Before I get into the whole story - a LONG story - of his arrival, here is what most people are probably interested in, a photo of our little man. To us (biased of course), he's perfect in every way. Everyone at the hospital commented on how cute he was, and while I'm sure they say that to almost everyone, I think they really meant it with him. :)
So how did Mr. Evan come to arrive in this world, well like I said, it is a long story, so I won't be offended if you don't read it all. And don't worry, I won't include any of the gory details (though there really were none).
As of July 29, we were technically overdue, as that was the last of our variety of due dates from the doctor. So Monday, July 30 came around and not much was going on. I felt good and went to work. But that evening, I started to feel some stronger, more frequent contractions, so we decided to take our phones to bed with us to have a stopwatch near by, just in case.
I woke up around 12:30 a.m., went to the bathroom and was feeling a decently strong contraction. I timed it and it went close to a minute, so I knew they were getting a little more serious. It was about 12 minutes to the next one, so I decided I better stay somewhat alert to the situation. I did try and sleep as much as I could, but the strength of the contractions and my paying attention to what was going on woke me up each time so I could properly time and interval them.
Chris woke up to me pacing around at about 1-1:30 a.m. I told him the contractions were stronger, lasting 45 seconds to a minute and were about 9 minutes apart. He tried to sleep from then on too, while keeping an eye on the situation.
Around 3 a.m., the contractions were about a minute long, 5 minutes apart and stayed that way for about an hour, so I called into the Labor and Delivery Unit at the hospital and told the nurse what was going on. She didn't tell me to come in yet, since the strength of my contractions wasn't that bad. She said to wait another hour and see if they keep up and get stronger/harder.
So we waited around another hour and things got a little stronger, but started to fluctuate in the intervals. I called back with this information and she said I could come in, but if I wasn't dilated, they would send me home and if I was starting to progress, it was moving slowly and that would make for a long hospital stay (little did we know!). So she said to stay home and go through the labor process for as long as I could there, until "I couldn't walk or talk through the contractions."'
We stuck it out at home until about 3 p.m. Good thing we didn't go in! We got a little more sleep and thankfully the Olympics are on so there was decent daytime TV to keep us entertained. But at about 3 p.m., I was getting the very strong contractions, which lasted 45 seconds to a minute and were coming between 5 and 7 minutes apart. I called in to the hospital again and the nurse said to come in and they would check me out and decide if admitting me was the right decision at that time.
So we arrived at the hospital a little before 4 p.m. and the nurse got me into a room and gown and had us walk the halls for a half-hour. She then examined me and determined I was dilated to 1 1/2 cm and that since my contractions were fairly strong and coming quicker now, they would admit me. So we got excited that the time had finally come for us to meet our little one!!
The nurse came back an hour or so later and I was dilated to 2 cm, so we felt that things were moving pretty good, so we let our close friends and family know that this kid should be here by morning (ha!). My contractions were definitely getting stronger and I tried walking around to help ease the pain. I had always planned on getting an epidural and the nurse said they would put one in when I was at 4 cm.
Around 9 p.m., she came in and I was 4 cm and really in a lot of pain during the contractions, so in came the anesthesiologist and the drugs. What a wonderful medicine! It helped almost instantly and thank God we were able to get at least some sleep. A nurse was still coming to check on me, so I was up each hour, but any sleep was better than what I would have gotten without the drugs. More power to the women who go without, but I will never be one of them!
Unfortunately, one of the side effects of getting the epidural is that it can slow down labor. And of course, for me it did. That was reason #2 for slower labor with me, the first being that it was my first baby. So we got stuck at 7, then 8, then 9 cm for quite awhile and my contractions started getting more sporatic. Thankfully, I wasn't feeling them, but it started to become a lot of sit-around-and-wait.
Finally around 10 a.m. the nurse said I was fully dilated and suggested I try pushing a few times to see if anything progressed. It appeared to be working, so we started the whole process. I pushed until about 11, and then the doctor came in to see how things were going. As I pushed, she checked the baby and determined it was coming out face up. That's not a problem in terms of the baby, but it can make labor go slower - reason #3. Also, when she was trying to turn baby (with no luck), she said she felt a little bit of my cervix left, which was probably keeping the baby from coming out - reason #4. So her suggestion was that we wait awhile and make sure I became fully dilated to start pushing again. I took it upon myself to get an extra boost of the epidural and thankfully I was able to sleep for about an hour or so before the doctor came in and said it was time to push again.
Then came the HARD pushing. Thankfully again for the epidural I didn't feel any pain, but dang, that's no joke. It's a lot of work to get that kid out!! Somewhere in the process, baby did turn over, so he came out face down, but the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck a bit - reason #5. It didn't impair his breathing so much that they were worried about his survival, but he did have to go to the special stage 2 nursery for a few hours just so they could make sure everything checked out.
So after 36-some hours, we had our Evan! I will say it was all worth it because he is wonderful. We were in the hospital then until Friday morning and we've been doing great at home. We're a good team of parents, just as I suspected. The nights are short, but manageable, and Evan is a very content baby, only really crying when he is hungry. We've had our share of poopy diapers and even a pee that flew all over the wall. Gotta love boys!!
Here are a few pictures from the hospital and coming home:
Holding him for the first time
Dad getting to hold him for the first time
First family photo. Forgive my appearance as I had yet to shower in over a day!
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