Happy One Week Birthday Drew!

Drew is one week old today.  It doesn't even feel like it's been a week yet!  Time has already flown, I can only imagine how the next 18 years will be!

One week ago today Drew made his slow entrance into the world.  If he made anything clear it was that he was not going to be rushed into anything!

I started having "contractions" Sunday night, but they were very mild and not really timeable.  I slept through most of the night and even slept a good 3 hour interval before I started waking up more frequently.  Monday morning I was pretty sure things were getting started but still didn't really feel like the contractions were timeable, nor were they unmanageable so I decided to just go ahead and go to my regularly scheduled OB visit that day at 11 and see what the doctor had to say.  Turns out I was already 4-5 cm dilated; she wanted me to go ahead and go to the hospital.

I called my doula Kim for advice.  She said I was getting close to being in active labor and maybe wanted to stay kind of close to the hospital since I had dilated so quickly without much "work".  I decided to get some lunch, head home and pick up a few last minute things, then headed to the hospital.

We had to wait a good hour or so in the waiting room at the hospital before going through triage (where they decide if you're in active enough labor to admit you).  Contractions were starting to get more intense so I lost track of time.  By the time I did get into a room I was already 9.5 cm dilated- almost time to push!  How did that happen!?  My contractions had never been closer than 4 minutes apart. What happened to "transition"?  We were sure Drew was going to arrive by dinner time at the pace things were going.


Well, hours passed and I felt no urge to push. Contractions were still coming every 4 minutes; I breathed and tried to relax through them with lots of help from Jason and Kim.  Between contractions I kept falling asleep. I finally decided to have the doctor break my water hoping it might speed things along.  Still nothing.  A few more hours, midnight passed, and we finally decided it was time to do "guided pushing" since I still was feeling no urge to push.  After an hour of pushing Drew finally arrived at 1:25 am on Tuesday, June 29th.  He was almost 2 weeks late and he still didn't make it on the day we thought he'd arrive!  This little guy knows no time schedules! Guess he takes after Mom...

The hospital was awesome.  I never even gave them my birth plan and yet I got everything I wanted, including holding Drew right away- yup, before they even cleaned him up!  I only said once that I was going naturally and they never offered an epidural.  When things started taking a while and they were concerned about Drew handling everything ok they sought out and hooked me up to wireless monitors so I could still move around the room but be constantly monitored.  The nurse even had to take a while to find the machines and get them working, but she did.  On top of all that the doctor I ended up having was 6 months pregnant herself!  I asked her after the delivery if she planned on having an epidural, and she said she wanted to go naturally too!  She said that I was a real inspiration, so I told her about the classes I took.  It turns out she had just been checking them out online that morning!

Happy one week birthday, Andrew!

This is my version of our birth story... Kim, my doula, is writing a more detailed one that I will post later when I get it.  I was honestly shocked when I realized that it was no longer Monday the 28th; time had passed almost meaninglessly to me!  I can't wait to see Kim's version and see an actual "time line" of events.