it’s funny that a L-O-T can happen in 24 hours. let’s start from the beginning…
so last thursday after my ob checkup, i was still only dilated @ 1.5cm. it was looking like induction was going to be the only way peanut was going to come out.
friday morning i woke up early, determined to make some banana muffins for breakfast when i started to experience some cramping. (it’s about 06h30m.) okay not a big deal. then, another cramp/contraction. s finally wakes up at about 8.45a and that’s when i told him that he’d better start timing these things. my doc said that i needed to be having contractions 5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute for 2 hours (5-1-2). just shy of the 2 hour mark, the contractions started to get closer – 4m, then 3. before you know it we were off to the hospital!
we arrived at the hospital at 12n. after a not so pleasant experience with the insertion of my IV, we headed up to the LDR floor and got settled into the birthing room. the trooper that i am (or thought i was), held off for the immediate epidural. after being there for 30-45m i decided that i needed the epidural sooner rather than later. it was about 2p when the epidural was started (by now, s is im-ing folks on his sidekick, my mom had arrived and my cousin the NICU nurse was on her way). before you know it i was at about 7cm and there were no signs of slowing down. with the help of my little support team, i started pushing BEFORE my ob had arrived! after 20m of pushing, i remember looking at the clock and telling myself that there is no way i’m doing this for more than 1h and that this kid is coming out before 5pm…10 minutes later, little Madison arrived! (s ended up cutting the cord!) i was really proud of s and my mom for not passing out! 🙂
our stay at the hospital was fabulous – the nurses were great, services were great – especially the well baby nursery. a nurse will come by pick up your baby, which allows you to get some much needed sleep, and will bring them back when it’s time to nurse.
(8.23.06 btw, it’s the 2nd day i’ve been working on this entry!)
coming home was…strange, for lack of better terms. i left the house with no baby and came home with one. so far, everything is going well (except for the lack of continuous sleep, 2-3 hour spurts several times a night don’t really make you feel rested). lucie has been GREAT with madison. at times, i think that lucie could care less that she’s here.
…so now it’s been a couple of days and i think that we’ve got some sort of system going on. s starts “working from home” next week so hopefully i won’t screw things up that badly…just kidding! 🙂
lessons learned:
- there is nothing shameless about getting an epidural
- pushing is a lot harder than i thought it would be, but solid determination can help a lot
- learn to swaddle before you give birth – it could save your sanity
- if you live in sf, give birth at cpmc – if 80% of the local population gives birth here (per my primary care physician), that’s definitely something to be noted
- a gift for the nursing staff never hurts – you’ll leave with even more hospital booty than you can imagine
here’s a picture of the happy, but very tired family…
August 24th, 2006 at 9:50 am
Congrats to all 3 of you! I just wanted to comment on your comment about coming home with the baby. I too remember that experience as being a little strange. I remember feeling kind of weird walking out of the hospital with the baby thinking to myself “They obviously have no idea that we don’t know what we are doing. If they did, they surely would not allow us to leave with this baby.” By the time we got home, the baby had fallen asleep. We walked into our apartment, put the baby seat down in the middle of the room and looked at each other and kind of gave each other the look “Ok, now what do we do?”.
Leave a Reply