Thursday, Aug. 20th, Dr. was amazed I hadn't gone into labor yet, as was I. I as 3-4 cm dilated and 50% effaced. He stripped my membranes and I begged to be induced. I was 3 days shy of being 39 weeks. He was apprehensive about it and said he would call me later about it, he had to go deliver another patient. When he called he said that there were no openings for that Friday and suggested Monday. I didn't want Ryan ( he is a teacher, too for those that don't know) to miss the first day of school and Dr. said we could schedule it for Wednesday. Now, I am not a huge fan of induction but when you are in this constant pain and pressure your willing to do anything to make it stop!
Saturday, Aug. 22nd, First trip to the hospital. I thought that my water was possibly leaking. I told Ryan not to call anyone because I was 75 percent sure I would be sent back home and I was. The Dr. on call asked me if my Dr. had mentioned anything about size.... I said not recently. We were thinking around 8 pounds. Mom found out and was a little peeved. Oops.
Monday, Aug 24th (First Day of school) I started having some intense contractions, I spent the day taking showers and baths to help with the back pain. Around 9pm they started getting pretty close together. Mom came over and we went for a walk around the neighborhood in hopes to jump start true labor. They were around 3-5 minutes apart, so we headed to the hospital. They checked me and I was still 3-4 cm and hooked me up to the machines. They didn't think the contractions were strong enough, but gave me a shot of stadol (sp?) to manage the pain and let me sleep for awhile. And three weeks later my arm STILL HURTS from this shot. After a few hours the contractions got further apart and they sent me home in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Tuesday, Aug 25th, Sent Ryan to school and my mom opted to take the day off. She came over in the morning. I was still a bit loopy from the narcotic they gave me the night before. However, I was having more intense contractions five minutes apart. I called my Dr. and he said to come in if I thought it was time. I decided to wait a little while because I didn't want to be sent home again. They did tapper off a little bit during the day and I was able to be somewhat comfortable on my couch while mom took care of me. She went home when Ryan got home. Around 7 contractions started back up but were pretty far apart. At 8 I had several contractions that were really strong and close together. They say to wait for an hour, I waited 2o minutes, haha. I told Ryan were going to the hospital and I was pretty sure this was it. Called mom and we were on our way. When we got there we skipped triage and went straight to my room they had already set up since I was scheduled to be induced the next morning. Turned out my waters were leaking... oops, and I was admitted. I asked this Dr. on call about what size he though the baby would be and he said 7.5 pounds.
Wednesday, Aug 26th, Birthday. I got my epidural somewhere between 4 and 7 am... Details have blurred. I was then started on Pitocen. I had lots of family there hanging out with me and keeping my spirits up. I was pain free for a while but it got pretty intense at the end. It's always helpful having my family crack jokes and talk about there new iphones to distract from the pain. I had several large doses of the epideral medicine but in the end the pain always returned. At 1 pm everyone was kicked out so the pushing could begin. I don't know if Ryan was planning to be involved as much as he was but the nurse in charge placed him and mom in jobs and they were great. The whole time I was pushing I felt like the baby was about to fall out at any moment and kept asking the nurse if it was time to get the dr. Two and half hours later of extreme pain baby Andrew Ryan Bilski was born at 3:25 pm. They were worried his shoulders were getting stuck but they were fine, they ended up having trouble with his broad chest. I did not get to hold him when he came out. There were some third degree tears and a bit of bleeding. I had also developed a high fever. They weighed and measured him. They had asked my mom what we were thinking he would weigh. She said 8.5 pounds. When I heard her say this, I thought they were saying how much he actually weighed but then a few minutes later I heard the nurse yell 10 pounds! I was shocked. To our great surprise he was 9 pounds 15 3/4 ounces and 21 inches. My nurse said I was allowed to round it to 10 pounds, haha. I had joked with the Dr. that people kept telling me I had twins since I looked so large, he laughed and said he would of caught that one earlier! The nurse did mention that I have birth to the equivalent weight of twins.
We were kept an extra day in the hospital since we had fevers but everything was fine. It was a blessing in disguise because that gave me some extra time to heal and relax with the comfort of the nurses. We went home Friday evening at five. Andrew's weight had dropped down to 9 pounds 7 ounces, they said that was completely normal. On Monday, we went in for the Newborn well check and he had dropped down to 9 pounds and 2 ounces, once again normal. We had to go into the doctor again on Wednesday because he developed a bad case of thrush. Which seems to be clearing up just fine now. We had our Two week well check this past wed, sept 9th and he had regained all his weight and doing just fine.
I have the greatest and calmest baby. But now he is being fussy and wants to be held. I have not figured out the one handed typing skills and will have to continue this at a later date!
