Click here to read the first part of our adventure.
Upon reaching the room we found that it was HUGE. The rooms are typically pretty spacious but we ended up with a corner room so we lucked out. They got me settled and hooked up to everything (IV fluids, antibiotics since I hadn't been tested for Strep B yet, blood pressure cuff, baby heartrate monitor, contraction monitor). Then we were in for a whole bunch of waiting.
My contractions through the night came between 2 and 12 minutes apart ... not regular at all. The pain was ok. A few times the baby's heartrate dropped and the nurses would rush in. They'd put me on oxygen, reposition the monitor, reposition me, and then breathe a sigh of relief. It was really scary the couple of times it happened because I had no idea what was going on. It seemed to be an issue with the monitor more than real drops so they finally put an internal monitor on the baby's head. That worked for awhile until it started going wonky too. By the next morning the new nurse, Janis, thought that it wasn't attached correctly so when my doctor, Dr. Agnelli, came in to see me she told her to just take it off. After that the external monitor worked fine. Dang thing.
I dozed off and on through the night but didn't really get a whole lot of sleep. John passed out on the fold-out bed for a few hours. He didn't even stir when the nurses rushed in! I think he had a couple of drinks to sleep off from Taco Thursday. :)
When Dr. Agnelli came in the morning to see me she told me that there wasn't anything I'd done that caused my water to break. It just happens sometimes. That made me feel a little better. She decided to start me on Pitocin because my contractions were still between 4 and 8 minutes apart and not very regular. She said she'd get updates on my progress through the day and hopefully be back in the evening to deliver. The Pitocin did its job and things started to even out. I decided to get an epidural so I didn't feel the contractions once they were really bad. I could have gone a little longer without the epidural but I was already pretty tired and I didn't want to be completely worn out when it was time to push. (Turns out that was a good decision!) The epidural made my legs feel a bit numb but I was able to feel and move them around.
At one point during the day Janis and her supervisor came in and said I was having a "super contraction". My uterus tightened up and wouldn't relax. After 4 minutes of this the baby's heartrate started dropping so they gave me some medication to stop contractions. It did the trick - uterus relaxed and baby's heartrate went back up. Unfortunately the medicine stopped ALL of my contractions, not just the big one. We had to wait awhile for the medication to get out of my system and for the Pitocin to get things going again.
During the day I had different family members rotating in and out of the room. Initially John and I didn't think we'd want anyone in there with us during labor but it ended up not being a big deal. In the afternoon when Bobby and Renee were there Janis decided to check me. She sent them out for a minute and discovered I was 10 cm dilated. We couldn't believe it!! It was time to start pushing!! While Janis went to notify Dr. Agnelli, we told Bobby and Renee and said goodbye to everyone one last time. We definitely knew we only wanted the two of us in the room for delivery.
Our pushing "journey" started at 2:15 pm. Janis said that the baby's head was down super low so we didn't really think it would take too long for him to be born ... man, were we wrong! After quite some time working my tail off Janis decided to check the baby's position and discovered that he was slightly turned in the birth canal. He was stuck!! I was having a heck of a time - I couldn't catch my breath in between pushes and I was super tired. I was nodding off between contractions. We tried different positions to see what worked best. Pushing on my side was best ... pushing on my hands and knees was awful! I was getting really discouraged. The epidural made it so I couldn't really feel what I was doing, I was beyond tired, I couldn't breathe, and the contractions hurt really badly. (I think they turned down the epidural so I could feel more when I pushed but I'm not sure - I'm going to ask Dr. Agnelli about that one. I wasn't expected the extreme pain I went through with an epidural.) Janis suggested we skip pushing through a contraction every now and then so I could rest, but the contractions hurt so bad I didn't want to. When Dr. Agneilli showed up right before 5:00 I was done. Janis told her about the baby being twisted. She got in there and did something to get him re-positioned. It did the trick, but it did NOT feel good. After coaching me through a couple more contractions she could see how tired I was and asked if I wanted her to use the vacuum to help me out. At that point I was in an exhausted haze. She could have done just about anything and I wouldn't have cared. I just wanted it to be over!! She whipped out her little vacuum, got it on the baby's head, and with the next contractions (and a whole lot of pain) ... Landen Sage Parducho was born at 5:13 pm!!!
He was crying like crazy. They put him on my chest for a minute but I was in la-la land. I felt really detached from everything that was going on around me. I remember Dr. Agnelli telling John how to cut the cord though. After that they took Landen off of me to get him cleaned up and check him out. Dr. Agnelli delivered the placenta and then had to sew me up --> 2nd degree tear and Landen managed to scratch me somehow on the way out. I unfortunately felt every dang stitch so my mental health wasn't really improving at that point. It only took a few minutes but it felt like an eternity. Poor John kept hopping back and forth to check on me and then the baby and then back again. After Dr. Agnelli finished torturing me, Janis got me settled. I started to "come to" and wanted to know what was going on with Landen. He was still crying so I could hear him, but I couldn't see him. John was taking lots of pictures.
The weighed him and announced he weighed 6 pounds 9 ounces. We were in total shock!! We thought he'd be really tiny since he was 5 weeks early.
Everything looked good when they checked him. His Apgar scores were 8 at 1 minute, and 9 at 5 minutes. They cleaned him up and got his footprints.
When they were done they put him on my chest for skin-to-skin bonding time. When they settled him on there he immediately stopped crying. It was so amazing to lay there with him. I was totally overwhelmed - the tears were flowing!! I was unbelievably happy and relieved that he was ok. John sat with us and took pictures. He was in a state of total amazement.
We got to lay like that for about 15 minutes. Because of Landen's early birth it's standard procedure for someone to come check him out from the NICU. They had told us about it earlier in the day. If he looked ok then he'd stay with us for about 2 hours before going to the nursery for a more thorough exam. If he seemed to have any issues they'd have to take him to the NICU. Unfortunately, the NICU nurse noticed that Landen was grunting as he was breathing while laying on my chest. When she examined him more closely she noticed that he was also flaring his nostrils and his chest was retracting with each breath. Giving him some oxygen didn't appear to help any so she called for a neonatalogist from the NICU to come take a look.
While we waited for the doctor to come, Janis gave me a turkey sandwich boxed lunch so I could eat (it had been almost 24 hours since my last meal) and I sent John out to the waiting room to announce Landen's birth and name to the family. They had talked to Dr. Agnelli briefly when she left so they knew he'd been delivered, but his name was still a mystery. Everyone loved it when John told them!
While John was gone, Dr. Lee from the NICU came in and examined Landen. He was definitely having some issues breathing so she explained that she wanted to take him to the NICU to check him out. I told her to do whatever she thought was best. She said she was surprised because usually she has to convince moms to let her take their baby away. I obviously didn't want her to take him but if he was having trouble and she thought that was the best thing for him then I wasn't going to argue. It just so happens that the family got to see him as they were rolling him to the NICU. They came into my room to congratulate me and tell me how beautiful he was. Then everyone went home and let John and I have some alone time.
I needed to potty so Janis got me up out of bed to see if I could walk to the bathroom. Apparently I did better than most do after an epidural because I had no issues. She said I practically skipped over there. :) I told her that I felt really energetic when I should be totally exhausted. She said it was because of the adrenaline. Once she got me settled again we said our goodbyes because her shift was over. I was so happy to have worked with her - she was so great!! Not too long after, a different nurse came in and told me my postpartum room was ready and it was time to leave my labor and delivery room behind. John grabbed all of our stuff and they wheeled me over to my new home for the next couple of days.
Up next - Landen's stay in the NICU
Upon reaching the room we found that it was HUGE. The rooms are typically pretty spacious but we ended up with a corner room so we lucked out. They got me settled and hooked up to everything (IV fluids, antibiotics since I hadn't been tested for Strep B yet, blood pressure cuff, baby heartrate monitor, contraction monitor). Then we were in for a whole bunch of waiting.
My contractions through the night came between 2 and 12 minutes apart ... not regular at all. The pain was ok. A few times the baby's heartrate dropped and the nurses would rush in. They'd put me on oxygen, reposition the monitor, reposition me, and then breathe a sigh of relief. It was really scary the couple of times it happened because I had no idea what was going on. It seemed to be an issue with the monitor more than real drops so they finally put an internal monitor on the baby's head. That worked for awhile until it started going wonky too. By the next morning the new nurse, Janis, thought that it wasn't attached correctly so when my doctor, Dr. Agnelli, came in to see me she told her to just take it off. After that the external monitor worked fine. Dang thing.
I dozed off and on through the night but didn't really get a whole lot of sleep. John passed out on the fold-out bed for a few hours. He didn't even stir when the nurses rushed in! I think he had a couple of drinks to sleep off from Taco Thursday. :)
When Dr. Agnelli came in the morning to see me she told me that there wasn't anything I'd done that caused my water to break. It just happens sometimes. That made me feel a little better. She decided to start me on Pitocin because my contractions were still between 4 and 8 minutes apart and not very regular. She said she'd get updates on my progress through the day and hopefully be back in the evening to deliver. The Pitocin did its job and things started to even out. I decided to get an epidural so I didn't feel the contractions once they were really bad. I could have gone a little longer without the epidural but I was already pretty tired and I didn't want to be completely worn out when it was time to push. (Turns out that was a good decision!) The epidural made my legs feel a bit numb but I was able to feel and move them around.
At one point during the day Janis and her supervisor came in and said I was having a "super contraction". My uterus tightened up and wouldn't relax. After 4 minutes of this the baby's heartrate started dropping so they gave me some medication to stop contractions. It did the trick - uterus relaxed and baby's heartrate went back up. Unfortunately the medicine stopped ALL of my contractions, not just the big one. We had to wait awhile for the medication to get out of my system and for the Pitocin to get things going again.
During the day I had different family members rotating in and out of the room. Initially John and I didn't think we'd want anyone in there with us during labor but it ended up not being a big deal. In the afternoon when Bobby and Renee were there Janis decided to check me. She sent them out for a minute and discovered I was 10 cm dilated. We couldn't believe it!! It was time to start pushing!! While Janis went to notify Dr. Agnelli, we told Bobby and Renee and said goodbye to everyone one last time. We definitely knew we only wanted the two of us in the room for delivery.
Our pushing "journey" started at 2:15 pm. Janis said that the baby's head was down super low so we didn't really think it would take too long for him to be born ... man, were we wrong! After quite some time working my tail off Janis decided to check the baby's position and discovered that he was slightly turned in the birth canal. He was stuck!! I was having a heck of a time - I couldn't catch my breath in between pushes and I was super tired. I was nodding off between contractions. We tried different positions to see what worked best. Pushing on my side was best ... pushing on my hands and knees was awful! I was getting really discouraged. The epidural made it so I couldn't really feel what I was doing, I was beyond tired, I couldn't breathe, and the contractions hurt really badly. (I think they turned down the epidural so I could feel more when I pushed but I'm not sure - I'm going to ask Dr. Agnelli about that one. I wasn't expected the extreme pain I went through with an epidural.) Janis suggested we skip pushing through a contraction every now and then so I could rest, but the contractions hurt so bad I didn't want to. When Dr. Agneilli showed up right before 5:00 I was done. Janis told her about the baby being twisted. She got in there and did something to get him re-positioned. It did the trick, but it did NOT feel good. After coaching me through a couple more contractions she could see how tired I was and asked if I wanted her to use the vacuum to help me out. At that point I was in an exhausted haze. She could have done just about anything and I wouldn't have cared. I just wanted it to be over!! She whipped out her little vacuum, got it on the baby's head, and with the next contractions (and a whole lot of pain) ... Landen Sage Parducho was born at 5:13 pm!!!
He was crying like crazy. They put him on my chest for a minute but I was in la-la land. I felt really detached from everything that was going on around me. I remember Dr. Agnelli telling John how to cut the cord though. After that they took Landen off of me to get him cleaned up and check him out. Dr. Agnelli delivered the placenta and then had to sew me up --> 2nd degree tear and Landen managed to scratch me somehow on the way out. I unfortunately felt every dang stitch so my mental health wasn't really improving at that point. It only took a few minutes but it felt like an eternity. Poor John kept hopping back and forth to check on me and then the baby and then back again. After Dr. Agnelli finished torturing me, Janis got me settled. I started to "come to" and wanted to know what was going on with Landen. He was still crying so I could hear him, but I couldn't see him. John was taking lots of pictures.
The weighed him and announced he weighed 6 pounds 9 ounces. We were in total shock!! We thought he'd be really tiny since he was 5 weeks early.
Everything looked good when they checked him. His Apgar scores were 8 at 1 minute, and 9 at 5 minutes. They cleaned him up and got his footprints.
We got to lay like that for about 15 minutes. Because of Landen's early birth it's standard procedure for someone to come check him out from the NICU. They had told us about it earlier in the day. If he looked ok then he'd stay with us for about 2 hours before going to the nursery for a more thorough exam. If he seemed to have any issues they'd have to take him to the NICU. Unfortunately, the NICU nurse noticed that Landen was grunting as he was breathing while laying on my chest. When she examined him more closely she noticed that he was also flaring his nostrils and his chest was retracting with each breath. Giving him some oxygen didn't appear to help any so she called for a neonatalogist from the NICU to come take a look.
While we waited for the doctor to come, Janis gave me a turkey sandwich boxed lunch so I could eat (it had been almost 24 hours since my last meal) and I sent John out to the waiting room to announce Landen's birth and name to the family. They had talked to Dr. Agnelli briefly when she left so they knew he'd been delivered, but his name was still a mystery. Everyone loved it when John told them!
While John was gone, Dr. Lee from the NICU came in and examined Landen. He was definitely having some issues breathing so she explained that she wanted to take him to the NICU to check him out. I told her to do whatever she thought was best. She said she was surprised because usually she has to convince moms to let her take their baby away. I obviously didn't want her to take him but if he was having trouble and she thought that was the best thing for him then I wasn't going to argue. It just so happens that the family got to see him as they were rolling him to the NICU. They came into my room to congratulate me and tell me how beautiful he was. Then everyone went home and let John and I have some alone time.
I needed to potty so Janis got me up out of bed to see if I could walk to the bathroom. Apparently I did better than most do after an epidural because I had no issues. She said I practically skipped over there. :) I told her that I felt really energetic when I should be totally exhausted. She said it was because of the adrenaline. Once she got me settled again we said our goodbyes because her shift was over. I was so happy to have worked with her - she was so great!! Not too long after, a different nurse came in and told me my postpartum room was ready and it was time to leave my labor and delivery room behind. John grabbed all of our stuff and they wheeled me over to my new home for the next couple of days.
Up next - Landen's stay in the NICU
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