Finally...

For those of you (moms yourself, mostly) who like to hear the whole story, here's how Jack came into the world. Monday morning at my Dr.'s appt. I was 3cm/50%. She gave me some blue and black cohosh homeopathic stuff that's supposed to bring on labor and told me to walk. Of course we were all anxious to get this baby coming ASAP but I wanted especially to have him at the Birth Center instead of TMC hospital. After 41 weeks they consider you to be too high risk and send you next door to the hospital, so I was either coming back that day or not at all. Mom and I went to the non-stress test and sonogram for fluid measurement. Both were very good so we knew we could keep waiting with no harm to the baby. After walking myself for hours and popping cohosh all day, I was getting strong contractions that got closer together. I did some baking and puttered around the house and it was time to go - to the Birth Center - yay! Just under the wire. But when the midwife checked me, I was still 3cm, and she sadly sent me home again. She gave me something to help me sleep and slow down the contractions. I spent Tuesday just recuperating from Monday's walking and taking it easy. After all, there was no hurry now we'd be at TMC. I had contractions all day about 15-20 minutes apart. In the evening they got harder and about 7 minutes apart. After 4 hours of this timing we called the midwife just to let her know and she said to come on in to the hospital. We arrived at 10pm and got checked - progress! Walked for an hour and 30 minutes. By this time my feet are killing me and my contractions are 5 minutes apart. Time to get a room! I felt like my life was ruled by timing contractions, that we'd never have a baby, that I would just go on like this forever...walking, hurting, timing... I will say that the L&D rooms at TMC are really nice and the nurse on my shift was wonderful. I took a nice hot bath. We put on some quiet music. My midwife was around all the time being supportive and making suggestions, as opposed to the OB standard of care: phone it in, show up to catch. But around 2am when I hadn't dilated much past 5cm, we agreed it was maybe time to speed things up. Breaking my water sounded like a really good idea, but the contractions that came next were way beyond my coping ability. WOW! I was begging for an epidural, crying and shaking uncontrollably. Immediately, a very perky anesthesiologist came in and did the trick while the nurse steadied me through it compassionately. I floated away on an island of bliss and we all took a nap. A few hours and a few pushes later, Jack was born! He had the cord wrapped around his neck 3 times, so his head looked like a beet. Possibly, having no extra cord kept him from moving down all that time. The cord was working fine and there was no distress according to the monitor. Which brings me to summarize that we ended up with the best combination of facility and care. I had wanted the Birth Center, but we needed the electronic fetal monitor and the epidural and, later, the billi-light, none of which are available at the low-tech natural Birth Center. But I still got to have my mid-wife there, who was wonderful. As I said before, the rooms and nurse staff were lovely at TMC, so, all in all, I'm very happy with how it worked out.

Jack tested high on his billirubin count (cause of Jaundice), which meant sleeping under very bright LED lights. His eyes were covered. The billirubin makes babies sleepy, so he's been very calm about it. They discharged us on Friday saying that the billirubin had started to go down. But on Monday we saw the pediatrician and the new count had gone back up. Today I have another ped. appt. and we'll get more extensive blood work done to see what the cause is. What I have learned is jaundice is a symptom of high billirubin that makes skin look yellow, and that symptom in itself is harmless, but if the jaundice is there it means the liver is having trouble or maybe a bile duct is obstructed. So we're anxious to know the cause and to fix it! I'll keep you posted.

Gotta go!