Introducing: Harper Thane

As most of you that read my blog know, I’ve been expecting baby number 3 any day now. Well, I am happy to report that that day finally came, and everyone is home now, recovering and doing wonderfully.

Here’s a run-down of the excitement:

• August 4th, my due date comes and goes without so much as a 1 cm dilation. The baby is completely content where he is and has no desire to join us on the outside. My doctor informs me that if I haven’t had the baby by the following Thursday, I will be induced. Yikes.
• August 6th, my original due date comes and goes. Still no signs of labor. I am having an awful time trying to sleep at night and my back pain has gotten pretty severe. I’m hot all the time and getting cranky from the lack of sleep and inability to do much.
• August 10th, my weekly doctors appointment. The doctor does an internal exam and tells me that my “cervix is soft” and it looks like all I need is a “push in the right direction”. She believes the Pitocin will do just that for me, so we plan on heading to the hospital on August 11th so that the doctor can “prep my cervix” for Thursday’s induction.
• We arrive for my 4:30pm appointment at the hospital around 4:15pm and after registering and checking in find our way to the Labor and Delivery area. I am a ball of nerves walking through the hallways…the anticipation of the pain and work ahead are enough to make me a bit crazy.
• Once reaching Labor and Delivery, we are informed that they have no record of our appointment. Crap. Fortunately, the doctor on duty says she will squeeze me in, and I am taken to a room to wait. Once in the room, my vitals are taken and I am asked to undress from the waist down, and a fetal monitor is placed on my belly. I can hear the baby’s heartbeat, and the nurse tells me I am having slight contractions…contractions that I cannot feel at all. Tony is waiting for me in the lobby, so I ask the nurse to go get him so he can at least sit with me. Having him with me makes me feel better.
• When the doctor finally makes her way in to see us, it is close to 7pm. I have been lying on the table since around 4:45 and I’m feeling tired, hungry and a bit agitated. The doc says she’s been having a crazy day with 10 scheduled c-sections, and I immediately forgive her. I’ve been hearing baby after baby being born, and I realize that this woman has been busy bringing all these lives into the world. How could I possibly be angry with her?
• After a quick look, the doc says that I am dilated to about 1 1/2 to 2 cm, and she’s going to go ahead and “prep my cervix”. (Not the worst procedure in the world, but certainly not fun. It only took a minute or two, but it’s a couple minutes I won’t soon forget. I won’t describe it here because my kids read this…so, consider yourselves lucky!)
• By 7:15pm I am having strong contractions. I am shocked how suddenly they have come on and am having severe back pain. Pain I know is true labor pain. Tony is just as surprised as I am, and being the wonderful man he is, he begins coaching me through each contraction. I remembered reading about bringing an object into the delivery room to focus on, but since we weren’t here to actually have a baby, I didn’t have anything with me. So, I found a spot on a light fixture in the room, and that small dot became what I focused on while breathing and listening to my husband reassure me that I was doing a good job. That spot on the light, my husbands voice and the thought of a new child made me keep pushing through the pain, although at times I just wanted to stop and cry.
• Around 8pm or so (I am guessing here since I was in way too much pain to actually keep track of time) the doctor comes in to see how far I am and I’ve dilated to 4cm. Since I’m in so much pain they tell us that we won’t be going home tonight after all. I’ll be delivering sometime tonight or early morning, so we start to prepare for that. The progress is quick and I am told that I can have an epidural at this point. I tell them I definitely want one asap, and am told it will be a bit since the anesthesiologist is making her rounds with all the c-sections going on, but that I’ll be seen within the hour. The nurse then goes ahead and gives me an IV drip with an antibiotic and also administers Nubane to ease up the pain between contractions. I’m pretty sure Nubane is a cruel joke…I am not getting any relief and the contractions are seemingly endless.
• Finally the anesthesiologist shows up. She immediately makes Tony and I nervous because she has a bit of a head tremor and we can’t help but wonder if her hands are going to be steady enough to administer the epidural. They have me sit on the edge of the bed and tuck my chin to my chest and lean as far down as possible. This is likely the most painful position to sit in while in full labor. But, I’d like to walk when I’m done so I am as still as possible. They tell me not to move at all, but when the doctor comes in, I look up and the nurse and anesthesiologist just about have a heart attack, which in turn scares the hell out of me and the doctor who shouldn’t have walked in. She apologizes and leaves the room while they finish me up and I pray that the pain will go away.
• Tony wasn’t in the room while they were putting in the epidural, but he came back in afterwards. Because we showed up at the hospital that night with the intention of coming back the next morning, we hadn’t brought anything with us. No camera, no bag for the baby or myself. We hadn’t even eaten anything…so, once my epidural is in, Tony takes off on a mad dash home to get all that stuff and something to eat. He makes it back to the hospital in record time only to find me panicking because I can’t get the nurse call button to work. They never turned it on. I wanted to talk to the nurse because about 15 minutes before Tony walked in, I felt a huge burst of water and wasn’t sure if my water had broken or if my catheter had come out and my back pain was so intense I could hardly stand it…plus, I was beginning to get the urge to push.
• Tony found the nurse in the hall and she confirmed that my water had indeed broken and at that point she called the doctor in. The doc said that I was now dilated to about a 9 and with each contraction, a 10. So, the pushing began. Tony held one leg, a nurse held the other leg and the doctor was positioned to help the little guy out. As soon as his head made it’s way out, my back pain disappeared. Thank goodness.
• At 12:15am, August 12th, our baby boy, Harper Thane, made it into this world. He weighed 8 pounds 3.6 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long. He had a full head of hair and just a whimper of a cry. He was gorgeous…just like I knew he would be.

Darling isn’t he?