Well he's here! Daniel Ellis Keene was born June 26, 2011 at 12:13 pm. He was 8 lbs 8 oz and 21 inches long. He's perfect! He got a lot of Jesse's mannerism and his checks. He's got my nose. And of all things Blue eyes! (Jesse and I have brown eyes so we're not sure where they came from). I know it's been more than a week but I've been recovering from a C-section and trying to get used to being Daniel's Mom (still makes me grin every time I say it :) ). I wanted to get his birth story down some place he could read it down the road :), so here we go.
As you can see from earlier posts I was about a week overdue (40 weeks and 3 days). I was extremely uncomfortable and ready to be done being pregnant. In previous Dr visits I had been 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced and so I was hopeful that the visit on the Tuesday after my due date that I would have made some more progress. Jesse and I went to the appointment in the afternoon and I saw a Dr I hadn't seen before. When she checked me again nothing had changed. I sat up from the exam and started bawling! How could this be! I had been contracting a little bit at home and I resembled a whale! I couldn't possibly be pregnant longer! The Dr felt really bad for me, I think and told me I wouldn't be pregnant very much longer. I was still pretty upset but at least we could do something about it. We did some additional testing in the Dr's office to make sure he was moving well and had plenty of fluid around him. Everything checked out ok so the Dr came back with an appointment for us at the hospital to check in Saturday evening to be induced. We walked away feeling very relieved Knowing this was going to be over soon and knowing we had a date we would meet our son was the best feeling! I had been working from home the past week and a half and was excited that I finally had an end to that as well. Although people meant well it was frustrating to keep having folks ask every time I logged on if we had a baby yet. Umm....if I had had the baby would I really be logged in?
So Saturday we made the best of our last day before we became parents. We slept in a little bit. We had a good breakfast (Eggs, Bacon, the works :) ). Then we went out to a movie. Jesse and I enjoy going to movies and wanted to make sure we did that one last time before we had this new person to take care of. We saw bridesmaids (which was a pretty raunchy comedy) and it was fun :) We came home after that and then I rested for a while. My friends had all told me that I should sleep as much as possible because I was going to be really tired after we were all said and done. Jesse made his spaghetti for dinner which was excellent :) and we ate together and really enjoyed the last little while as a family of two.
After we were done with dinner we each got a shower and organized the rest of the stuff we needed to take with us to the hospital. I totally overpacked but that's my nature- I just didn't want to be without something I might need or want when I was stressed out. We spent some time with the dog in the backyard and made sure all the animals had what they needed for at least overnight. We got everything loaded in the car and got ready to go. We stopped at Starbucks (for Jesse) on our way out. The woman at the drive-through was really nice. She asked us what we were up to and we told her that we were on our way to the hospital to have a baby :) At first she was a little confused but when we explained we were going to be induced. She laughed and gave us a coupon for a free drink later on. That was kind of fun :) As we drove up to the hospital we reflected on how things were about to change. We were going to be parents!
When we finally got to the hospital we went up to the third floor and got buzzed in (it's a locked unit for security) right on time for our 8 pm appointment. The walk down the hall to Room #6 seemed like it took forever. We were carrying all of our stuff and they got us all set up. The room had a beautiful view of the mountains as the sun was setting. I changed into the hospital gown and they started getting me set up. They put in an IV which was new for me as I had never been in the hospital before. I they had a little bit of trouble getting it started in my left arm (which was where I wanted them to put it). The veins kept "clamping down" for them after they got through my skin. I got a pretty ugly looking bruise on my left arm (which is still healing). They also put me on a monitor that was looking at the baby's heart rate and my contractions. Everything looked great. The Dr. came in and gave us all the particulars about the medication I was going to get to and talk abut the risks of induction. She did say that I had an increased risk of C-section but I guess that didn't register with me because I just wanted the baby to come...plus even if we had decided to wait there was no guarantee that things would start well on their own in a time that would be good for the baby.
They checked my cervix (still only at 1 cm- no progress after three weeks!!) and administered Cervidil which was supposed to soften my cervix and hopefully get some good productive contractions going.
We settled in for the evening and watched a movie together and also got a little bit of sleep- although the nurse had to keep coming in and checking the monitor and giving medication and taking my vitals so it wasn't the most relaxing time I've ever had...but that's ok.
Ok- I think I'm going to break this post into a couple of parts because this is getting long- so more to come soon :)
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