For Fun

Here's the post I wrote on my old blog ten days after Ramona was born...

So, as everyone knows, Ramona was born last Wednesday. She was late enough that the doctor wanted to induce me, but Ramona is tricky and decided to come out by herself. We were supposed to go to the hospital at 8am so I could start the induction process. Instead, I woke up at 4am with contractions. I figured we'd just go to the hospital as planned and I played on the internet through the contractions and woke up Joe at 5:00 as we had planned so we could leave for the hospital at 5:30 and get there around 8. When we got to the hospital, they were having some meeting, so we ended up sitting in the waiting room for like an hour, and finally got admitted. The nurse looked at the paperwork the doctor had sent to me and checked to see if I was dilated and I was at 4cm, so she called the doctor to see what he wanted her to do since I was already in labor.

I was hooked up to an IV that had saline and pitocin and antibiotics and she broke my water. Joe and I did some crossword puzzles and his parents showed up about an hour later. An hour or so after that, Joe's dad went and picked up my mom at the airport. We all hung out, and my contractions started getting really bad. Our parents went somewhere, the nurse checked again and said I was around 6cm. Not longer after that they got more intense and I got an epidural when I was at 8cm. (Which means I was in transition, so I could have just waited it out. But I don't really regret getting the epidural because it allowed me to do the next part.) After I got the epidural I was almost immediately at 10cm, which is maximum stretch. The epidural was really light, so I could still move and feel my legs and vaginal area and the urge to push, but not feel the pain in my stomach, so it was nice. I pushed a couple times to practice with the nurse and the doctor came in to see how things were going. The nurse said it would probably be a little while because my pushes kind of sucked, and the doctor asked if he had enough time to go do a couple of scheduled c sections he had. She asked if I could not push, because it would give the baby a chance to slide down to the end on her own, and then I could just push her out when the doctor was back.

So, the doctor went to do his c sections and I tried not to push. which was really hard. Ramona was all the way down and ready to be pushed out, so the nurse went to get the doctor. He showed up a few minutes later, and I pushed through three more contractions and finally I could feel her right on the edge and knew if I pushed just a little harder she would be out, so I did and she pretty much rocketed out all at once. The handed her to the NICU people, who had come because there was meconium when they broke my water. The doctor and nurse started pushing on my stomach and I delivered the placenta a couple of minutes later which felt super gross. Since my epidural was so light, the doctor gave me a shot in my butt to numb the area so he could do stitches. It took almost a half hour of stitching to get it done, and in that time the nurses got Ramona cleaned up and measured and wrapped up so Joe could hold her while they finished getting me cleaned up. After the doctor was done sewing, he congratulated me and Joe and we took turns holding the baby for a half hour or so and then Joe and Ramona went up to the baby nursery and the nurse put in a catheter and cleaned me up a little and let me take a nap for a half hour and then she took me up to the recovery room where Joe and my parents were waiting for me. They brought Ramona in and our parents took turns holding her. Then they left and Joe stayed the night in the hospital to help me with the baby, which I really needed because I was so sore and still attached to an IV.

I finally got the IV out and the next morning our parents came. We got all our paperwork done and got to leave around noon. My mom stayed with us for a week to help out, which was great because I was still really sore and tired and Ramona wasn't very good at breastfeeding the first couple of days so I needed help getting her to latch on and my mom had good advice. Now Ramona is a champ at breastfeeding and can find Joe's nipple through his shirt when she's hungry. (She still hasn't figured out he can't feed her.) Things are good, and we are having fun.

Sorry this is long and rambling, but I don't really care enough to edit this.