A Welcome Surprise...

So as I mentioned in my last post, yesterday was quite the day!  It all started simply enough.  After my rough day on Valentine's Day, I woke up feeling pretty decent.  Much better than the day before, anyway.  And since labor didn't start overnight, I figured it all may have been a false alarm.  I went to work, though Craig did take Jacob to daycare instead of me, so I had a little less stress on my system.  I got into the office and worked away at anything that needed finishing, and was all proud of myself for making really good progress.  At one point I got up from my desk, and the usual gush of mucus plug seemed a little bigger than usual.  I went to the bathroom and cleaned up a bit, hoping it was just a freak thing.  But the next time I stood up, it happened again.  And then it got worse.  At that point I called Craig and my doctor and warned my boss that this was probably it.  I made a 1pm appointment at the doctor's office because they wanted to check that it was fluid and see if I was dilating further.  The fear is that if there are no contractions and nothing's happening, the hospital would just send us home anyway.  Well, by the time Craig came to pick me up, I couldn't even get up from my desk without fluid just cascading out.  It was horrible.  I couldn't even walk, because my instinct was to double over to stop it.  My boss got a wheelchair and that got me down to Craig's car.  On the way to the doctor's office, the fluid was flowing so freely that I panicked a little bit and decided we should just go to the hospital instead.  The thought of having to walk into the office with this issue was just too much. 

Much to my disappointment, the hospital didn't have the pre-registration paperwork I sent, and as I was trying to fill new ones out, I got some minor contractions.  We did some calling around while we were waiting, and eventually made it into triage. I got to take off my soaked clothes, and got hooked up to the monitor.  The baby was fine.  My contractions weren't too strong, but they ended up about five minutes apart.  During that time, Lori went to our house to grab our stuff--including my half-packed bag and, most importantly, my laptop!  My parents got on their way so they could pick up Jacob, and we ended up roaming the halls to get things progressing.  It didn't really work, so I had to get started on pitocin, along with the IV fluids you need prior to an epidural.  Lori hung out with us and eventually my contractions started to ramp up.  My parents stopped in with Jacob, but he couldn't come back to see me, unfortunately. 

I was lucky I asked for the epidural when I did, because by the time I got it, I was in a lot of pain.  It was a lot worse than I remember my last one being.  It took a bit to kick in, but eventually it did.  My comfort was considerably shorter lived than last time.  Last time I think they tried to get me to rest, but this time I was at 8-9 cm shortly after the epidural and the pressure started up pretty quickly.  And before I knew it, I was 10 cm and ready to push! 

Pushing took three hours last time, and that was miserable.  However, things seemed to be progressing faster, and everyone was telling me that would not happen the second time around since everything had been primed the first time around.  That said, pushing was very hard.  The contractions brought on a lot of pressure, and figuring out where to push when you can't feel everything is a little hard.  It felt like I was pushing him down forever, only to be "rewarded" with more pressure when his head got further down.  I spent most of the hour half-crying and just trying to summon the strength to keep going.  Everyone was very supportive, but it's hard to believe the "Good job!" comments when you got those last time and still ended up pushing forever.  Eventually the pressure was so intense that I could tell where I had to push, but it took everything I had to get him out.  And finally...we welcomed Carter Garrett Rybczynski at 10:32 pm on February 15th.

His head was a little misshapen and his nose is still trying to get back into place, but he's perfect!

He was 6 lbs., 3.7 oz., and 20 inches long.  He's quite furry at the moment, which may be lanugo that never had a chance to disappear, but it's everywhere and it is very dark!  He's still very much in fetal mode, always wanting to be warm and snuggly, with his legs tucked up as high as they can go.

We did have a chance to nurse last night and he picked up the sucking well, even if I'm not sure he was getting anything.  He was up a good chunk of the night, but he's been sleepy most of the day.

Perfectly sweet, no?

My parents came this morning with Jacob, who was very suspicious of this little baby.  He was happy to see me initially, but was sort of amazed to see a real baby in my arms and not in my belly.  He was hesitant to pose for pictures or touch him, but we'll have time to work on that.  This was the best we got...  

I probably have a million more things to say about this experience, but I will get there since this post has plenty going on.  I will say that I never thought I'd be happy to have a baby arrive three weeks early, but he is so perfect and apparently perfectly healthy.  And considering how uncomfortable I was, I am quite relieved to have that part of things behind us and move on to healing from the delivery and enjoying our new little addition.  He's amazing.  Oh, and he also came at a perfect time to allow his daddy to broadcast his 200th straight game, which we're listening to right now.  I can hardly believe he's here, but at the moment I couldn't be more content.