Birth Story

Today I'll recount Simon's birth story (that seems to be a thing amongst new parents).

Simon's due date was projected to be July 11, which conveniently fell on a Friday so I scheduled my last day of work to be that day. The whole two weeks leading up to that day I kept hoping that he would come early so I didn't have to drag my butt into work every day (was getting super large/uncomfortable by that point), but alas, nothing happened. Not even any Braxton-hicks contractions. Luckily at my 2nd to last OB appointment we scheduled an induction "just in case" on July 16th. Sure enough, Simon decided not to make any indication that we was going to come out, even though my cervix was dilated to 2 cm, so we walked into labor and delivery on July 16th. Only to find out that there were no beds available. They supposedly called me the night before to let me know but there was definitely no phone call (L&D fail!) so we grumpily went home instead and then decided to run errands. Just when we were about to go eat lunch they called and said a bed was available, so we rushed over to the hospital & finally got checked in at 2 pm.

They started a low dose of Pitocin and I still felt nothing, although there were clear contractions on the monitor. So strange...I guess I had been in early labor at home and had no idea! Well, the OB on call decided that I looked "too happy" and ruptured my membranes (aka broke my bag of water) and then the fun really started. Initially the contractions weren't too bad but then they got to the point where I had to really pause and breathe through them. After about an hour of that I decided that I might as well get the epidural before I got too uncomfortable to sit for it. (I have to insert here how weird it is to be a patient and on the receiving end of something I've done hundreds of times. That and lidocaine burns when it goes in...but it works really well!) The epidural was amazing. I was able to chill and watch TV the rest of the evening with close to no pain; when his head go really low in the pelvis I could feel a lot of pressure but it wasn't terribly uncomfortable. Too bad I've already done my two months of OB anesthesia because I feel like I could really counsel pregnant women on the pros and cons of the epidural having had one myself.

I started pushing at around 1:30 am, and after one hour, Simon was born! It was incredible meeting him for the first time after feeling him move around inside me for so long. He was so alert, too, only gave a token cry and then opened his eyes and started looking around. Jeff wanted to cut the umbilical cord but Simon came out with the cord wrapped around his neck so the OB had to quickly cut it (he wasn't showing any signs of distress during the pushing so we think it wasn't very tight).

So overall it was a really good experience, and I am thankful for the excellent nurses I had and the OB who was on call, and for my anesthesia colleagues who did such a great epidural. Would definitely have one of those again ;)