A Real Baby?!: Ben's Birth Story

Mark and I consider ourselves VERY lucky to have had such a wonderful experience for the big event!! Since I had to be induced, it didn't exactly start out as we "planned", but ended up being better than we imagined. Here's how it happened:

Thursday, 7/16/09: We arrive at the hospital at 6:15 in the pouring rain. We checked in and settled into room 137 where the nurse was preparing to go off shift. The 7:00 a.m. shift nurse Laura explained she'd be with us all day (assuming this didn't last past 7:00 p.m.!) She seemed super nice and was explaining everything so thoroughly ~ all was going well until she tried to place my IV. First time, "blew" a vein - yuck and ouch. Ok, move to the hand on the same arm, and encountered a valve, meaning she couldn't thread it far enough up into my vein. Yuck and OUCH again. So, she called another more experienced nurse who successfully stuck me on the other hand the third time. GREAT, we though - this Laura girl doesn't know what she's doing!! BUT, she proved to be the absolute best nurse we could have ever had....so considerate, knowledgable, encouraging and sweet. Just couldn't stick you very well ~ I guess you can't have it all!!

Anyway, at 7:30 Dr. Carter declared I was 3 cm dilated and 90% effaced - very favorable for induction (thank goodness!!) They started the Pitocin to induce labor at about 7:30 and that started the contractions. Here I am before they got offensive ;)

So, we just hung out waiting to dilate more. After about two hours of upping the Pitocin every 20 minutes, this business was starting to hurt. About that time, Laura said she was turning up the Pitocin dose again, so I asked for an epidural because it can take up to 30 minutes to take effect. That was at 9:50. Well, three people (ahead of me in "line") and a c-section patient later, I finally got one at 11:30!! You cannot IMAGINE how relieved I was....

By that time I was at least at 5 cm - halfway there! A little after noon, Mark left to go check out the cafeteria and while he was gone, Dr. Carter checked me again and casually said, "Oh, 9 cm. Hope Daddy didn't go far!" OH NO! Four centimeters in an hour?! We weren't expecting that! So, I called him, texted him, and called his mom (waiting outside) to hunt him down :) Thankfully, his mom found him (no cell phone coverage in the cafeteria) and we had a few minutes before it was time to push. From 1:00 to 2:00, Mark, Laura, and me worked on pushing, Dr. Carter came in at 2:00 and he was born at 2:18! Praise God for how smoothly everything went and we were free of any complications at all!

Here he is ~ just minutes old!