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Alexander Sex: boy Born: 26 January, 2008 Age: 0 years & 182 days Birthday in: 183 days Starsign: Aquarius Development: See the 6 months page. Biggest achievement so far: -

Birth details

Type of delivery: Vaginal (with pain relief)
Duration of labor: 8 hours
Weight @ birth: 8 lbs 8 oz
Length @ birth: 20 inches
Time of delivery: 5:38 PM

Alexander`s birthstory

At 9:30 AM, I got up from bed and felt liquid running down my leg. I ran to the bathroom and saw that it was watery and pink. I announced to my husband that my water had broke and we got very giddy. I was afraid to get off the toilet... I had waited for this moment for so long, now I was scared and nervous... I called the hospital and they told me to come in. We finished packing and I started having contractions around 10:15, just before we left for the hospital. I didn`t bother timing them. We called both sets of grandparents and let them know what was happening. The contractions started getting stronger very quickly. I had to stop and breathe before getting in the car and while walking into the hospital. (The ride to the hospital was SO bumpy!) When we arrived at L&D, they hooked me up to moniters and did a swab to verify that my water had broken, since I wasn`t gushing or anything. I was at about a 6 on the pain scale and the contractions were 4 minutes apart. The swab test was NEGATIVE! I`m still confused by that. The nurse said it must have just been bloody show, but I had already lost my mucous plug weeks ago and had had my membranes stripped twice and had been dialated to 3 cm for a week. But oh well, I sure thought it was my water since it was running down my leg! The nurse said it didn`t matter anyway because I was at 4 cm and having strong contractions so I was going to be admitted. `We`re having a baby today!`, she said. We walked (waddled) to the birthing room and we met my nurse, Emily (who was AWESOME!). I was going to just lie in bed because I felt so miserable, but she convinced me to sit in a rocking chair. The contractions were getting more intense and it was about 12:00 by now. She taught me a breathing technique that worked for her when she was giving birth. It didn`t work for me. I would start out breathing, but the contraction would get so intense that I`d just lock up and moan or cry. My husband was amazing. He kept talking me through them. After a while, Emily suggested I labor in the bathtub. She said they rarely get to use it because so many people jump right to the epidural, and I had requested to avoid pain meds. They checked me again before the bath and I was at 5 cm. The warm water did feel good. My body was doing what it needed to do (including peeing in the bathtub, even though I tried not to, sorry for the detail). My husband got a cup and kept pouring water over my tummy which was very relaxing. I got out and they checked me again. I was at 6 cm so they broke my water. (very warm and gooshey) There was a little bit of meconium, but the doctor wasn`t worried, so they didn`t do anything out of the ordinary for the delivery later. I sat in the rocking chair again and had to get cleaned up every so often because with every contraction, the fluid would gush out. The contractions were now at an 8 on the pain scale and I was starting to get worried. My body was taking over, but I wasn`t handling the pain well and wasn`t able to breathe through the contractions like I`d hoped. We asked Emily about pain meds. She said I could take Demerol to take the edge off until the anesthesiologist was available to do the Epidural. I declined the Demerol because she said it could make me nauseous, and I didn`t want the added discomfort as I was already feeling queasy. I also have a history of bad reactions to pain meds, and the worry was too much. I opted to wait for the Epidural. In the meantime, Emily needed to put in an IV for fluids in order to get the Epidural. She went through the vein on my right hand causing my hand to swell up to nearly the size of a softball and was very painful. She tried again and went through a vein on my right wrist. She called another nurse in, and she tried and failed again on my right arm. They finally called an IV Tech to come and she went through the vein on my left hand, causing that to also bruise and swell up painfully. Finally, she got it in a vein on my left wrist successfully. That ordeal sucked. It hurts when they were poking me, I was also having contractions, and I was getting anxious because I was so stressed out by the 5th attempt... those contractions were the most painful of because of all the confusion. Just as she got the IV in, the anesthesiologist showed up. I didn`t even notice or care what she was doing to my back to get the line in. I didn`t even notice the contractions, I was just so relieved that the pain would be going away. It kicked in right away. My left eye went kind of numb and tingly, but other than that, there were no complications, I`m happy to say. I laid on my left side for about an hour, then rolled to my right. My bottom half felt numb, like from the cold, but I didn`t feel cold. I could still feel sensations, and after a while, I started feeling contractions again. They were kind of like a vague, tugging sensation. Like, I knew something was happening, but it was happening to someone else. The nurse asked me to tell her if I felt the urge to push. I told her I think I`ve been feeling it, so she checked me and I was at 9.5 cm! I went from 6 to 9.5 in 1 hour, while on an Epidural! She pulled up the stirrups and showed me how to hold my legs. Every contraction, I was to take a cleansing breath and push to the count of 10. I did that 3 times for every contraction. I started to feel a lot of pressure in my pelvis. After a while, Emily told my husband to look while I was pushing, and they could see a little bit of the head. They saw that he had blonde hair. I kept pushing as a felt the urge, and I definitely pooped. I couldn`t help it... it was the same muscles. Luckily, I didn`t give a damn and the nurse never said anything. She just cleaned me up in between contractions. Finally, it felt like I was trying to push a coconut out of my butt and she said the head was crowning. They paged the doctor and got the baby warmer out of the closet. I was really feeling the pain now. The epidural was still working, it`s just that there was so much pressure. I was really scared, like I wasn`t sure I wanted to go through with it, but I didn`t really have much choice. I had two more contractions with the doctor there (and a REALLY BRIGHT LIGHT) and she said `one more push and he`s out!` So I got a rush of adrelaline, and decided I wasn`t waiting for another contraction. I pushed with everything I had and felt quick relief as his head passed. Then OW! His shoulders REALLY hurt so I pushed quickly to get him out and... I felt a sudden emptying of everything... baby, fluid... and I saw my baby. I don`t think I said much for the next hour I was in so much shock. My husband was open-mouthed too. He cut the cord and they put him on my chest. He was so warm and wet and looked like my grandpa. The first thing I noticed was his feet. He has a gap between his big toe and the rest, just like me. He opened his eyes and I had this overwhelming understanding that my life would never be the same. I was scared again, but knew somehow that I would get through it. I had pushed for exactly 1 hour, had 8 hours of labor, was pregnant for 40 weeks and 3 days, but it felt like just yesterday that I had taken that pregnancy test. Now, it was all over and a new adventure had begun. One, that I realized I was entirely unprepared for. Alex is now 1 month old and is getting over his first cold (that I gave him, I still feel miserable). He is colicky and grunty and his umbilical cord held on until just yesterday... but despite all this, when he opens his eyes wide after a nap, when he falls asleep while breastfeeding, when he coos and smiles his gummy grin... I fall in love and forget all the rest. That`s the blessing of motherhood... a selective memory. In those first days and weeks after giving birth, I couldn`t imagine ever doing it again, especially without pain meds. I couldn`t understand how anyone could ever have more than one child. But as time passes and he starts hitting milestones, memories fade into mere meditations to be considered as part of the whole package. And it was all worth it.

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