Paul's Birth Story

Even though I literally have thousands of things I could be doing right now, I wanted to take a moment to record Paul's birth story.

I guess his birth story is actually two parts: our false alarm, and the real thing.  Here's the real thing:

We waited a week after our false alarm for Thumper to come, but no such luck.  So, it looked like I was going to be induced again.  This was convenient for my parents, who arrived at the farm Tuesday afternoon to stay with Clara while Pat and I were in Birmingham at the hospital.  Early Wednesday morning Pat and I woke up (3 am), quickly got dressed, and left for the hospital.  We did not hit one traffic light, and we barely saw another car on our drive up.  I was nervous, but excited.  We got to the hospital around 5 am and were checked into a room.

The rooms at St. Vincent's hospitals are really nice - they are all private rooms with a "home" decor about them which makes them less institutional feeling.  Amazingly the nurse who took care of me during the false alarm was the same nurse to take care of me today!  It was great to see a familiar face.

After settling in, I got hooked up to the IV, contraction monitor, and heart rate monitor.  One of the doctors came in and broke my water (6:30am).  She said she had difficulty doing it, and was going to come back a little later to try again.  In the meantime, she started the pitocin.  Well, by 7am, I knew that she had in fact broken my water, at least enough to puncture (I'll let you read between the lines here), and the contractions started.

The baby was moving around so much that it was difficult to keep the his heartbeat on the monitor.  My nurse, Jennifer, was constantly adjusting it so we could monitor the baby's heart beat.

Just over two hours later, I was ready for my epidural: I was about 4 cm dilated, and the contractions were getting stronger.  While I had no problems with the epidural last time, this time the epidural seemed to be stronger on my right side.  Within a short time, I was feeling pain again on my left side.  I asked the nurse if I could get a "little boost" to help.  She called the anestheiologist pain doctor in again, and he gave me a boost.  Boy, did he give me a boost!  Had I knew how I was going to feel after the boost, I would have toughed out the pain.  After the boost I was SO NUMB and JITTERY.  I felt like my entire body was going to go numb.  I kept flailing my arms around like an orchestra conductor to keep them from feeling like they would go to sleep.  Moving my arms like that was a little tricky because I had an IV on one arm and a blood pressure monitor on the other.  I was so ready to start pushing!

Since Thumper was moving around so much, Jennifer went ahead and put an internal monitor on the baby to keep track of the heart rate (which was staying right around 130bpm).

The pushing part lasted about 10 minutes, tops.  I did most of my pushing with my nurse.  In fact, Jennifer told me to stop pushing because she didn't want to deliver the baby (extra paperwork and headaches for her).  So we waited for Dr. Gunnells, who was delivering another baby at the same time.  It felt like a long time, but finally the doctor came.  I only had to give one more push, and I could actually see the baby's head emerge, then arm, then shoulder.  Dr. Gunnells was able to guide him out without extra pushing.

I was so shocked when they said, "It's a boy!"  It really was a dream come true because we didn't have a girl name that we both agreed on still.  We knew this boy's name would be Paul.   Pat cut the cord, and they placed my baby boy on my chest for a moment before they took him to be weighed and measured.  Thankfully there were no problems or complications.

Paul joined us at 2:47pm weighing seven pounds, five ounces, measuring twenty inches long that Wednesday.

When the nurses handed Paul back to me, he nursed.  Then he slept.  He was so tiny!  Clara was over a pound heavier when she was born, so I had never held a baby this small!  When Clara and my parents came to visit the next day, she looked like a giant!  My so-called baby was definitely a toddler.  This boy was a baby.

Having a second child was and is an emotional experience.  Clara is at such a fun stage right now - she's talking up a storm, doing somersaults, and just developing in every way.  It's a melancholy feeling to know that my attention will be divided between her and a baby.  But Paul is a wonderful blessing, and we are thankful for him!