Baby Z -- The Birth Story

I can't say it enough -- we are so lucky and so blessed. Thank you for all of the sweet e-mails, phone calls and messages, texts, cards, gifts and kind gestures. Zachary has most definitely been feeling the love.

Our baby's big day was officially August 7, but the "fun" began a couple of days beforehand.

Daddy woke up for work Thursday (the 5th) and found Mommy sitting on the edge of the bed counting minutes.
"I don't want to get you excited, but I've been having contractions every 5 minutes since 3 a.m.," I told him.

We spent several long minutes counting and re-counting, watching the clock and contemplating what we should do.
I decided that Scott should go to work, I would keep an eye on things and maybe call the doctor when the office opened at 9 a.m.

I called and told them about the contractions and was told to go to Labor and Delivery for observation.
Scott came racing home from work and off we went.

When we got there, we were hooked up to two machines - one to monitor the contractions, which were coming at 3 to 6 minutes apart that day - and one to monitor the baby's heartbeat.

We did a non-stress test, which is a way to monitor the baby's movement.

Unfortunately, I wasn't dilated at all, so we were sent home and told to walk a bit and come back if contractions increased in length or frequency.
That night, Scott and his dad played nine holes of golf and I walked the golf course.

By Friday, the contractions were definitely closer together and hurt a bit more. I also had some blood-colored fluid on toilet paper and a pantyliner and called the doctor's office again. And back to the hospital we went.

This time, I was 1 centimeter dilated, so some improvement was made, but the nurses were questioning whether that 1 centimeter took 24 hours to do or had just happened quickly. So, we spent the better part of an hour walking the halls of the hospital (there are 158 Scott-sized steps from the maternity ward door to the Emergency Room entrance) trying to see if any more progress would be made.
Nope! Back home we went after about four hours there that day.

Desperate, I mowed part of the lawn Friday night. Don't judge!

By late Friday night/early Saturday morning, I was in some serious pain. My contractions were coming about every three minutes and lasting nearly a full minute each! They would bring me to a complete stop if I were walking, complete with moaning and some tears. Then a brief two-minute relief before it attacked again.
I didn't want another false alarm trip to the hospital, but after 12 hours of pacing our house in pain, I caved in and we called the doctor.

When we arrived at the hospital at 11:45 a.m., I was FIVE CENTIMETERS dilated and 85 percent effaced! Holy cow! Before I knew it, within minutes, I was getting an IV into my left hand, filling out paperwork and being wheeled in a bed into another room. The anesthesiologist had already been called and by 12:30, I was enjoying an epidural and was 7 centimeters dilated.
Without the painful contractions to deal with, I was soon 8 centimeters dilated and 95 percent effaced... and enjoying a popsicle and some non-sensical conversations, mostly with myself.

By 3 p.m., I wasn't progressing anymore, and, on top of that, the baby's heartbeat, which had been low to begin with (barely reaching 100 when it should be between 120 and 140) was now dipping into the 90s and then 80s. (Scott saw it hit 60 at one point) The heartbeat concerned the doctor, who had tried everything to make a vaginal birth possible, including adding fluid an hour or so after my water had been broken, different positions, etc.

The decision was made to have a C-section.
What a shock! I had no time to think about it or get worried, I just went into Warrior Mode. Baby needed to come out and be healthy, and that was all that mattered.

By 4:05 p.m., Scott was in his scrubs, I was lying on a table in an operating room and the show was about to begin.

Baby arrived at 4:35 p.m., Mommy was all closed up at 5:05 p.m. and out of recovery by 6 p.m., when I finally got to hold my darling little boy.

Those first few minutes of us nuzzling together made everything else so very worth it. He is the love of my life.

(And he had to make quite the entrance!!!)