January 3rd, 2010
Melody, a birth retrospective (finally!)
I’ve finally gotten enough sleep and have enough free time and hands to be able to type up a blog post. It’s been busy! It’s been sleepless! It’s been loud!
So here’s my attempt to ‘catch up’.
Melody’s Arrival
On the 19th I was in school for most of the day. I would leave early, but I had a test I had to take at 7:00pm. We had to go in the next morning and arrive at the hospital at 6:00am to start being induced. I took my test and left as early as I could, so I could get as much sleep as possible.
I returned home at 8:30 pm and had dinner with Jolene. I was ready for a sleep filled night to get ready for the next morning.
Only I didn’t sleep. I felt like a kid the night before Christmas, and tossed and turned. I only got 3 or so hours of sleep, when I sorely needed more.
We arrived at the hospital, and started the induction process. It took nearly an hour for an IV to be put in, so we had a late start. Waters were disturbed, and things went on their way.
Eventually, the pitocin started to be pumped in…
Jolene could only have so much at a time. When on one side, the baby’s heart rate would decrease when a strong contraction was had, presumably because the cord was getting pinched at these times. Because of this, we had to take things slow.
The entire process was pretty much what I thought it would be. I was calm, but tired throughout. The nursing staff at the hospital was amazing. We had several very kind staff members on hand throughout the delivery.
At about 8:15pm things started getting near the end. I was pretty calm throughout but at this point I started freaking out quite a bit (though I think I held it inside fairly well). The nurse that was the instructor for our birth class was the one who ended up coming on her shift and helping deliver. Our doctor waited for the moment to arrive, and was simultaneously delivering another baby in another room. Final arrangements were being made, the room started getting transformed for the event.
The suspense was huge. Eventually, pushing started. I decided to stay up near Jolene’s head rather than down at the business end of things. I figured that if I could be of any assistance it would be to my wife, not the doctors. That may be partially an excuse as well, since I was, as I said, freaked out a bit. Faster than I could have imagined the baby shot out and was planted firmly on Jolene’s chest. It was breathtaking, and ridiculously fast. My other thought was that she had a huge amount of hair for a baby.
They started checking her to make sure she was ok, and she scored fairly high on the ‘apgar’ scale. This is what measures the initial life signs of the baby, and is an indication as to how healthy they are.
She was then given to us. Grammy, the other ‘birth coach’s said hello to her, and I took as many pictures as I could to send out. The swine flu made this a 2 visitor maximum, so I felt like I needed to send pictures out via my iPhone to make sure everyone was included.
I finally sat down and really looked at her…
It was wonderful to finally meet her. We stayed in the hospital for an additional day as she was slightly jaundiced and they wanted to make sure she was ok to go home. She was, and we departed the next day. Spending the first night with the baby was exhausting, since she seemed to want to be up all night.