Jess and Michael's Window

Evan Charles finally made his appearance on Dec. 18th 2008 at 5:50am, weighing in at 7 lbs 4 oz and measuring 19.5 inches long. We think he is gorgeous!

Now Evan is already over a week old, the time has passed so quickly… while at the same time feeling like one lonnnnnngg day. It has been 12 days and I finally feel like doing something other than what I have to do and sleeping. I had no idea how badly the birth process would knock me out! I definitely did not expect to go more than a few days being out of breath and fatigued, but I guess it was the difficult labor we endured. Every day gets a little better and I’ve been dying to put it into words before I start to forget the details so here goes….Evan’s birth story:

Dec. 16th – 39 weeks, 1 day. Went to see the doctor and found out I was 1cm dialated and 75% effaced. She stripped my membranes again to get things going hopefully since we were all expecting Evan to be big. As a foreshadowing of things to come, Aunt GG remeasured Evan again and the U/S calculated him to be 7lbs 13oz! Aunt GG couldn’t believe that and attributed it to him being slightly out of reach in my pelvis. But she and Dr. Cauthen revised their estimate to be 8 to 8.5lbs now. I was happy for that.

Since it was rainy outside, I decided to go walk Perimeter Mall to see if I could get Evan motivated. I walked for a few hours and enjoyed the Xmas decorations and some window shopping. I didn’t buy one thing, but I did get a free pair of underwear for Victoria Secret with a coupon I had (yay!).

That evening I began having lots of Braxton-Hicks, but I didn’t get excited because I’d been having them for a few days already. But by 8pm or so they started to feel different, like cramps. By 10pm I couldn’t lay down in bed, so I was pretty sure it was the real deal, and that is when I think it officially started. I rocked in my glider all night breathing through these early, mild contractions and waiting till morning. The next morning they were 4mins apart so we called Aunt GG and Dr. Cauthen. Doc C said if they continued for another hour to go to the hospital and get checked, and make sure Evan was okay. By then it had already been 12 hours. It was still quite bearable but I had to close my eyes and concentrate, and people had to stop talking to me…I couldn’t answer questions.

We arrived at the hospital at 11:30am on Dec. 17th (I’m thinking…YAY, today is Evan’s bday — if only I had known). We get checked and find out we are only 2cm!! Crap. This is going to be long. Doc C said I could go home (to Aunt GG’s) and labor some more, but before she made it out of the area we were in an alarm went off and both her and Aunt GG came rushing in. Evan’s heartbeat had dropped to 70bpm from about 140bpm. Minutes later I felt a rush of some kind like I was going to pass out. We still don’t know what happened but whatever it was hit Evan first and then I felt it. Well that sealed the deal, we were not going home but staying in the hospital in case something else weird happened. This is when Doc C decided we should be on the Electronic Fetal Montior for 15mins out of every hour (which confines me to bed for that time period).

The EFM proved disastrous for my attempt at a natural childbirth. Immediately I was having trouble dealing with the contractions lying flat on my back or even on my side. I could only manage the pain while standing up. Even sitting on the birth ball was hard. Very often the nurses would be too busy or would forget about us laboring in bed with the EFM and it would be 30 or 40mins before they would come release me. Mike had to go get someone a few times because it was so painful for me.

At 5pm, I was still only 2cm, so Doc C decided we needed to break my water to get things going. I was really disappointed because I wanted to labor in the tub but you are not allowed if your water is broken. I felt like hot water would’ve really helped ease the pain.

After about 22 hours from the beginning I was in tears and told Mike I couldn’t take it anymore, I needed the drugs! He tried to convince me otherwise as he was trained to by our birth class. We decided to get checked, since I was having a moment of doubt; maybe I was in transition and it would be nearly over. Oh how wrong we were…they checked and I was only 3cm! This was devastating to me…after all this time only 3cm!!!

So I got the epidural and oh what a relief that was! They started pitocin after that to see if I would dialate further…if not I was looking at a c-section. It worked but it was still slow. I tried to get some sleep, as did Mike. Sometime in the night I began feeling the pain from the contractions again. I started to panic when the redose didn’t work. I’d heard all these horror stories of epidurals not working or only working on one side…and now I was really tied to the bed, with catheters, a fetal monitors, an IV and a blood pressure monitor. I was scared! While they tried to figure out what was wrong, the pain got worse and worse. There must’ve been 4 or 5 people working to try to fix it. Mike had to calm me down. Finally they got it fixed! Turned out the catheter slipped and the anesthesiologist had to reposition it. Another time in the night it started to wear off again, but this time I just needed a redose.

At 1:30 am on Dec. 18th, they checked me again and I was still only at 5cm. But they let me continue since I was progressing. Finally, in 3 1/2 more hours I went from 5 to fully dialated and at 5 am, they told me I could start pushing! By then, the epidural had worn off just enough that I could move my legs and feel the contractions but not the pain. This made the entire process worthwhile. Doc C, Mike and our nurse all cheered me on and told me what great progress I was making. That helped motivate me…I was determined to get Evan out by myself. The last hitch in the birth was Doc C discovered that Evan’s head was turned sideways which was going to make it hard for him to come out, but come out he did! And it was the best feeling ever! Thank goodness we had something go right!

When they put him on my belly, Mike and I both started laughing and crying hysterically. Evan just appeared! After nine months of staring at an opaque pink sphere wishing for x-ray vision…there he suddenly was. The thing I remember most is how hot his little body was. What a shock it must’ve been to go from his tropical little paradise into the cold delivery room! He turned red and started screaming. Mike cut the cord and they took him to check him out.

Everyone wanted to know…how much does he weigh?! Mike took a picture with him tipping the scales at 7 lbs 4 oz!! Doc C was in hog heaven…she could not wait to tell Aunt GG how wrong she was with her estimate and said that Gina would claim he lost weight before he was born. And that is exactly what happened. So funny. (My friends put a sign in our yard saying “Evan Charles 7lb 4oz – not 8lbs, or 8.5lbs, or 9lbs, or 10lbs!!) So we have a little guy… perfectly fine by me and perfect in every way.

I learned a big lesson…it really doesn’t matter how big or small the baby is…a little baby can cause just as much trouble as a big baby. Every mother deserves major props for going through childbirth. And any first time mom who makes it through natural childbirth is a miracle!

After Evan was all cleaned up and they determined his vitals were fine (his HB spiked just as he came out, and both of us had a fever), they gave him back to try and nurse for the first time. I must’ve been really out of it, because I can’t say I remember too much about this moment other than he seemed to do fine. What I do remember is when the nurse got him back and unwrapped him from his swaddle, he was covered HEAD to TOE in POOP!! I guess he decided he would tell us how he felt about the whole delivery process, since no one asked him. He was so messy he got his first bath right there in the delivery room. The nurse kept exclaiming about him getting himself so dirty and Evan protested as loud as he could with his newly functioning lungs. Wow, the kid can scream!!

Soon after that we were moved to our recovery room and the week of crazy tiredness began. I’m just now getting back to feeling somewhat normal and it feels great…like the first day you feel better after having the flu.

And that’s our story! I’ll put up some pics later. Little by little.