I had my OB appointment Tuesday last week.. wow. A week ago already. How time flies. He examined me and I was at 2 cm dilated but not very stretchy. Then he looked at my Minnie mouse shirt and I said it was my other favorite shirt and he goes off on a spiel about his grandpa and how he only had one pair of shoes, a couple of shirts and how he (dr. saucer) has so many shirts that he doesn't really have a favorite shirt.. and it’s a nice conversation and I enjoy getting to know my OB better etc etc, but I was mostly thinking IS THE BABY still breech??!!!

So he says, you don’t want to induce right? I say right so he says well, let’s see you next Tuesday and I say you’re going to have me go late!? And he said, Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, the baby is heads down (vertex)

I was in just as much shock to hear this news, as I was at 38 weeks to hear he was breech and I was looking at a possible c/s. I felt blindsided by that news.

So I call mom to see what a good time would be. Then I set my appointment and while I’m doing that I think, wait a minute. What if he turns again? I have been so set on not inducing but was afraid of missing this opportunity that I said to Brenda, hmm I talked to Beth about some ‘what if’s and we decided I would call her when I got home after talking to James about induction.

He had wanted to set surgery for Thursday b/c he’s in the middle of a project. But he asked what I wanted and I said I was afraid of the baby turning back and missing the chance to go ahead and have a natural birth. Beth said he would likely schedule the induction for anything but Thursday/Saturday or Sunday. Since it was Tuesday we picked Wednesday. She called me back and said to show up on 4 N at 6 a.m. there we go! Suddenly we had our date for having our baby!! Wow. Suddenly I really had a lot to do. We skipped free swimming so we could do dinner and get things ready. We went to sams for milk and cereal and some tucks pads. They were out of tucks pads so we went to brunos and got some.

Mom took the kids Tuesday night so we wouldn't’t have to wake them at such an early hour Wednesday morning. We weren’t tired so although we could have gone to bed early it wouldn’t have done any good. Finally got to bed about 11 or so. I had trouble falling asleep. Then at 3:30 I had to get up to go pee and couldn’t go back to sleep. I wasn’t feeling particularly scared or excited, I just couldn’t go back to sleep. This was highly obnoxious! At 4:30 I gave up and came out. James was already up. So we read email, fiddled around, I did dishes and he got the car packed. He made me an omelet and toast for breakfast.

We got to the hospital at 6, right on the dot. We picked our room since it was in the choices of rooms available. It’s the same room Jessica and peter were born in: at the very end of the hall, nice and quiet.

I get changed, they do some paper work and we go for the sonogram machine to be sure he really stayed heads down from Tuesday. First, she checks me for dilation and position. She was so funny. oh I feel a hand. This is so weird. Then she counted fingers. And I asked are you sure it’s a hand? Not toes, right? well, she couldn’t be 100% sure. I ask the nurse if it’s possible to tell if the cord is why he was breech and we’re dealing with a really smart baby she said they’re not trained that well, just enough to tell if it’s a head or feet. Ok, she gets the machine, we get set up, . We can’t tell!!!! There we are, all 4 of us, cocking our heads to the left, then to the right.. hmmmm.. ummm, I’m not sure. Is that a hand? Is it a foot? Where the heck in the head??? It’s almost 7 at this point. let’s get a flat back to be sure.. OK, they call radiology for an X ray. We have to wait for shift change and someone will be up.

We get the x-ray about 7:30 and wait for it to be read. The nurse brought it in for us to see too. It’s so weird you see my hip bones and my spine here and then you see the baby’s spine on his side by my hip bone and you see the big blotch of skull.. yep, he’s heads down but sure is floating a lot! Not very engaged at all and I just sort of groaned inside. Please drop! I say silently.

At 8 they start the Pit. When she checked me she figured I was at about 4 cm ’s. this was exciting news. We had lots of warm up time. We brought some movies to watch PP and ended up watching nearly all of them during warm up. we played 2 games of chess. At noon dr. Saucer came in and asked me if I wanted my water broken. I said well not yet I did lots of standing and walking to help keep things going. She (the nurse) said Dr. sauce liked to up the pit a bit more aggressively than she was doing but she felt I was coming along pretty good so she was being a little conservative. Contractions were getting into a good swing and I was feeling good pressure on my pelvic floor around 4 or so. My 3-11 nurse (Wendy) (she was so cool) came in around 4:30 and cut the pit. Dr. Saucer was in a surgery and didn’t want me to deliver while he was unable to get away.

Christian was back labor this whole time and James did lots of rubbing my back. Labor wasn’t really horrendous yet. We did walk the halls some and it was bad enough I couldn’t walk through a contraction. I did some resting and did some more walking around my room. At 6:30 they started the Pit again. My contractions had slowed some during the no-pit time and now at this point I’m starting to get to the point of OK baby. Just get here!

The nurses were all so funny. You just let us know what you want us to do and I informed everyone that when it got ugly to listen to my husband b/c I would say yes at that point to anything. We figured out how to work the monitor machine and we’d find the heart rate again when the baby moved, did the blood pressure cuff thing too..boy that hurts! I prefer the old fashioned method! Those automatic things are a major pitb! They pump up too much and kill your arm. One thing I learned with.. Jessica? Hmm. Or peter? Don’t let them put the cuff on the same arm as the IV! HOLY MACKERAL that hurts. So we didn’t do that this time and they let me take it off after each monitoring so I wouldn’t have to fuss with it while it was pointless.

I had my water bottle and drank lots of water. Ate my dry cheerios curiously the hypo didn’t bother me at all during labor. Was it the glucose water they gave in my IV? Might have been.

My tummy was starting to growl though. At 7 we called the nurse (now while he was in surgery, we had told her when he was done to have him stop in but I guess she forgot) and said Is he done YET with that surgery?! We’re going to go for breaking the water and get things going ok, I’ll call him. I’m just waiting for you guys to tell me what to do.. sometimes being on #big is pretty handy. you guys know what you’re doing from how I was handling it, James figured I was at about 5 to 6 cm by then. Dr. Saucer came about 7:30 or so and checked me. Yep, I was about 4.5 to 5 cms. He broke my water at 7:50. At.. 8:10 or so?? Contractions started getting really hairy and I thought oh forget it! We’re on #6, screw being stoic (my ability to communicate well really goes down hill about this time) so I get out to dh drugs! Now and the dope just sits there. I’m thinking why aren’t you calling the nurse you twit?! I swear it took him 5 minutes to get around to it and another 5 for her to get there. Though of course it might have only been 1 or 2 for each.. he could tell I wanted to kill him though J LOL (*now* I can LOL about it)

Before she could give me drugs she had to check me. I was at 6 cm’s. I had one unit of stadol. I really wasn’t thinking it was helping that much. I still was in sheer hell and I still had back labor and.. I told you I get ugly!this is when every minute seems like an hour. I remember with Rachel looking at the clock and it was 12, then 12:15 then 12:30 and I thought holy cow. This is going to take forever it’s ONLY been 15 minutes!???

James assures me, on his life, that the drugs did work. He said he can tell from my eyes, my face and my whole body when I’m doped up. stadol is nice for me b/c it just takes off the edge so I can relax more but I still feel the contraction. Phenigren knocks me off my butt and I’m absolutely completely 100% out of it. We avoid phenigren now.

Now James isn’t here to refresh my memory but about 8:40 or so the stadol was wearing off and I was demanding more drugs. But he could tell it was close to delivery and kept telling me no. Ok, I admit, if I had been able, I would have killed him. Oh my stars. So I yelled it hurts! very loudly and very emphatically. My back felt like it was on fire at this point, still back labor. James started rubbing my back with both hands. Oh it felt so good. About this time I got my first urge to push. I usually start to want to push about 8 cm and everyone tells me I can’t push yet and to breathe through it. I hate that. So in my head I’m thinking, forget it! I’m not going to say anything. I’m just gonna breathe through it and skip to the chase.. so I did. I tried to visualize me bottom melting to my feet and blowing the pain in a big bubble away..it sort of works. And I pray a lot and I repeat my mantra: labor is my friend. Labor is my friend.

The next pushing contraction came and I just about died. Forget it, forget it, forget it. I decided to screw it all I want to PUSH! So I get my guttural Puuuushhhhhhhh out and James is like push? and I nod. So he calls the nurse immediately. Wendy and Dr. Saucer came running. I had to breathe through a few while they got ready and they had me go from my side to my semi-recline. I had waved my foot and Wendy thought that was my cue for stirrups.. are you kidding?! James pipes in that I don’t like stirrups. So they put those down and get some footrest thing but that was uncomfortable and I vaguely hear dr. saucer saying ‘whatever position she wants to be in is fine.. I remember with Jon they were going to break down the bed and have use stirrups but I would have fallen off the bed and all I could think was good! I don’t need stirrups. Puhhhhleeease so every baby I’ve had has been in reclining. Works for me babe!

When we first got there, I asked my nurse do you guys have a mirror? I’ve had 5 babies and I’ve never seen one of them birthed! so they had the mirror positioned for me. I was told to start pushing.. boy I was tired. I didn’t want to push.. oh ouch.

Christian was still back labor so I had to go easy on a few pushes while dr. saucer turned him around. I got to see the head come out and pushing the rest out felt like a huge BM that had to come out. Puuusssshhhhh and I see the rest come out. Oh my! Oh he’s so cute. He’s crying and pinking up and the nurse wipes him off some and they put him on my tummy. We get the placenta delivered, get my blue pads changed out. He’s got 10 toes and 10 fingers and he’s just perfect.

So there we have it: Christian Alexander, born 8:58 pm, Wednesday July 16th. 20 inches long and 7 pounds 4 oz. He’s so far my biggest baby really because everyone else over 7 pounds was late. We’re glad we didn’t do late with him because he would have been even bigger! We’re extremely grateful that he turned and could do natural, although while I was in active labor I was really questioning my sanity on wanting this state of affairs!

The only thing that really marred our excitement was when they brought him back to us from his initial nursery visit and we have to write to hosp. Admin about this. They gave him the hep b vaccine without our consent and then asked after the fact for us to sign the thing. It’s 2 am and my baby is hours old. My husband had more reaction than I did he woke up and got really upset at the nurse and told her we would be filing a complaint. He talked to a lawyer friend and was advised to not talk about it to anyone but to write a letter when we got home. He said the nurses response was what she should have said it’s routine and part of hospital procedure. We’re sorry and it’s our mistake. I told the nurse when we first checked in that we didn’t want the vaccine and she told the other nurse.. obviously the nursery nurse didn’t check the paper work completely. I about had a heart attack! She hands me the form for consent oh we don’t want him to have that he’s already had it.. WHAT?! But I was soooo tired things just weren’t clicking, you know? I was a lot calmer about this than dh was. I was glad he was there because I didn't handle this type of blunder the way it needed to be! I didn’t sign it though because they still didn’t have my permission to give it.

I prayed that Christian is protected from any harm from this. The pediatrician said it was a preservative free vaccine so I have some hope that it wasn’t as nasty as it could have been on my little baby!

Venita, mom to: Katie 10, Jon 8, Rachel 6, Jessica 4, Peter 2 & Christian 7/03