J + J: James Kenneth Ditto

Welcome to the world James Kenneth Ditto!

What a crazy almost 4 weeks it has been! (I started writing this post over 2 weeks ago!) Labor all started 2 and a half weeks earlier than planned at 2:15am on Thursday, March 16th. I woke up and thought I was peeing my pants. I was embarrassed and thought I had reached a new low. Yes, I on average was going to the bathroom numerous times a night, but I didn't think my pee was out of control. Then I realized that it wasn't pee... my water broke! When I woke Andrew up, he didn't believe me. After all, there wasn't any sign of water on our sheets. As soon as I stood up, it all came gushing out. It was not just a little bit of water either. Side note: my Mom's water never broke and so I thought mine wouldn't. Also, thank heavens it didn't break at school. That would have been my worst nightmare.

We were kind of frantic. Our hospital bags weren't quite ready. (Although, the night before I kept having this feeling to finish packing my hospital bag.) In fact, I even went to the store and got a few items that I needed for the hospital. I quickly changed my soaking pants only to soak another pair and we were off to the hospital. (I brought a towel in the car so I wouldn't ruin my seat.)

This next part surprised me... When we got to labor and delivery the two nurses didn't seem to believe me when I told them that my water broke. "You're only 36 weeks and 3 days, oh..." They didn't need much convincing after checking my cervix and lots more water came gushing out. They quickly admitted me and soon Andrew and I found ourselves in a large labor room.

The nurses kept telling me to sleep... as if that was going to happen... I ended up watching T.V. I wasn't having any contractions when we arrived at the hospital, so they immediately gave me petocin. (something I wasn't thrilled about.) Andrew was able to sleep of course. He can sleep through everything. I finally woke him up and told him I wasn't going through these contractions alone. The pain and frequency started to increase and I asked for an epidural.

The anesthesiologist had to go to a C section, so they told me I would have to wait an hour and a half for the epidural or have it soon. I decided to go with sooner rather than later and boy am I glad that I did. I was told that after I was given the epidural, I would feel pain relief within 5-10 minutes. This was not the case with me. In fact, my pain continued to increase and they had to call the anesthesiologist to come back in after about an hour. He gave me another zap of medication and wasn't thrilled he had to come back. He grumbled as soon as he walked in, "I'm certain that I placed that epidural correctly and did nothing wrong. It's just because you're so tall that you can't feel it yet." I was numb only up to about my knees for sometime. It finally did kick in after he came in which was a relief. (I think I originally got my epidural around 6:30am and he came back around 7:30am.)

I think my labor progressed fairly quickly. In fact, the nurse kept leaving and taking forever to come back. She told me she would be right back and 45 minutes later she returned. She was shocked when I told her it felt like I needed to push and when she checked me I was dilated to a 10. I think James would have been born sooner if she had been in the room. Pushing took about an hour. It was exhausting. The nurse kept asking me if I wanted a break and my response would be, "am I close to being done?" I didn't end up taking a break because I wanted him out as soon as possible so I could be done pushing. James arrived at 12:45pm. One comment that upset me during this time made by the nurse was, "If you could put as much effort into pushing as you are into your facial expression that would help." Andrew later told me it looked like a blood vessel on my face was going to break.

Delivering the placenta was a breeze after that. I did need stitches and that part took much longer than I thought. I think they called my tearing a stage 2 out of 3, so it could have been worse, but could have been better. (Thank goodness he didn't wait until his due date to arrive because he probably would have been like 11 pounds!)

Speaking of Andrew... I was much nicer to him than I thought I would be during all of this. I had heard so many horror stories. I'm not saying I was chipper, but later we talked about it and he agreed that I wasn't really mean. Overall, labor went better than I thought it would. I was expecting the worst based on the way everyone talks about it. (But, I am definitely not in ANY rush to go through that again.)

The saddest and probably hardest part for me was right after James was born, they took him down to the "nursery" aka NICU. He was having trouble breathing. He ended up staying in the "nursery" the entire time we were at the hospital. I couldn't hold him the first night which was heartbreaking. I will go into his complications in another post.

I can't believe I'm a mom. It has been far more challenging than I ever could have imagined, but it is getting easier as time passes. I have a whole new respect for mothers now that I've been one for almost 4 weeks. We are so thrilled to have James with us. He is as cute as I hoped he would be and he has the BEST dad in the universe.

Stay tuned for more.