Cole&#39;s Birth Story

It's been 8 days now since we welcomed our newest addition to our family and this is the first chance that I've really had to sit down and write out CJ's birth story...so here goes!

Thursday, June 27, 2013
We head to the hospital around 3 pm to get things started for my induction. First we have to have a NST to make sure that baby is happy. This takes around 20 min. Then Grace checked to see how dilated I was to make the induction decision - I was still only at 2 cm (and that was barely), so the induction method was going to be cervidil.

At 4:30 pm Grace inserts the cervidil and I have to be hooked up to the fetal monitor for the next hour to make sure that baby is handling things well. At this point she heads out to talk to the OB on call since I'm having to have a medical induction. When she comes back in, she said that the OB commented that he was afraid that I could potentially progress quickly since I had had such a short active labour with Quinn and that he wouldn't want me to go home and then give birth in the car on the way back to the hospital. I just kind of laughed and said "I hope that he's right!". Fast forward a few minutes and I'm started to have some contractions. Grace goes out to talk to the OB again, comes back in our room and says "You're getting your wish. The OB wants you admitted". Whoa...OK...wasn't planning on this outcome, but I'll take it! So we take the next little bit to let our families know the update and I'm quietly upset on the inside since I didn't really say bye to Q like I had wanted and now this was going to be my first night not sleeping under the same roof as her since she was born.

We are admitted and head to our room to get all set up. I change into a comfy nightdress, Steve changes into comfortable clothes and sets up his bed, and we meet our nurse. She has to come in every hour to listen to the baby, but at least I'm not hooked up to anything! I'm starting to have more contractions at this point, so we decide to try to get as much rest as possible in prep for a long night.

Friday, June 28, 2013
...and long night it becomes! Starting at around 2 am I start having contractions really close together. We're talking every 2-3 minutes. I'm toughing it out, but with not being able to really sleep, things are getting harder to endure. By 4 am we asked a nurse to check for any progression...now I'm just a "good 2 cm". WTF! By this point I looked at Steve and said, "when Grace gets here this morning, we're going to discuss an epidural because I don't think that I can do it naturally".

Grace gets to see us at around 7:30 am and I tell her that as soon as I'm able to, that I'd like to have an epidural. I originally had wanted a natural delivery and Grace is trying to facilitate my wishes for that as much as possible. She calmly says that we should just check to see where I was dilation wise. I was now at 4 cm so Grace could break my water. Once she did that, I went to 5 cm and my contractions were stronger in intensity, but still every 2 minutes. I tried to endure them for as long as I could, even tried the nitrous gas (which I hated), but I didn't progress past 4-5 cm. At this point we called in the anesthesiologist for my epidural. I also had to be hooked up to IV fluids and then oxytocin to try to help things along.

Once the lovely anesthesiologist put me into epidural bliss, both Steve and I got to have a good rest. It was nice to know that even though the oxytocin was giving me super contractions, that I wasn't feeling them and could get my energy back up. After a little while, Grace checked again and I still wasn't progressing that quickly. She also found another pocket of water. She decided that the baby wasn't in the right position to come down, so she adjusted my position on the bed (no easy feat when you can't really move your lower body). Within a couple of minutes, I started feeling pressure and things really progressed from there!

At 4 pm I was ready to push and after only 18 minutes of pushing, Cole Jordan Oakey was brought into the world! His cord was short, so he could only be placed on my belly and not my chest, but it was the best feeling. Cole weighed 10 lbs 4 oz at birth!!! I never thought in a million years that there was a 10 lb baby in my belly! He also measured 21" in length and is the newest light in our lives.

The only snafu was that Cole's blood sugar didn't test that great post-birth. We had to stay overnight in the hospital and a nurse had to come and prick Cole's heel before every feeding to check his blood sugar. The level had to be above 2.6 to be OK, and at one point Cole's level was 1.9. So the nurse checked with Grace and the pediatrician on call to see what the plan of action was to be. We were told to supplement each feeding with formula until the sugar levels were satisfactory. We only had to supplement 2 feedings before everything was normal and we could be sent home! (The alternative treatment would have been IV in the nursery, so luckily all that we had to do was the formula)