I know its late in coming, but here is an update on the birth of my second child, Caden Michael Britton. I'll try to keep it short and sweet (and not including every detail--since I'm pretty sure my memory won't allow me to recall that long ago and also not everyone wants every detail anyway :-P)
Caden was born on December 8, 2012 at 6:22 pm. He weighed in nice and hefty at 8 lbs 10 oz and was 21 inches long. The labor and delivery wasn't too awful and started off pretty similar to my labor and delivery of Sydney, but like almost everything else in the pregnancy, soon became completely different!
When I first went into the hospital for induction I was already dilated 4 cm, but had been for over a week. We (the Dr. and I) were really concerned that the labor would go pretty fast, so we both wanted the epidural first thing. So around 9am, very shortly after the nurse started the pitocin, I got my epidural. I felt it a tiny bit more on my right side, but they assured me it shouldn't be too big of a deal and they would lay me on the other side to counteract it. I didn't think anything of it. I was doing really well most of the morning and into the afternoon but wasn't making much progress for dilation. The nurse (Melissa-the last of the 3 that kept getting assigned to me then reassigned) said that it could be due to excessive scar tissue from the LEEP surgery I had in 2010. [sidenote: the LEEP surgery was a laser removal of cervical displasia or possibly cancerous cells on my cervix in April of 2010] She said that it was possible that the scar tissue was acting as a glue keeping my cervix closed but that once I did start to dilate it would be pretty quick.
Sometime after noon (i have no recollection of most of the exact timing of things) I started to feel really uncomfortable on my left side. When asked if I tried pressing the button I said I did and it didn't work. So the nurse asked if I wanted the anesthesiologist to top me off. Why not I thought? So in he came and gave me what he said was a stronger dose to top it off. ( I realize now this is getting longer and more detailed than I originally planned. Oh well, I'll continue) It worked for a little while but I still felt a little bit of discomfort. Then a couple of hours later, I think before 4ish I started to feel a kind of cramping right above my pubic bone--not too horribly uncomfortable, but it definitely didn't feel good. The nurse asked again if I needed a top-off and I said no, that if I remembered correctly when I started feeling a discomfort that wouldn't go away with the pressing of the button it meant I was pretty darn close to delivery. But I was wrong. I was definitely closer, dilated to 8 cm and almost fully effaced but Caden was still pretty high. We were entertaining the notion that maybe he would be born at the same time Syd was (4:45pm) but obviously that wasn't the case. By around 4:30 i was fully dilated and effaced and the nurses thought I should maybe practice some pushing before they called the doctor.
[Now another side note here: For some reason they sent this "new" nurse to kind of shadow my nurse, Melissa. Supposedly she was not new to L&D, just new to St. David's but boy did she seem a little behind. She wasn't very good with the computer system they had set up and at some point before I was fully dilated she did something to the computer and they could no longer read or pick up any of my contractions. This caused her and Melissa to ask me NUMEROUS times once I was fully dilated and practice-pushing (and also while I was in active labor which was very frustrating) whether or not I could feel the contractions. I could NOT tell when I was getting a contraction--mostly because of the top-off to my epidural I really couldn't feel much, but also I still had the CONSTANT discomfort on my left side and the cramp like pain right above my pubic bone and couldn't tell the difference. At one point I was in tears and yelling at her that NO I COULD NOT TELL WHEN I WAS CONTRACTING and just GET THIS KID THE HELL OUT OF ME! (more on that to come)]
So there I was fully dilated. I did a couple of practice pushes and they decided to call the Dr. in (i guess it was around 5ish.) Caden was still pretty high and the epidural had made my legs (and lower half) so numb that I couldn't really feel enough to be able to push properly. Also the discomfort on my side was steadily getting worse and the epidural wasn't doing anything to help. I was getting so upset and so frustrated and the stupid new nurse was AGGRAVATING the CRAP out of me and I just wanted to be done. Also I had been in the hospital since around 5:30am and in the room itself since about 6:30am so I was pretty exhausted. I had so hoped it would be an easy delivery--with Syd I pushed 3 times and she was out (I even remember them telling me specifically to try my hardest not to push because they had to wait for the Dr. to get there.) I pushed for about 30 minutes or so but Caden was still so high and my pushing was so ineffective that the Dr. told me to take a break from pushing and that they were going to sit me up and hope that gravity would help move things along. Meanwhile, I'm still feeling this pain on my side, but not really feeling any pain in my nether regions and still getting frustrated with this stupid ass nurse who is STILL asking me "do you feel a contraction? is that a contraction? does that feel like a contraction?" I DON'T FREAKING KNOW! I JUST WANT TO HAVE THIS KID!" Anyways, after about 30-45 minutes of sitting and waiting and praying gravity helped a little, the epidural has worn off enough that I have gotten a little more feeling in my legs (still not hurting down there, but enough to be able to push i think) and I relay this info to the nurse whose throat I don't want to rip out. She has me try to push and low and behold it looks like a good push. She calls my Dr. but Dr. Collins has left for the day (WTH?) and the Dr. on call is Dr. Mills. Ok whatever I don't give a crap at this point, just send in the Dr and get this kid out of me! was pretty much all I was thinking. Harsh I know, but this was going on over an hour that I'd been fully dilated and having already tried (and failed) to push him out I was more than ready. The Dr. comes in, I'm definitely pushing more effectively, and low and behold @ 6:22 pm my beautiful baby boy is born. They put him right on my chest after pulling him out and Dr. Mills asked Chris if he wanted to cut the cord (which of course Chris didn't want to do at all) and I was crying my eyes out--tears of relief and joy that my baby was finally here. That also was different from Sydney's delivery in that after she was born they moved her directly to the newborn table and I remember being worried because it took a few seconds for her to start crying. Not so with Caden--he was a noisy little booger, with his adorable little conehead from being stuck in the birth canal too long :-P
I only needed one stitch this time around and amazingly felt pretty good after Caden was born. I was also much more lucid as I can still remember pretty well when the nurse came to help me clean up and change gowns and wheel me to the postpartum room. I don't remember at all what happened after Syd was born until we were already in the pp room. I don't remember them telling me about her being bathed or when they brought her to feed--there are just very few things I recall at all from that hospital stay. But, I remember most if not all of the stay with Caden (could just be because its so new and Syd was over 2 years ago though too :-P) We got out of the hospital on Saturday (the 8th was a Thursday) and everything was going pretty well.
Ok so I'm cutting this now and putting all the other fun info in other posts. I still want to post about his first few weeks and months, the breastfeeding jaundice, the problems with his circumcision right on up to today when he may or may not get or have RSV like Syd does. Just wanted to give an update to those who are interested and I haven't already told on the ins and outs of his birth--and of course for my own memory months or years from now when I forget--silly mommy brain :-) Until next time!
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