I’ll try to keep it from getting too long, but here is the story of Aedan’s arrival! (I’ll keep the gory details to a minimum – but for those that don’t want to hear the details of labor, may want to skip this one)
Aedan was due to arrive September 20th, but not surprising, he didn’t come on time. At my 40w appointment, we discussed induction and when was the right time. He said he’d prefer to induce no later than 41 weeks, which would be Sept 27th, but I could pick any day between now and then. At this point, I’d been having contractions for a week, mostly in the middle of the night, but never enough to progress into labor. I was this close to having him induce me the next morning. I was done. I also knew that Aedan was another big baby (Brody was 8lbs 14oz), so I didn’t want to let him get too much bigger!
Instead we settled on 4 days late, Monday morning. I was positive that Aedan would come over the weekend (I mean it had already been a week of contractions!), so I didn’t think we’d need the induction. I was wrong. The weekend came and went and no baby.
Monday, September 24th
Enjoyed our last morning as a family of three, took a few pictures and then took Brody to daycare. In case things didn’t work-out as planned, we didn’t want to tell Brody anything, so he went to daycare clueless as to what was going on.
7:45 – Arrived at hospital, got hooked up to monitors and IV. Contractions were about 8-10 minutes apart, but weren’t strong enough to be considered real labor. But the good news is that my body was at least showing that it was ready for labor. Took three pokes to get my IV started (lovely!) but finally got it going.
9:15 – Pitocin started flowing (medicine to induce). Contractions got closer together, but it was a low enough dose that they weren’t too painful yet.
9:45 – OB comes to visit & break my water. Tells me I’m about 1-2 cms dialated, 50% effaced (thinness) and -2 station (+2 is when the baby is ready to go). I was 1cm dialated at my appointment on Thursday, so I was really annoyed that in 4 days my body didn’t do anything.
Then, he breaks my water. This was awful. Apparently mine was a little tougher than normal. There was a point where I think he actually thought he wouldn’t be able to do it. By the end of it, I was in tears. But I knew that this was nothing compared to contractions, so I just considered it prep.
Lots of discussion at this point about how long it was going to be. Clearly Jason was worried about whether or not he’d miss the Monday night football game, since the Packers were playing. Sheesh. The generally consensus was that I’d probably deliver by kick-off, but not much before that. Jason was hoping to hear it would be by 4:00, the OB laughed.
OB also said whenever I wanted to get the epidural, that I was fine to go ahead and do so.
11:00 – Heaven. In other words, epidural. The contractions started coming 1-2 minutes apart after he broke my water. Since I had to be monitored to make sure that Aedan didn’t react poorly to the lack of fluid, I couldn’t walk around much to manage the pain. I tried a couple different things, but was in enough pain to get the epi. I always knew I would get it, so it was just a matter of when.
After that, I layed in bed, relaxing, facebooking etc. I could sometimes feel the contractions, but it just felt like tightness without any pain.
1:30 – Nurse came in to check my progress. I was hoping for some good news that things were progressing faster than expected. (one can hope – right?!?) I was 4cms, 80% effaced, -1 station. So, I was progressing right on track. It looked like the dinner-time prediction by my OB was going to happen.
Nurse told me to turn on my side to get the baby moving down quicker. I had been staying on my back because with the epi when I layed on my side the numbness went all into one leg. But I turned on my side anyway.
2:30 – My left leg was numb and I could feel contractions on my right side. Since I was getting uncomfortable, I turned to my right side. This is easier said than done with an IV and two monitors with cords. So flipped and layed there for about 10 minutes or so.
Despite flipping sides I was still very uncomfortable. I felt a lot of pressure. Mentioned it to the nurse and she asked if I needed to push? I was like, well, no, I don’t think so? I never felt the need to push with Brody, so it wasn’t something I expected. Besides, it had only been an hour since I was 4cm.
2:45 – Um, nurse? Yeah, kind of feels like I need to push…
3:00 – 9.5cms – get ready for baby! (Seriously…5 1/2 cms in an hour?? I was in shock)
3:15ish- Nurses are all in the room, everything is set up, we’re ready to go. I’m trying everything I can to not push. One nurse has me do a “practice-push” to see if we can get Aedan a little further down.
Jokes start about whether or not we’re going to deliver the baby without the OB. He still wasn’t there yet…
Few minutes later… In runs my OB. Apparently there was a miss in getting him the message. His office is attached to the hospital, so there was no reason he shouldn’t be there for the birth. Once he checks that he didn’t miss anything, he runs off to change.
3:30 – ready to push. Started pushing Aedan out. It was definitely different than with Brody and a lot more uncomfortable. Let’s just say I was motivated to get him out sooner than later. OB did seem concerned at one point and said a couple of times that “IF he looked good when he came out that they’d put him on my chest right away” I was a little worried that he kept saying, “If…”
3:38 – Aedan Andrew arrives! 4 contractions, 8 minutes of pushing. He was clearly a big baby. Luckily he was doing great and came right up by his mommy. However, his umbilical cord was pretty short. He wasn’t able to put him on top of me before cutting it. Jay wasn’t thrilled about cutting the cord to begin with, so he had no issue letting my OB cut it.
Let the jokes about how big he is begin…Oh, and the bets on the official weight.
9lbs 8oz. 21 inches long (I’m waiting for the pediatrician to confirm this, I totally thought he was longer than Brody).
My OB also made a comment on how Aedan’s APGAR score should be a 10 just because of how pink he was. He was clearly thriving instantly.
The entire pregnancy has been more stressful and emotional for me. Turns out the birth was to. It was very uneventful and successful, but bringing him into the world definitely filled my heart in a different way than Brody. With Brody, I didn’t really know what was in front of us. With Aedan, I really know what it is like to raise a little boy and love him so much.
What I didn’t know is that it’s possible to love two little boys more than anything else in the world.
Most Valuable Babies 