He's Here!

William James Lewis was born on December 14th, 2012 (10 days past his due date!) at 10:42 AM, weighing 9 lbs 2 oz (!) and was 21 in long.  I had told Liam that since he was already late, he just needed to wait until Friday to come so we could go to his daddy's graduation. He sort of listened and then decided it was time to show me what's up.  Here's pretty much how it went down but it's mostly for my remembrance- there's nothing gross or graphic though. 

My pregnancy was relatively easy all the way til the end.  So I guess that's why my delivery was, well, not so easy.  My contractions started Thurs night.  Around 11:30 I started thinking it could be the real deal and went ahead and took a shower.  By 1 AM I was having contractions about every 3.5 min and some of them were pretty painful so I called the dr.  Apparently I wasn't really in enough pain though and was still handling everything pretty well so the dr told me to stay at home until it got more painful.  By 3 AM the contractions were still about 3-3.5 min apart but more of them were becoming more intense so I called the dr again.  She again told me it sounded like I was still doing okay but said it was up to me if I wanted to go to the hospital.  So I decided to go. 

We got to the hospital and I was taken to my delivery room. When the nurse checked me I was already dilated 6 cm!  I went ahead and asked for an epidural but it took them awhile to come around to give it to me.  And then it took about 10+ minutes to get it in since I have scoliosis.  And then after all that it only took in my left leg.  I could still feel my contractions full on.  The nurse tried having me lay on my right side and increasing the dosage but it didn't work.  She checked me again and I was at 8 cm.  She gave me 2 options.  I could have the dr come and break my water just to speed things up or I could get another epidural.  I opted for the epidural.  This time a new dr came and got the epidural in no problem.  And it took on both sides immediately.  Which was great until I realized that along with not feeling my contractions, my arms were becoming numb and my chest felt heavy.  My blood pressure started dropping so they put me on oxygen and then I just kind of napped.

When I woke up I could tell something was off because everytime I moved my head I felt light-headed and it made me nauseated.  I felt like I needed to throw up but I couldn't move at all.  I tried to call for Will to come help me sit up but he was asleep in the chair and for some reason I just couldn't talk very loud.  I don't know exactly what happened next but when the nurse came to check on me she realized that my blood pressure was way too low and it was causing the baby's blood pressure to drop as well.  She called in the dr and they started pushing more fluids into me and then rolling me from side to side and then called in the anesthesiologist.  They told him what was going on and he started doing "tests" on me.  He put something cold on my face and asked me if I could feel it.  I think I told him not really so he tried it on my arm and I told him I couldn't feel anything. Then he tried something sharp.  Same thing.  Then he asked me to squeeze his hands with my hand but I could only do that a little bit.  He said to just take the epidural out completely.  To be honest, most of that is fuzzy.  I distinctly remember knowing that the dr and nurses were concerned and that Will was trying to stay calm for my sake but I was just so out of it.

We waited until my blood pressure stabilized and then it was time to push.  My epidural had been so dense that I still had no feeling below my waist but I had atleast regained feeling in my arms.  I will say it was so strange to see my legs and think that they couldn't be mine because I couldn't feel them at all.  I had pushed about 3 times when the dr said that they were going to have to try to vacuum the baby out.  Next thing I know there are like 10 people in my delivery room and when I start pushing again, I had a ton of little cheerleaders.  We pushed some more and the dr said if the baby didn't come out on the next round of pushing we were going to have to do a c-section.  She told a nurse to call and have an OR room prepped and ready to go.  Luckily, baby decided he would finally come out and so after about 15 minutes (I actually have no idea but this is what it seemed like and Will agrees) of pushing, he finally made his appearance.  Turns out, the cord was wrapped around his neck which was why he was having problems getting out. When they told me how much he weighed I had to ask them to repeat it because I was sure I hadn't heard correctly!

After the baby was born I had to stay in my delivery room for a couple hours until my blood pressure stabilized.  Apparently it was too high after the delivery.  And when they finally moved me to my postpartum room, they had to move the whole bed with me in it because the epidural still hadn't worn off.  My legs were still mostly numb and this was about 4 hrs after they had taken the epidural out.  Overall, delivery was NOTHING like I had thought it would be.  Not to mention, I got the shakes really bad.  I wasn't cold at all, in fact, I was hot most of the time, but I was shivering and my teeth were chattering until I got that 2nd epidural.  And then it started back up as the epidural wore off.  The whole thing was just kind of crazy and well, let's just say it will probably be awhile before Liam gets any siblings.   

And now some pictures!

Proof that I really had a 9 pounder...the above pics also show off the chubs

Proud daddy

Happy but exhausted mama.