You'd think I might have died from the frequency of my posts! That's what my husband has been hinting at, at least. There is a lot to update about, but the news that is really pressing is that my son was born!
On June 15th, I gave birth to William Dean: 5 pounds and 9 ounces, 17 inches. Yes, he is a very little thing. Even smaller than my daughter was, and at 6 pounds we thought she was tiny! They were both born at 37 weeks. I wanted to make sure that Dean was term before we made any moves to try to have him come on out as that is the time that a child's lungs fully develop in the womb.
How did we coax our child out of my belly? We used what worked for us the last time around. On the morning of the 15th, we...um...had "fun-fun" times. I was then treated to a large vanilla iced coffee. For the rest of the day, we ran errands in the Las Vegas heat and the Mr. constantly made me get up and move needlessly for those various errands.
We were on our way to the Strip to do the last bulletpoint on our list when my water broke. Since we were only eight minutes away from our destination, I decided that we should go ahead and finish off our final errand. We planned to quickly go home afterward to pick up a few things before heading to the hospital. My contractions started right away and were five minutes apart. The Mr. parked in a loading zone and rushed inside with the paperwork he needed to drop off, leaving me in the car to count minutes between the roiling pain inside me. It was 2:35 pm, so getting to the freeway took longer than we anticipated--I was four minutes apart by then.
I looked over at the Mr., having just gotten past another wave, saying, "I think we should skip going home..." He looked over at me and agreed. We quickly reconfigured our plan; we had our daughter and dog in the car and decided to drop them off at my mother-in-law's, who lives literally down the street from the hospital.
As we got off the freeway and dropped off our charges, my contractions reached three minutes apart and I felt myself panicking. No one, especially my mother who missed the birth of my first child, was on their way yet.
The Mr. drove up to the hospital, got me a wheel chair, and a nurse from urgent care brought me up to labor and delivery while the Mr. parked the car. At the front desk, another nurse asked me to fill out a form and I immediately regretted not pre-registering. When I was finally getting wheeled to triage, the Mr. appeared and I felt at ease again in spite of my contractions.
The nurse in triage, Veronica, took her sweet time. I have to say, though, that I also wasn't giving any huge signs that I was in serious pain or having contractions because I'm not one to scream. I was so thankful for Chris. He was my advocate during the whole ordeal. Seeing Veronica's calm demeanor, he pressed that I was very dilated and that my water had broken. Veronica still didn't take him seriously. "Well, we'll see," she clipped. "Lots of women come in saying they're in labor..." With that, she snapped her glove on and checked my cervix. "You're eight, almost nine, plus one!" she said surprised.
"Oh crap!" I said feverishly. "I'm not getting that epidural, am I? So much for the only thing on my birth plan..."
"I can still order it," Veronica said, suddenly empathetic, "but I don't think it'll help much at this point." With that, she rushed out of the room.
I lay on the bed incredibly upset about the epidural but moreso about my mom's absence. My contractions were coming almost constantly by then and I remember actually saying, "God please, wait a little longer, please! My mom's not here!"
And then, I felt the urge to push.
"Oh God, the baby's coming!" I panicked. The Mr. and I were completely alone in the room. No IV, my legs out of the stirrups that weren't even attached to the bed or brought into the room yet.
He ran out of the room and flagged down a nurse in the hallway, repeating my words. My cousin and aunt came in at that point and behind them flooded in a slew of nurses. Chris shooed my family out and tried to hurry Veronica, "My wife said the baby's coming!" She stood there, putting her gloves on. He looked at my cervix and saw me crowning, "She's crowning!" She still struggled with her gloves. One contraction. A head popped out. Chris yelled more. Another contraction, and shoulders popped out. Chris's eyes bulged and he yelled more. Contraction three, Dean literally shot out onto the bed and Veronica's gloves were still undone.
Despite all that, Dean was just fine. He had a little scratch on his eyelid from what we suspected was from his crash landing. But there you go, he was born on June 15th at 3:41 pm. A little over an hour after my water broke and less than 15 minutes after we arrived at the hospital.
At least I had the baby on a bed and not in the car!
On June 15th, I gave birth to William Dean: 5 pounds and 9 ounces, 17 inches. Yes, he is a very little thing. Even smaller than my daughter was, and at 6 pounds we thought she was tiny! They were both born at 37 weeks. I wanted to make sure that Dean was term before we made any moves to try to have him come on out as that is the time that a child's lungs fully develop in the womb.
How did we coax our child out of my belly? We used what worked for us the last time around. On the morning of the 15th, we...um...had "fun-fun" times. I was then treated to a large vanilla iced coffee. For the rest of the day, we ran errands in the Las Vegas heat and the Mr. constantly made me get up and move needlessly for those various errands.
We were on our way to the Strip to do the last bulletpoint on our list when my water broke. Since we were only eight minutes away from our destination, I decided that we should go ahead and finish off our final errand. We planned to quickly go home afterward to pick up a few things before heading to the hospital. My contractions started right away and were five minutes apart. The Mr. parked in a loading zone and rushed inside with the paperwork he needed to drop off, leaving me in the car to count minutes between the roiling pain inside me. It was 2:35 pm, so getting to the freeway took longer than we anticipated--I was four minutes apart by then.
I looked over at the Mr., having just gotten past another wave, saying, "I think we should skip going home..." He looked over at me and agreed. We quickly reconfigured our plan; we had our daughter and dog in the car and decided to drop them off at my mother-in-law's, who lives literally down the street from the hospital.
As we got off the freeway and dropped off our charges, my contractions reached three minutes apart and I felt myself panicking. No one, especially my mother who missed the birth of my first child, was on their way yet.
The Mr. drove up to the hospital, got me a wheel chair, and a nurse from urgent care brought me up to labor and delivery while the Mr. parked the car. At the front desk, another nurse asked me to fill out a form and I immediately regretted not pre-registering. When I was finally getting wheeled to triage, the Mr. appeared and I felt at ease again in spite of my contractions.
The nurse in triage, Veronica, took her sweet time. I have to say, though, that I also wasn't giving any huge signs that I was in serious pain or having contractions because I'm not one to scream. I was so thankful for Chris. He was my advocate during the whole ordeal. Seeing Veronica's calm demeanor, he pressed that I was very dilated and that my water had broken. Veronica still didn't take him seriously. "Well, we'll see," she clipped. "Lots of women come in saying they're in labor..." With that, she snapped her glove on and checked my cervix. "You're eight, almost nine, plus one!" she said surprised.
"Oh crap!" I said feverishly. "I'm not getting that epidural, am I? So much for the only thing on my birth plan..."
"I can still order it," Veronica said, suddenly empathetic, "but I don't think it'll help much at this point." With that, she rushed out of the room.
I lay on the bed incredibly upset about the epidural but moreso about my mom's absence. My contractions were coming almost constantly by then and I remember actually saying, "God please, wait a little longer, please! My mom's not here!"
And then, I felt the urge to push.
"Oh God, the baby's coming!" I panicked. The Mr. and I were completely alone in the room. No IV, my legs out of the stirrups that weren't even attached to the bed or brought into the room yet.
He ran out of the room and flagged down a nurse in the hallway, repeating my words. My cousin and aunt came in at that point and behind them flooded in a slew of nurses. Chris shooed my family out and tried to hurry Veronica, "My wife said the baby's coming!" She stood there, putting her gloves on. He looked at my cervix and saw me crowning, "She's crowning!" She still struggled with her gloves. One contraction. A head popped out. Chris yelled more. Another contraction, and shoulders popped out. Chris's eyes bulged and he yelled more. Contraction three, Dean literally shot out onto the bed and Veronica's gloves were still undone.
Despite all that, Dean was just fine. He had a little scratch on his eyelid from what we suspected was from his crash landing. But there you go, he was born on June 15th at 3:41 pm. A little over an hour after my water broke and less than 15 minutes after we arrived at the hospital.
At least I had the baby on a bed and not in the car!
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