Full Disclosure: Beckett's Birth Story, Part II

Well, this has taken me longer to finish than I planned... Beckett is now one month old! So it's definitely time to wrap up the birth story since there are certainly other things to write about by now. PLENTY of other things. :) So, same deal... The text below is from dad, with my additional comments in italics.

Mom was in surgery a short time later and dad was able to join her. As our "Relaxation Soundtrack" played in the background the doctors quickly conducted the C-Section and mom and dad smiled upon hearing the first cries. On the other side of the curtain, exclamations of "look at the size of him" erupted from much of the room and dad was invited to come see his baby for the first time while the doctors began stitching mom up. Dad cut the umbilical cord and got to carry baby over to mom for the first time.

Wow. This is quite the brief summary. This was a far more emotional and scary experience than my husband lets on. There were tears before heading into surgery. Both because I was disappointed and because I was scared. By then we did believe that it was a necessary decision, but that didn't make it less scary. Once we agreed to the surgery, things started happening very quickly. Within 30 minutes I was signing paperwork and being wheeled into the operating room. Chris was asked to wait outside while they prepped me. I think there were about 6 people in the room, including my two doctors. I was given the drugs and went numb from basically my chest down. A blue drape was put up right beneath me chin so I couldn't see anything that was happening at all. Then Chris was allowed to join me.

The anesthesiologist was nice enough to walk me through the process--'they're making the incision now' 'you're going to feel lots of pressure' 'big tug now'. This was so surreal. I felt no pain, but definitely felt tugging and pulling as my baby was removed from my body. Weird. Once the docs started cutting, it only took about ten minutes for us to hear our baby's first cries. Relief. Happy tears.

Beckett Alexander Ludwig was born at 10:23am on his due date of November 27th. He measured 22in long and tipped the scales at a mighty 10lbs. 2oz. The head of the nursery who did the initial measurements indicated that his weight didn't tell the whole story. Apparently his head was among the largest she had seen at 38cm. In the recovery room, mom and Beckett were able to bond skin to skin and initiate breastfeeding immediately. Following the delivery, mom, dad, and Beckett spent three nights in the hospital and were able to come home on the morning of Wednesday, November 30th.

Again, this is a brief summary. After our not so little man emerged, Dad was allowed to come over to see him and cut the umbilical cord. Measurements were taken. Suctioning was done because of the meconium. Apgar scores were taken (9 and 9, with a point taken off for very blue feet). Meanwhile, I waited anxiously to see my son and the doctors stitched and glued me up. Finally, dad carried Beckett over to me and I saw him for the first time. How amazing. I couldn't touch him yet thanks to all the tubes in my arms. I had also stated shaking uncontrollably from the anesthesia. Shortly thereafter, dad and baby went to the nursery for more checks and the docs finished with me. They wheeled me in to recovery and dad and baby joined me shortly. Finally, finally, I was allowed to hold my baby. We got the skin-to-skin contact that I was hoping for. We were also able to initiate breastfeeding. I truly believe that it was this early contact and the fact that we roomed in and allowed on-demand feeding that helped my milk come in faster and be of an adequate supply. H strange to be holding the creature that had lived inside me for so many months. He was beautiful. And ours. How unbelievable. After about 30 minutes or so, the nurse took baby away briefly for his first bath and for all the necessary medical procedures. Vitamin k shot and antibiotic eye ointment, etc. All the things that we requested they wait on so that we could bond for awhile. He wasn't gone long and then we were all moved back into our hospital room.

Now going on two weeks old, Beckett has had two visits to his pediatrician to verify that his weight gain was as desired and that he was getting all that he needed from mom. Having lost about 10% of his weight (1lb.) during our hospital stay, which we're told is not unusual, the doctors wanted to see that he gained at least 3oz. back by this Wednesday. He had gained 10oz. Mom and dad were thrilled to know that the breastfeeding that we were working so hard on was paying off well.

While our birth story didn't exactly go the way we had hoped, it is our firm belief that going through the labor process as we did led to the milk production that Beckett requires and, furthermore, that without our training we would not have been able to even make it as far as we did through labor, let alone know how and when to make the choices that we did.

This is obviously only the story of Beckett's birth. At some point I hope to share more about his early days in the hospital and at home. As I mentioned, Beckett has been with us for one month now. It has both flown and dragged. Been incredibly difficult and rewarding. There have been many tears, but just as many laughs. Parenthood is a crazy ride. And it has only just begun.

Full disclosure: Beckett's Birth Story, Part I

Beckett is two weeks old now (almost three!). I figured it was as good a time as any to share his birth story. My husband actually did most of the writing here in order to share our story with our Bradley classmates. I'll add back in all the dirty details that I know you're hoping for though, :). The text below is what we sent to our group. My additional comments will be in italics.

We've known for several months now that there was a very real possibility of our little bundle being not so little. Mom had been measuring ahead for months and an early ultrasound indicated we could have a big baby on our hands. At week 38, Mom was measuring 42 weeks and the doctor recommended another ultrasound. This one predicted a 9 lb 14 oz baby with a possible 2+ weeks to go. Our doctor did warn us about the possibility of shoulder dystocia being an issue with a big baby, but they also knew about our plans for natural birth and were fine with us continuing to wait for our boy to make his arrival on his own time. Due to the size prediction by the ultrasound our doctor actually told us that we could schedule a c-section right then and there. Something I definitely didn't want to do, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the thought of delivering such a large baby didn't scare me a little. There was now the very real possibility of facing complications and/or our plan not working out. Of course, we always knew that could happen. We did have some serious discussions, but, in the end, decided to wait it out. I stood by the fact that at the very least I wanted to try to let our boy choose the time of his arrival. From all our classes I knew that just going through the labor process would be beneficial to our baby.

On Saturday, November 26th, Dad awoke around 7:30am and Mom indicated that she had had several contractions since about 7am and that they were about fifteen minutes apart. While we had had our bags packed for weeks, Dad started doing final preparations around the house, getting the car packed up and such. Because I don't think he had any idea what to do with himself. Within a couple hours, Mom's contractions had already shrunk down to about every 6-7 minutes apart and it seemed that we were on our way to a quick delivery. Oh, if that had only been true. :) Over the next several hours Mom took a couple showers and we executed all of the training that Bradley Classes had provided by changing positions and trying to work through each contraction one by one. Once the contractions had reached the 4-5 minute range they held there for quite a while. Around 5pm, now ten hours into labor, the contractions had gotten down to the 2 minute range and Dad contacted Mom's doctor to inform her that we were headed into Highland Park Hospital. The doctor was surprised that we had already endured so much of the labor process at home and agreed that it was a good time to go in.

So... Contractions. For most of the day they were manageable. I had heard before that they felt like strong period cramps. And I would say that is a pretty accurate description, again, early on. I worried for a long time that since I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions so frequently during my pregnancy, that I would not be able to tell when I was actually have labor contractions. I should not have worried about that. There is definitely a difference.

We were at the hospital and pretty well settled in by around 6pm. Mom's contractions were still around the 2-3 minute range but were of a fairly high intensity. Mom had a heplock put in and was put on a monitor just to see where we stood at the beginning. All signs came up fine and mom was taken off the monitor within half an hour. At that point, we were told she was around 4 cm dilated. Ugh. After nearly 12 hours of labor I was hoping that I was further along. Several more hours passed and mom continued to shower and go through a series of positions to try and advance the labor process. By this point, the shower was the only place I felt comfortable. Chris was trying his hardest to help me through things, but there's really only so much that someone else can do. He did a good job of reminding me to breathe though. We thought we were making good progress since the contractions continued to increase in intensity and frequency. By midnight the contractions were lasting 30 seconds and were only a minute apart. Mom was hoping that this was transition! But another check revealed that we had only progressed another centimeter or so to a six, but mom was allowed to continue. By now I was telling Chris that I wasn't sure how much longer I could do this. I felt very discouraged to not be making faster progress. The shower was no longer comforting. I think I could have handled things better if the contractions weren't so close together, but I had very little respite. Within the next hour contractions started occasionally double peaking. With very little relief between contractions now and having been in labor for 17 hours already, we requested an epidural. It was our hope that if we could alleviate some of the pain over the next couple of hours that the labor could progress and mom would have the necessary energy to endure the latter stages of labor. I was begging Chris now. I had told him in advance that there would probably come a point where I would ask, but I expected to be further along by then. I was feeling defeated. But I was SO tired. I just wanted it to stop for a little while. I knew there was a chance that the epidural would slow my progress even more, but the opposite could also be true. Being able to relax a little while could also speed things along. Either way, I knew I couldn't take much more. Within 30 minutes the drug doctor arrived. The worst part of the whole epi administration was being forced to hunch over on the bed 'like a "C."'. My belly was so big that this was nearly impossible. But I bent just enough and the relief came quickly.

At this point I was put on the monitors full time and had a catheter put in since I would no longer be allowed to get out of bed. My legs were totally numb by now so that would have been impossible anyway.

We managed to get a bit of sleep. By about 6am, now on Sunday the 27th, we had still only progressed to 7cm and baby was still at -2 station. In other words, he was not progressing down the birth canal, which explains why my dilation was so slow. The staff suggested that we start a slow drip of pitocin to see if we could get things going. I hesitated, but since I already had the epidural, finally agreed. Ugh. This is exactly the path of interventions that I was looking to avoid by taking the Bradley classes. :(

Mom's doctor arrived around 8am and conducted a vaginal exam. Little had changed. Except that I now had a fever and was given a Tylenol suppository (yahoo!) to bring it back down. The doc indicated that she wanted to return about an hour later to see if we could make more progress. Upon her visit at 9am, mom had reached 8cm dilation, but to this point her water still not broken. We agreed to allow the doctor to break her bag of waters (again in the hopes of speeding things up) and, unfortunately, we were informed that meconium was present in the waters. Meconium is a newborn's first poops. The fact that there was meconium present indicates that the baby was under some degree of stress. The doctor and hospital staff did not signal an immediate alarm, but stated that it was now important to monitor the situation to determine where we wanted to go from there. Over the course of the next hour, the baby's heart rate started to fluctuate on the monitor periodically. At 10am, we had a visit with the doctor where the progress or lack thereof was discussed, along with the existing concerns over mom and baby's health. Given all of what we knew from ultrasounds, there was also a fair confidence that this was a large baby inside of a small-framed mom and that the pushing stage of labor could go on for quite some time. Taking all of what we knew, after 27 hours of labor, we executed the most important aspect of our Bradley training and made a tough decision as "educated consumers". We accepted the fact that a Cesarean Section was now likely the best course of action. Shit. I was terrified to say the least but also very disappointed at the direction that things had gone. I knew however, given his predicted size, failure to descend, heart rate decelerations, the presence of meconium and my own fever that this really was the best option.

To be continued...

10 days old.

Dear Beckett,

It's hard to believe, but you have already been a part of our world for 10 whole days. It's a strange transition--becoming a parent. Even now, at 3:35am, with you lying next to me, finally sleeping, I have a hard time believing that you're really mine. My baby. My son.

Your arrival did not exactly go as planned. But that is a story for another day and for now the only thing that matters is that you are here. And you are healthy. And strong. Oh my, are you strong. By your second day, you were already lifting your head up. Of course, it still bobbles about, but you shouldn't even be able to do that at 10 days old let alone 2. Just one example, and there are many, of how you have already exceeded expectations. And I don't just mean of your (very) biased family, but also of the nurses and doctors that you have come into contact with.

So much has already happened. I've had so little time to dedicate to documenting it all though, thanks mostly to your voracious appetite. We are still figuring you out. Learning when your little squeals are going to become full-blown crying fits and when they are just the sounds of your sleep. We're dealing with nighttime feedings and sleep deprivation as best as we can as well. Taking shifts. Usually, I stay up until the wee hours of the morning with you while your dad sleeps and then we swap and I get to sleep in a bit (in between feedings of course).

Not that you want to know about this, but I am breast feeding you. I knew going into it that it would be difficult, I just did not realize that it would also be painful. We're still working on it though and I'm fairly determined to make it work. It's getting better, just slowly.

I will catch up and fill in all the important details here soon. For now, I'm just trying to sleep when I can and enjoy all the snuggle time I can get with you in between visits from family who like to steal you away. You are so loved.