My cup runneth over...

Er, quite literally, but you probably don't need the details of that.

Wow. Where do I even begin? The event I've been dreaming about for years has finally happened. The birth of my little boy, Benjamin.

I woke up at about 1:15 on Monday morning and felt like I had peed myself. So I got up and continued "peeing" on myself all the way to the bathroom. I was pretty sure it was my water. So I woke Chris up, who wasn't really even asleep yet. He had stayed up kind of late. I called my doctor, who of course told me to go to the hospital. Heh, when I woke up my mom (who flew in on Saturday, yay!), she asked if maybe we should just keep sleeping and see if I started having contractions. It made me laugh, but in retrospect, I really wish we could have.

So to the hospital we went, and triage did all sorts of horrible things to me trying to determine if it was indeed amniotic fluid I was leaking. I am so glad I never had to go in for a false alarm. I was admitted, but still not really in labor. I was having contractions, but they were extremely mild and irregular. But I was so excited! I was going to have a baby in the next 24 hours! The doctor on call wanted to go ahead and start me on a high dose of pitocin to get things moving. Wanting to try and deal with the pain without medication, I asked if we could try to avoid that. So they gave me 6 hours to try and move my labor along myself by walking and using the jacuzzi and the birthing ball. After that check, I was 2 cm and 80% effaced, which was definite progress from my initial 1 cm. So they let me hold off on the pit. Time after that became a total blur. I think it was a few hours, but I started having some much heavier contractions and was a lot more uncomfortable. All for one more cm. My doctor (who was now a different doctor on call and is so freaking awesome) suggested I go ahead and start pitocin, and they would gradually increase the dose. We were, after all, on a time schedule. The goal is to have a baby within 24 hours of your water breaking because the chance of infection to the baby greatly increases after that.
So I started working through much stronger, more regular contractions. And they got really really hard. They were coming every 1-2 minutes, and they had multiple peaks. I really thought that if I wasn't in transition, I had to be close. The contractions felt constant. At this point, it was well into the evening on Monday. I had about an hour and a half of sleep from the night before when my water broke. I was incredibly tired. At the next check, I was 4 cm, 100% effaced. Now, you know I'm a crybaby, and I totally cried. I felt so overwhelmed. I had great support from my husband, my mom, and my mother in law. They told me how great I was doing, but I felt like I would die if I couldn't sleep and I had to keep having those contractions with little to no progress indefinitely. So I asked for some Staidol to help with the pain. Unfortunately, it didn't help with the pain of the peaks of my contractions, so I would fall asleep and wake up in the middle of horrible pain and have to try and get it together to breathe through it. This went on for about half an hour (or something, like I said, time was a blur), and I asked for an epidural. I needed sleep. I had been in labor all morning, afternoon, and evening. It was about 9:30 pm when I asked. They didn't waste any time in getting it for me either. The anesthesiologist rushed in and did his thing, and I felt like a different person. I figured they would just up the pitocin at this point, and I would sleep until it was time to push. I told my husband to go ahead and run home to let the dogs out and feed them.
After he left, my doctor came in and checked me. I was at 5 cm, but my cervix had started to swell. He recommended I have a c-section because it was very unlikely for my labor to continue successfully. I quickly agreed, and my mother in law called my husband to tell him to come back.
It all happened really fast after that. They wheeled me into the operating room. All the nurses and doctors were all joking and chatting and getting me ready. It was really relaxed, which made me feel more relaxed. My epidural was increased, so I didn't feel anything. My husband came in and sat beside me, and the next thing I knew my abdomen felt like it was being pulled and squished like taffy. It didn't hurt, but it was weird. I heard someone say how big he was, and then how hairy he was. And then I heard that he looked like he was too mad to cry. Chris peeked over my blue sterile canopy and told me he was so hairy! And then I heard Ben cry. And it made me cry, too. Because he was finally here. My sweet little booger man.


Benjamin Grimm
Born 11/03/2008 10:35 pm
Weight: 7 lbs 12 oz

Welcome home, little guy.