come pick it up. He tried to explain our situation, but they didn't seem to care. On he went to pick up the food while I stayed behind to get our things together.  I was going in circles trying to get pillows and bags and cell phone chargers to the door so he could load them into the car when he got home.  He came in with our dinner but I was too nervous to eat. I had some rice (it was Chinese) but ended up shoving it in the fridge and we made our way out the door.  We got into L&D and got a room and answered a TON of questions on my health and my pregnancy   At 9 pm I was still at a 4.5 and my contractions were very sporadic.  I asked if they would wait to get my IV going so we could do some laps around the halls to see if we could make anything more happen. By 1 am I was getting the pitocin to move my contractions along since they weren't happening on there own. I was very nervous about the pitocin because to me it equaled c-section.  Luckily I had a wonderful nurse who knew what she was doing. And it probably didn't hurt I was dilated a good bit as well.  By 3:30 am I was feeling more pain and she suggested getting the pain med Nuebain into my IV. She said it would help with the early onset of pain and not make me feel loopy or that "drunk" feeling. The minute she put it in I felt loopy and "drunk". I kept telling John that was a bad idea to get the Nuebain. The drug finally wore off around 5 am and I got an epidural.  The epidural was much more intense then I thought it would be. It took a while for him to insert the needle and he wanted a lot of feedback from me on where I felt things and that was hard since I was coming down from the loopiness and had gotten sick as well.  So I am not exactly sure how well the epidural worked for me.  At 6:40 am I was a 7 and starting to feel lots of pressure in my "bum", but the nurse told me that was a good sign - it meant he was moving down. Eventually I was ready to push. I had an amazing nurse and doctor to coach John and I.  I pushed for about 1.5 hours and then he came.  They took him and started cleaning him up and then taking care of me.  There was so much going on around and I was just sitting there trying to take it all in - It was so surreal.

For those expecting if I can give you one piece of advice without providing too much information I will definitely say to you all, "DO YOUR KEGELS". As my prenatal yoga instructor warned us, "They will be your best friend".