Here we are, two months later, and I never recorded Logan's birth story. He's growing so quickly and details are fading. I just wanted to take a minute (or hour) to jot down memories from those days. Warning: It's very long
Thursday, June 30th I had a dr. appointment. She said I was dialated 1 1/2 cm. The same as the last 3 visits. No change and no need to be induced. :( On my way out I made my appointment for the next week's checkup. I chatted with the receptionists for a few minutes and we talked about castor oil and water breaking.
On my way home I stopped at CVS and got a bottle of castor oil in case I got desperate. I had already tried black and blue cohosh twice in the last week. I had tried everything else on the list of natural inducers.. We took walks, ate pineapple, bounced on a ball, and ate spicy Mexican foods.
That night Andrew insisted I take the castor oil. I olny did if he would take olive oil at the same time. I wasn't going to swallow that nasty stuff and him not have to suffer with something, too. After that, back to bouncing on my ball.. yay. lol
About an hour later, the castor oil kicked in. The laxative part.. Woweee....
I woke up in the middle of the night, like usual to use the bathroom. I felt a contraction.. When it finished, I went to the bathroom. Stupid castor oil.. Fifteen minutes later I was back in bed, then felt another contraction. That was 3:59 am.
Every five minutes after that I had another contraction. After 40 minutes I called my mom and she said to call the dr. The guy who answered said he would contact the dr. and she'd call me back soon. After a while of waiting we just decided to go to the hospital without talking to her.
We tried calling again on the way and she finally called back and told us that we should go to the hospital. (duh) They were so consistent that Andrew could actually tell me when I was about to have a contraction. Sometimes I even had camelback contrations, when I'd finish one and start another.
We got to the hospital and didn't know where the entrance was. :) After we found it and found the right floor (!) I handed the nurse my papers. I didn't mail them in, I just kept them with me because all I could imagine was mailing them in, and going into labor before they got there. It was about 6 AM when we got into triage. I was fianlly at 3 cm! I was so happy for an improvement. I think we were in triage for 4 hours. The contractions began to slow down after a while. Being a week overdue now, the doctors decided to give me pitocin to move things along anyways.
The nurse took me for a walk around the floor, and then took me to the tub. That was so nice. I could stay there all day. After trying to relax a little there for almost an hour, we moved to my room. It was right next door. Shortly after getting set up there, my parents and Abbey arrived.
I was hooked up to an IV, and had penicillin. The baby didn't like the pitocin, so I was taken off of that. I had the contraction monitor, and the heartbeat mointor. After a while my arm began hurting around the IV. The nurse took it out and moved it to a different spot. I am not fond of needles whatsoever. Hours went by, and the contractions were getting worse and closer together, but I wasn't progressing. They decided to break my water. After that lovely procedure, the contractions got way worse. I decided to give up my hopes of a natural delivery. I asked for nubane. They said it would take the edge off the pain. When it kicked in I felt very sleepy. When the contractions came, I'd wake up in just as much pain as before. Right after it would finish, off I went into dreamland. It also made me very loopy. I'd wake up and say goofy things. I even had a dream that I was in the movie "Ice Age" and a tree fell, rolled down the hill, and rolled me over. After about two hours it wore off, and it was nothing but pain. The contractions were now coming 1 1/2 minutes apaart. It was one after another. The nurse told Andrew that I needed to get an epidural. I wan't going to make it. So, thirteen hours into the labor, I was sitting up in my bed, getting the epidural. About 5 minutes later, I was laying in my bed, eating a popsicle and smiling. I was having contractions and not even feeling them. It was wonderful.
Still, hours after the epidural, progress was very slow. The nurse was worried because I hadn't used the bathroom in a while. I tried, but I couldn't feel anything in my lower body. That evening they decided I needed a catheter.
Everytime the nurse changed any of my fluids in the IV it would hurt in my arm. I told her about it and after a few hours she changed my IV. again. She moved it to the other arm. I had a blood pressure cuff on the arm with the first two IVs. After she moved it IV every time my blood pressure was measured (every 15 minutes) the two sore areas from the IVs would become painful. They kept expiramenting with the pitocin. They'd put me on, and take me off. They'd put me on, and give me oxygen, and take me off. The oxygen mask was so annoying. It dried my mouth out, and made me crankier. :) It was a lovely night.
My family left about 7 am.
After being at 9 cm for a few hours a dr came in and told me that I might have to get a c-section. They were going to insert an internal contraction monitor. If it read that the contractions were as strong as they should be, I'd need to have one. They say it could be because he was measuring out on the ultrasound as almost 9 lbs, and because his head was tilted. A half hour after being on the new monitor, they came in and checked the recordings. The dr told me that we were going to have to go down to the other section of the floor, the c-section section. Just before hey started, she said she wanted to check me one more time. She told me to start pushing because I was finally fully dialated! Praise the Lord! No surgery! Andrew had called his mom and she made a few calls for prayer for a normal delivery.
Finally after 30 hours of labor I was pushing! I was almost done! I had 9 things hooked up to me, wired into me, or wired out of me.
Pushing wasn't as easy as I thought. :) Of course. They had me use the stupid oxygen again. That was the worst part, believe it or not. I asked if i could at least take it off my mouth while I was pushing if I put it back on between. (Sometimes I convenitently "forgot" but Andrew always remembered for me. >:-| )
Three hours later, at 1:21 PM Andrew witnessed the birth of Logan Matthew Young. He weighed 8 lbs. 1 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long. The long birth made his head long, so he lost an inch by the next day. It also made for no stitches! Those three hours of pushing only felt like 30 minutes.
He had some light hair, with a thicker patch on the top. His eyes were big and dark blue. I held him for the first time about 20 minutes after his birth. He was so precious. My mom wanted to come in to see him first, but I wanted to make sure his Daddy got to hold him before he got passed around.
I felt so tired for the next few hours. My face was so swelled up and I couldn't see straight. I felt so funny, and there was a lot of people visiting.
The next morning they fianlly took out the IV, and I could take a shower! :) When I was in the shower I thought it'd be a good time to take off my IV tape. Bandaids come off better when they're wet, right? And it's best to do it fast, right? NO! lol bad, bad, BAD idea. Skin came off! Two months later I still have a scar from that. I gave birth, and that's my scar.
I love my baby, and I don't want to forget the experience.
