I had the greatest of intentions to document more of the pregnancy and Xander's life, but that hasn't happened. It seems that this is a recurring statement for me... I really must change that! I finally have his birth written down (regrettably 2 years later) and there are some details and facts that I just can't remember. =( But this is as much as I remember...
During my last month of pregnancy we asked Nelson's family when they thought that the baby would be born, how long he'd be, and how much he'd weigh. Bre, Nelson's niece, wanted the baby born on her birthday January 27, but everybody told her that it wasn't likely. My estimated due date was January 21, 2005, but most people didn't think that I would make it to that day. These are the guesses…
Nelson’s dad 16th 8 lbs 6 oz 21.5 in
Mark 20th 6 lbs 13 oz 19 in
Nelson’s mom 18th 7 lbs 15 oz 21 in
Melody 22nd 7 lbs 3 oz 21.5 in
Kiara 22nd 8 lbs 19in
Bre 23rd 8 lbs 5 oz 19 in
Paige 17th 7 lbs 18 in
Nelson 12th 7 lbs 10 oz 20 in
Everything was as usual until the last week of December. I began having Braxton-Hicks contractions that were almost regular in nature during the night starting at about 2am and then randomly throughout the day. I had been having Braxton-Hicks contractions from about the midpoint of the pregnancy, but they only lasted for just a little while and were never consistent. I woke up at 3:45am (which wasn’t unusual… I woke up several times throughout the night while I was pregnant) on December 27, 2004. I laid there thinking, I have to use the bathroom, but I’m so tired. Warning – ookiness ahead… I then felt a small gush of fluid I thought I should go check, but I’m so tired. I got up and went to the bathroom, shut the door, so that I could turn on the light and not disturb Nelson. After nearly burning my retinas out (no dimmer switch on the light where the toilet is) I noticed that I was bleeding and I gushed a bit of fluid. I was not expecting what I thought was a lot of blood!! I yelled at Nelson, “We have to go to the hospital NOW!!” He said, “Really??!!??” I explained to him what was going on. He through on some clothes, grabbed the cameras, gave the cats some extra food, and I got shoes and a sweatshirt on and we headed out. We had a rental car since one of our cars was in the shop and we didn’t want to have to go to the hospital in my Pontiac Firebird (I didn’t want to be in labor and have my water break on my seats or sit in the bucket seats and breathe through contractions. The seating position’s almost a birthing chair anyway, I probably would’ve sped up the delivery looking back on it all)… it was a Dodge Ram HEMI (coooool!). From the time I woke up until we got in the delivery room was 15 minutes… in the fog!! Thankfully, no police were out!!
When we got there I was hooked up to monitors and they checked to see if I was dilated. I was 1 cm and I didn’t have any more blood. They monitored me for a while and watched his heart rate and every thing was fine. They said that since this was first pregnancy that it was perfectly fine for me to come in since there was blood. They didn’t make me feel like I was over-reacting, so I felt reassured that everything was ok. They wanted me to call my OB later in the morning, but I actually had an appointment which was even better. So, on the way back home we went by way of a road that was under construction. They had scraped all the asphalt off and there was a humongous pothole roughly every 6 inches or so. We had to go like 2 miles an hour. I commented to Nelson that if we stay on this road much longer, then we’re going to have to turn around and go back to the hospital!! We got home and went back to bed for a while.
We went to the OB appointment I was 2cm dilated! I called friends and our doula and let them know that the baby was coming sooner rather than later!!
Each night starting about 2 or 3 in the morning I would start having contractions and with each passing night they were getting stronger and more regular, but they would stop after a couple of hours. The contractions that started early Sunday morning went longer and came back several times throughout the day. I got the nesting urge that day, but had Nelson do all the cleaning and organizing to save my strength!! We called doula and let her know what was going on. She gave us some suggestions to get prepared and to give her a call when it was time.
We went out to get some cat food. There’s a huge furniture store next to the pet store so we walked all through it. I was hoping that it would bring on labor. Nelson had to go back to work the next morning because his Christmas vacation was over. He was taking 3 weeks off after the baby was born and really wanted to start his time off after already being off for 2 weeks. The doula was going on a family vacation at the end of the week and her partner would be my doula if I went into labor during that time. I wanted to make everybody happy! I was doing what I could to have the baby scheduled appropriately.
We called up Nelson’s family and asked if they wanted to eat at IHOP which was nearby. So we all met up and had breakfast for dinner! It was quite yummy! I love pancakes!!
We went to bed and contractions started up again about midnight and were much stronger! I was timing them and they were coming very regularly. After a while I couldn’t lie in bed any longer and began walking around the house. At some point (ookiness alert) I felt oozing again and went to the bathroom. The largest glop of bloody goo was in my underwear. I had passed the rest of my mucous plug. I then woke Nelson up and let him know what was going on. By now the contractions were the magical ‘5 minutes apart’. We called the hospital to see if we should come in or wait a while longer. We decided to go to the hospital because the contractions were starting to get to the point of me not being able to handle it on my own. This trip was a little slower than the last one. ;-D
We decided that we would call people and let them know once we determined that we would be staying and that we were ‘officially’ in labor (and by we… I mean… me!). We got there about 3:30 or 4am and unfortunately the labor room that was open was a lot smaller than the one we were in the first time, but it wasn’t too bad. They hooked me up to all the monitors and checked his heart rate. It all looked good. I can’t remember, but I think I was about 4cm dilated at that point. They gave me a huge glass of water to drink to see if that would cause my contractions to stop (dehydration is a common cause of contractions during pregnancy). I surprised Nelson by drinking it all relatively quickly. I normally don’t drink very much, especially water, but it just tasted so good! The contractions kept coming and they decided we were ready. We called Nelson’s family and told them and called our doula. During this time I kept asking Nelson to check and see if I was still bleeding because I kept feeling oozing. He would look and say that there wasn’t any blood. My OB happened to be on duty when we got there. He wanted to break my water, but when he tried nothing really happened. Later, Nelson told me that the doctor gave the nurses a ‘I’m-not-really-happy-with-you-look’ that they didn’t know my water had already broke, but I didn’t notice any of it happening. I guess the oozing that I was feeling was my water leaking out!
Because I have mitral valve prolapse and I was Group B Strep positive, I needed IV antibiotics for delivery. I have always had issues with having blood drawn from my left arm. No one can ever get any blood out of it. My right arm works like a charm, but left… I joke that it has no blood in it. The blood pressure cuff was on my right arm, so they wanted to put the IV in my left wrist. When I had tubes put in my ears when I was younger, I had an IV in my left hand (still have a small scar where it was) so I didn’t occur to me that it may be a problem to have an IV in my left wrist. The nurse tried multiple times and kept apologizing. She moved to a different spot on my arm and tried multiple times. Needles don’t bother me at all and I watch as they do it. I actually find it really interesting. It finally dawns on me that maybe she should try my right arm. I tell her that it’s always been impossible to get blood from my left arm, but I’ve had an IV on that arm before. Total rearrangement of the monitors and blood pressure cuff ensues. She’s able to get the IV in the first time on my right arm. She says that that’s the way it’s supposed to be. She also tells me in the future to have IVs in my right arm! I apologized for not remembering, but I didn’t think of it since I’d had an IV there before.
So, now that everything was set up we just make it through the contractions and wait for the ‘magical dilation of 10’. The nurses kept telling me that the baby was very low and that he would be here really soon, but every ultrasound and internal exam I was told that he was low.
I can’t say enough for how wonderful it was to have our doula there. I wouldn’t have been able to make it through without her. She helped me make it to the other side of each contraction. I can’t really describe what the contractions felt like. It’s really amazing that something that was that painful, I can’t remember what it was like. If we have another child, I’m sure that once I have a contraction, I’ll be, “oh yeah… this is what they felt like”, but I can’t conjure up that feeling. The only thing that I can remember is that later on in the contractions, I started getting an incredible pain and pressure on my pubic bone, but other than that I can’t really describe them.
I labored in bed for most of the time. The nurses kept thinking that the baby would be here really soon, but my dilation wasn’t really progressing very fast. Our doula had me try different positions in bed, a birthing ball, and walking around for a while. That was all helpful in the sense, it changed the sensations of the contractions and broke up the monotony, but the dilation was increasing very slowly. All throughout the morning, between contractions I was my normal self, smiling, joking and enjoying the process. There was one point that I remember thinking was very nice and peaceful. It was sometime in the morning maybe 9 or 10am and it was lightly raining outside. I was next to the window and could see the gray overcast sky and the rain falling. I could also hear the rain. I t was really very peaceful. A very nice added touch to the labor! The only odd thing was that I could see a man outside smoking and it kept looking like he was looking right at me! I’m sure the window is tinted so that it’s difficult to see in, but it still looked like he was looking right at me. Because of my demeanor between my contractions and my quietness during the contractions, my doula and the nurses kept saying how amazing I was and that I was the poster woman for Lamaze!
I can’t remember when, but I think it must’ve been around noon, the nurses decided that I should have a little bit of pitocin to improve the ‘shape’ of my contractions and make them more productive and speed up the dilation. I was a little apprehensive about getting pitocin. I was afraid that it would make the contractions much stronger and that I wouldn’t be able to handle it. They said that it would only be just the smallest amount. I said ok and it did help to improve the ‘shape’ of the contractions and I was still able to handle them.
Later in the afternoon it was getting much harder to make it through the contractions. I remember thinking at one point during a contraction, “I’ve been at this how many hours and it’s this painful? I could probably make it through to 10, but then I have to do the pushing!! How long is that going to take and how much more is that going to hurt??” I started to cry a little and told our doula, “I don’t think that I can do this!” She told me that I could and to just get through each contraction! To look at her and to focus on her. I was able to keep going! Thankfully during all of this long laboring process the baby’s heart rate was consistent and perfect!
I was getting very thirsty and hungry and the nurses let me have some apple juice. It tasted so good and I don’t normally like apple juice! Nelson’s family brought him and the doula some food and they alternated scarfing food down between my contractions. I felt kind of bad because our doula’s daughter had a basketball game that evening and she missed it because my labor was taking so long. Part of the reason that I was progressing so slowly (by 5pm I was maybe 7.5cm) was because the baby was what they call ‘sunny-side up’ (or posterior) and he was stuck on my pubic bone. They added some kind of pain killer to my IV. As soon as it was added I immediately said that it made me feel weird. If there’s a next time we definitely will be skipping that! It made me so groggy and sleepy. I was falling asleep between the contractions and it didn’t take away any of the pain! After an hour or two of this I finally agreed to the epidural. It’s not that I was adamant about not having an epidural, it’s just that I wanted to be able to go as long as I could before I needed it.
The nurses were really looking out for me. I had waited for quite a while for the anesthesiologist to come and put in the epidural. They finally just told him to give me my epidural now!! He came and gave me the epidural and I was given a catheter. It was so hard to try and be as still as I possibly could so that he could place the needle in my spine during contractions that were so painful.
After the epidural the nurses wanted me to rest for a few hours to gain my strength back. It was sometime after 7pm. I remember the lights being turned out and talking with Nelson. I was still quite groggy from the IV pain medicine. I was apologizing for taking so long and being so loud during my contractions over the last couple hours. In the exhaling during contractions I wasn’t really exhaling… it was more like forced exhaling with moaning… which I thought was very loud (Nelson disagrees). He told me that I didn’t have anything to be sorry for. I was doing an amazing job! He told me to get some rest! I rested, but I don’t think I ever actually went to sleep. I could still feel the contractions but they weren’t painful. The nurse who was with me in the morning and had given me my IV was back on duty.
She came in and said, “You’re still here?” I’m coming back at 8pm and you’re going to start pushing and have this baby!!
I said, “Uhh… ok?”
She was true to her word. 8pm she came in and started getting me ready to push. I was 10cm (I actually don’t remember her even checking to see if I was fully dilated) and couldn’t move my left leg at all and the buzzing feeling that I had in my legs was really bothersome. I’m glad that I didn’t have the epidural for very long. They placed my legs in the stirrups. Our doula said that this nurse has a real talent for positioning women so that they can push most effectively. The nurse told Nelson’s family that since this was my first baby that it was going to be a while before the baby was here. She told me that the doctor (another doctor from the OB practice was now on duty) had given me 3 hours to get the baby out or I was going to have a C-section! That was the motivation that I needed! Since I could still feel when I was having a contraction, I began a set of pushes with the next contraction. The nurse was amazed that the baby began moving and rotated into the correct birthing position. She said, “Wow! You’re a really good pusher!” Who knew? I pushed another set and then they let me feel the baby’s head crowning and had me stop pushing! The doctor wasn’t even in the hospital yet! I spent the next 10 minutes trying not to push! Right before the doctor got there I was thinking, “Ok, if she’s not here with the next contraction, I can’t NOT push any longer!” So one more set of pushes and he was born at 8:22 pm! It looked like he had curly hair but it was just because it was wet and he had so much hair (that later when it was dry was such a bright blonde color!!)! His head was so perfectly round, too! I guess because he didn’t spend all that much time in the birth canal!! They laid him on me and I cut his umbilical cord… it was surprisingly tough! It took me a second try to actually cut it! They weighed and measured him and he was 6lbs 12oz and 18.5in. A little tiny guy!! They burrito-ed him and gave him a hat and Nelson got to hold him while they repaired my 3rd degree tear. This is when we finally told everybody his name… Nelson Alexander Sheets and that we giving him the nickname Xander (spelled with an X but pronounced like Zander). Nelson then called my Dad and let him know that his grandson was finally here!! I held him and let him nurse. He took to it right away with no problems!
After a while Nelson and the nurses took the baby to the nursery to have a bath and they began the process of moving me to a post-partum room. They removed the catheter and the epidural. They had me go to the restroom. While I was sitting there I told another nurse that I didn’t feel well. She told me to breathe and put my head between my legs. That wasn’t really helping. I told her that I was getting ready to pass out. At the same time the nurse was coming into the rest room she started to lift me up under my armpits and starting moving me toward a wheel chair. That was the last thing I remember until I was wondering why I smelled ammonia and it was all dark. A group of people were hovering around me trying to get me to come to. I felt much better and they moved me to the new room. I was freezing, so they brought me a warm blanket. They took Xander to the nursery so that I could get some good rest. Nelson tucked me in, said good night, and headed home to feed the cats and to get some rest, too.
About 2 hours later the nurse woke me up and told me that Xander was hungry. So I nursed him. I was so exhausted and I was too nervous to fall asleep with him and he kept needing to nurse many times. At one point he started crying and I couldn’t get him to stop. I thought that maybe I should change his diaper. This was the first diaper *ever* that I had changed. I got him cleaned up which was rather difficult because meconium is just so difficult to clean up, but had a rather difficult time getting the new diaper on him. I like to think of myself as a rather intelligent person that can reason things through and arrive at a solution, but the intricacies of closing up a diaper were lost on me at that moment with a screaming newborn. I actually had to call the nurse to come help me. Did I mention how exhausted I was and how I can’t handle babies crying *at all*? Thankfully the nurse was very helpful and didn’t laugh when she told me that it was on backwards. I can’t remember if she re-burritoed him or not, but by the time the nurses came to get Xander for his pediatrician check at 7am he was not really burritoed very well (did I also mention that still to this day I can’t swaddle a baby?) and I had him sleeping in his little hospital bassinett/cart, so that I could get a little bit of sleep. The pediatrician brought him back after a while and said that his temperature was low and they placed him under the warmers for awhile. I felt so bad… it didn’t dawn on me that I was cold and he might be cold because the room was so cold (which the pediatrician mentioned when he walked to my side of the room). Other than that he was doing well. The hospital food was actually pretty decent!
Nelson arrived a little later in the morning and stayed all day until he had to leave at 10pm. Other people visited and we just enjoyed being with Xander. Before Nelson arrived a gentleman in scrubs came in and asked me how I felt and how my back was doing after the epidural. I had no clue who he was, but he had such an interesting accent (maybe from a country in Africa?). It was a little weird talking with him because I was just trying to figure out who he was. I assumed that he was the anesthesiologist, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember him having an accent when he was giving me the epidural. I know I didn’t know what he looked like because when my eyes were open I was looking at Nelson, but most of the time they were closed so that I could concentrate on making it through the contractions and not moving. I asked Nelson about the whole thing and he said that he was the anesthesiologist. I just couldn’t believe that I had no idea that he had an accent. Later the OB came in and asked if I wanted to go home and I told her that I still felt pretty weak and thought that I would stay another day. I also wanted to stay because I was told that Xander would have to stay for 48h since I was Group B Strep positive. The nurses took such good care of me. They did all that they could to keep my semi-private room private and they brought me extra of those wonderful pads that you break and they get really cold! They felt so good and I think they really helped me. I only took one Motrin for pain from the tear and I don’t think I really needed to. I never had any trouble from my tear. There were a few times that I forgot and sat down too hard in the wrong way, but it was really not an issue for me at all.
The next morning’s check-up for Xander went well. The pediatrician said that he was a little jaundiced, but she wasn’t concerned with it. The second day in the hospital was a little more draining. I was starting to get *very* uncomfortable in the hospital bed. I was also getting tired of the moving process involved with going to the restroom.
I decided to take a shower which really made me quite tired and wasn’t as relaxing as normal. The shower was a little tiny in the corner kind of shower with a curtain that let in cold air, even though I had the heat lamp on in the bathroom, and the water from the showerhead was like tiny needle like streams that were really beginning to hurt. There was not enough water to come out to rinse my hair quickly so I was in there forever. Thankfully near the end, Nelson came in and helped me because my legs were beginning to give out and he helped me get dressed and back to bed. He also combed all the knots out of my hair, which was beginning to look like small mammals were nesting in there. I must remember to try to wear my hair straight and not just in a ponytail before going in to labor if there’s a second baby… yet another reason long curly hair can be such a pain!
Since Xander wasn’t born until 8:22pm we couldn’t leave the hospital until then. By that time Xander was beginning to scream as we were putting him in his clothes which were way to big for him. They were so big that it made Nelson and I get the giggles! We finally got him dressed (kind of). We next had to get him in his car seat. We had to readjust the straps because they were too low. I think this was Nelson’s ‘diaper issue’. Again, he’s a pretty intelligent guy and can easily figure out how things work, but we were there *forever* with a screaming newborn trying to get the straps fixed! Finally, we got everything together, got us all bundled up, and got in the car. Xander was still screaming but we drove not even 2 minutes down the road and it then it suddenly stopped. The car was back from the shop but the interior lights weren’t working! So, I couldn’t even see him even though I was sitting right next to him. Nelson asked, as I was thinking it, “Is he still breathing?” I couldn’t see him, so I put my hand in front of his face and then on his chest and felt him breathing! It was just amazing how instantly he fell asleep! And he’s only done that once or twice since!
