Ian's Entrance and First 5 Days of Life

Where do I start? How about the beginning?

Monday, March 19th
My mother arrives from Savannah for Ian's arrival. At this point I am 38 weeks 4 days along. Mama goes with me to my regularly scheduled OB appointment. The doctor does her thing, and then leaves the room for a while. She returns and asks us to step into her office. The next thing I remember is she says she wants to induce me that evening. At that point time stops. I do not remember much of the conversation after that. Mama had to remind me that the doctor said we needed to start an induction that night because she was only on call Tuesday of this week and if not now, we would be waiting until next week. She writes out an admission form for me, tells me the hospital will call with a time, and sends me on my way. How we got home in one piece is beyond me. I was a total nervous wreck. We met Mark at the house and had a light supper. The hospital calls to request my arrival about 7PM. We get there, check in, and are shown to our room. The rest of the evening was typical hospital stuff: paperwork, blood samples, IVs, etc.

This is me on the way out the door going to the hospital.

Tuesday, March 20
At 7AM the nurses start the pitocin. This is the drug that is suppose to kick start your contractions to help with dialation. At 9AM, the doctor arrives, checks for any dialation progress (none at this point), and breaks my water (Boy Howdy!). By about 10:30AM I was in an excruciating amount of pain. Afterall, I had IV pitocin and my own natural pitocin kicking in (caused when they broke my water) at the same time. I was also having back labor. Now that is some fun to be had! Needless to say, the word "epidural" crossed many lips at this point, and I was all for it. Now, in the past several months, I have heard a good many horror stories about epidurals going wrong. That was not happening today. The doctor in charge of anesthesia was amazing!! She was in and out, and I was no longer in pain. Woohoo! At 11AM the doctor is back to check my progress. I am at 4 cm now. She hopes to have a baby by 4PM. She returns at 1PM. No progress. Back again at 3PM. No progress. Back again at 4PM. No progress. She then says she feels like the baby is having difficulty descending into my pelvis. She gives me one hour to show some progress. During this hour wait, the contractions begin to get strong enough for me to feel them through the epidural. Regardless, at 5PM there was no progress so it is off to Cesarean Section land for me. I was wisked away at 6;30, numbed to my neck (not kidding), and placed in an OR room. I felt absolutely nothing during the procedure except nausea from the anesthesia. At 7:11PM Ian Robert was brought into this world. I remember just wanting to hear him cry. It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.

Mark and I had discussed that if a C-section was to happen, I wanted him to stay with Ian where ever he went. So he joined the nurses at the baby station and stayed with the baby there and in recovery. Meanwhile, the doctors close me up, transfer me to a bed, and send me to recovery to meet my son. When I arrive, Ian is getting washed, weighed and measured. My little man was 8 pounds 8 ounces and 20 1/2 inches long. He had a conehead which Mark and I believe was caused by being wedged in my pelvis unable to descend.

We eventually made it into a room where everyone was waiting on us to arrive. The nurses did their thing examining me to make sure the staples were in place and bandaged, that I was hooked up to the IVs and epidural, and that the anesthesia was wearing off. Everyone pretty much cleared out pretty soon after seeing Ian. I had a final exam from the nurses that caused so much pain I thought I would lose conciousness. So they gave me a shot of something that knocked me out in ten minutes. Need I say Ian spent that night in the nursery.

Wednesday, March 21

The nurses started my day by getting me up and cleaned. I now have a new respect for the nurses that work post delivery. It is not a task just anyone can or should do. I will not go into details, but these women are amazing.

After getting cleaned up, I asked for Ian to be brought to the room. Mark and I were able to spend a few hours with our little man. Because I was unable to get out of the bed easily, Mark had to change his first poopy diaper. He was a champ! I walked him through step by step (not that he followed them all) and the end result was achieved. In the process of changing the diaper, Mark was initiated into fatherhood by the ceremonial peeing of the father's shirt. Not just any shirt. It was his Monty Python shirt. Ian hit him like Old Faithful. Mark was lucky he didn't get hit in the face.

Later that morning the pediatrician comes to check out the little man. They wisk him off to the nursery for a once over. When they return, the pediatrician lets us know there was a concern with his respiration. They believed he had fluid in his lungs which is common in c-section births. It is due to not going through the birth canal and having the lungs squeezed clean of fluid. Because it was causing his respirations to increas they took him to NICU. We were able to visit, hold and touch him every few hours. NICU was a place that made me grateful for what I have. Ian was probably the healthiest baby there.

Thursday, March 22

I woke up this morning in tears wanting to see my little man. I got up, showered, changed, and waited for the nurses to start my morning meds and checks. Breakfast was late. Mama came in about 8AM. We visit Ian in the Special Care Unit. Mark leaves to get his mom and run a few errands. I was a total emotional disaster. The phone kept ringing. Nurses kept coming in to poke me. I try to schedule my visits to the Special Care Unit around all of the nurse and doctor visits I have. I finally give up and go for my son's touch visits at 5PM, 8PM, and 11PM.

Friday, March 23rd

I got up this morning with an attitude. I didn't care who or what wanted to see me. If anyone needed me they knew where I would be. I spent most of the morning in the Special Care nursery waiting for him to be discharged to the regular floor nursery so that he could come back to the room. Finally, at about 2PM, they bring in my little man. It was like Christmas for me. That is until the pediatrician shows up to examine him. Ian has come down with jaundice, which is quite common in newborns. However, Ian's numbers reflect the need for phototherapy. He is place in a Billibed, which is a phototherapy light in the bottom of his hospital bed with a jacket velcroed to the top. He was not to be removed from the light except for feedings and diaper changes.

Saturday, March 24

Checkout day for me. I can only stay a maximum of 4 days with a C-Section. However, my little man needed to stay an extra day on the phototherapy. I knew it was the best thing for him, but I was a wreck. It wasn't that he was staying, it was that I had to leave. The hospital let me stay as long as possible. I didn't actually check out until 11PM. Leaving him was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I spent the last 10 months thinking about the day we could go home together, and now I had to go home empty handed.

Sunday, March 25

Mark and I were up and at the hospital by 11AM. We waited until 2PM for the pediatrician to arrive and give us information about Ian's discharge. She said we could take him home but only after one final test at 6PM. The results came in at 7PM, and we were home with our little man by 8PM. I have spent the last several days holding and loving my baby boy, making up for all the lost time during those first days.