Well we didn't quite make it to posting a 38 week update seeing as I was in labor! This wee little man made his dramatic appearance on February 9th, 2012 at 4:14 pm after about 16 hours of labor.
Here is a short version of his birth story:
At about 10:30 pm on Wednesday night we had just gone to bed when I felt a small pop and felt a gush. I said ohh and popped up from bed, which followed by another large gush. Logan woke up and was like "YES, it's baby time!' So we ran around like crazy people wondering what we should do, clearly the months of preparation for a preemie never fully prepared us for what was going to happen when we went to the hospital. I finally calmed down enough to call labor and delivery (L&D) and they asked the time, color, and smell of the fluid and told us to come on down. We gathered the last few things we needed and jumped into the car. The contractions ranged anywhere from 2-5 minutes in the car ride down, which came in waves of excruciating back pain. Come to find out his position is what was causing all back labor; I rarely had a contraction that wrapped to my front. We pulled up to the hospital around 11:30 and were wheeled into the triage area of L&D. There they had me change into a gown, put on the contraction monitor and heart monitor for Landon, and checked to see how things were coming along and if it was for sure my water that had broken. Sure enough, I was already 4 cm, 90% effaced, and at 0 station...so a big change from earlier in the day when I was checked by my midwife at a barely 3 cm and 80%. The contractions began to pick up and they wheeled us over to our birthing room. Our nurse was AMAZING. She could tell I was struggling to breath through the contractions and offered some advice on what to do because I was holding my breath instead. After about another 30 minutes, I requested to talk to anesthesia about my options to help with the back pain. I decided to wait for more progress until I wanted an epidural. Well that lasted about another 20 minutes of excruciating back pain and the anesthesiologist was back and prepping me for the epidural. I was terrified of this before going into labor, but during I could have cared less; I just requested not to see the needle. They put Logan in a chair in front of me and had me place my feet on his legs and then hunch over so they could see where to place the epidural. It took about 15 minutes to get everything placed and it was immediate relief. I vaguely remember thanking the man for stabbing me in the back with a giant needle to make the pain stop ha ha.
After the epi, I calmed down enough to try to rest, which lowered my blood pressure (it had been increasingly high) and allowed me to progress quite quickly. Within the next few hours, I was already to 8 cm. The shift change was coming and our nurse was sad we weren't going to be ready to have him while she was there, so she promised to come back and see us which she did the following day. The new midwife and nurses came in and kept an eye on everything. The midwife was much more natural in the fact she was trying to avoid a pushing marathon, so she let me labor alone for another 5 hours hoping to get Landon to drop more into the birth canal, but even after that time I was fully dilated and 100% effaced, he just wasn't moving. Around 12:45 pm I started pushing with the nurses who were helpful. Logan held one leg, another nurse held the other, and then one nurse was down seeing how far he was moving when I pushed. I pushed for 3 hours, until they started talking about interventions because I was quickly becoming exhausted. They said it was either vacuum, forceps, or a c-section. The vacuum wasn't an option because he was still too high up. The forceps were our next choice, because I didn't want a c-section.
This is when things became rather dramatic. The room quickly filled with an extra 15 people. The NICU team, several doctors, nurses, a nursing student (who was traumatized lol), and several others Logan no longer was holding my leg. The midwife was on one leg, a nurse on another, one nurse by my head holding oxygen to my face telling me to breath and calm down since I was quickly realizing things were more dramatic than I had initially thought. The OB was then down getting ready to insert the giant forceps that remind you of big metal salad spoons in me, another anesthesiologist was giving me meds to calm me down and make sure I was completely numb, which I was already, but this was just an extra precaution. I was told to push and keep pushing. This part is all a big blur to me; I just remember looking down and seeing big metal forceps and a light. At one point I was so exhausted I was crying too hard to push anymore and the doctor kept yelling push, which I believe it was his last ditch effort to get him out.
Landon popped out and was crying before he was even out. I remember looking down and then looking at his eye and seeing it was cut from the forceps. I kept asking if he was ok and they eventually laid him on my chest and told me to rub his back hard to keep him crying and to stimulate him to breath. After two minutes they brought him to the NICU team to be examined and Logan went with him.
He weighed in at 7 lbs 3 oz., so kind of a chubby guy for only 38 weeks. You can see his cone head since he was in the birth canal for so long...he has a few bruises on his head as well from the birth and the forceps.
Logan did get to cut the umbilical cord like we had planned. Here is the first picture of father and son; think he is a proud papa? I think so =).
I was still being pieced back together on the table after an episiotomy at the last minute and a few other tears. I was so numb, all I could feel was pressure and asked what I was doing. I remember I kept asking if he was ok and the midwife kept telling me he was, but his eye was needing to be looked at from the plastics department to make sure no long term scaring would occur. After I was all fixed up they brought him over to me to try to feed and he did great. He showed great interest but couldn't quite get the latching thing down. Logan followed Landon to the nursery where plastics looked at him and determined he would need stitches and also had a bit of nerve damage from the forceps; referred to as Bells Palsy. His is VERY mild, I personally can't see it, and it should resolve within the next week or so as things heal.
He had to stay in the nursery a bit longer than we thought, which was fine because I was headed to postpartum and was still so exhausted, physically and emotionally I needed time to recover. My Mom got there around 7:30 and we finally asked if Landon was ready to come out of the nursery after his bath and proving he could keep his temperature up! We spent several hours with him bonding and trying to feed which was going better. Then had him spend the night in the nursery except to try to feed so that we could catch up on sleep.
We were able to come home after two days in the hospital and we are all home doing great. Landon goes for his first doctors appointment tomorrow to check on his stitches and overall health!
Ok off to go give him his first sponge bath and feed him, then perhaps a nap!
