Canon Michael Dahl is HERE!!

These few posts are very overdue, but it's been a difficult couple of weeks trying to get used to parenthood. Here is the full birth story of how our little baby boy was born with the details that several people have been curious about...and probably a few more details than others care to read! :0)

Friday October 30, 2009

My mother had come to visit and help out with the baby on Sat. the 24th, which was 1 week before my due date. I was excited to spend some time with her and do a few fun tourist things here in Boston before the baby would be born and I'd have to be home bound for a while. Well, on Friday we decided to do a 10AM session at the Temple. After that we ventured to find a Toys 'R' Us to take one more look at car seats for the baby. I was still a little nervous about the one that I own, but when I actually saw how the new ones are installed and compared that to the one I had, I felt much better. Around 1:00PM we ventured over to the nearby Target just for one last look when in that baby isle I felt a very distinct, sharp pain in my abdomen. As I described it to my mother, she told me that was what contractions felt like. I was so excited to think that I had my VERY FIRST contraction. I thought, "Yay! I just might be going into labor and I'll be having an October baby after all!" That was the only contraction until much later that evening. In bed I had 2 more just like it about 8 minutes apart... but that was it. I wasn't actually going into labor.

Or so I thought!!

October 31, 2009

At about 6:15AM I got up to go to the bathroom, but when I got back to bed I didn't quite fall asleep. At about 6:35AM I felt that my water had broken. I wasn't exactly sure, and I didn't want to wake up Mark to get him all excited unless it was the real thing. Well, when I filled up 2 pads within minutes and it was not bloody, I knew that it was confirmed. I woke up Mark and he was happy to find that he had just had a full night's rest (mostly) before heading to the hospital. We were actually starting to get excited about the idea of having a Halloween baby.

We all got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, and I called the doctor's office to let them know that I would be coming in. I didn't feel any contractions, nothing was painful at all...just that I was leaking the amniotic fluid. We arrived at the hospital around 8:00AM. Once we were all settled into the labor/delivery room, the nurses hooked me up to fetal monitors and I was practically restricted to staying in bed, except to go to the bathroom. I told the nurse that I hadn't been having any contractions. She looked at the monitor and said, "Do you feel that? Do you feel any pressure right now?" I told her there was a little bit of pressure, and she announced that was a contraction. "Oh!" I thought, "I've been feeling that for about a week now. I didn't think that's what Braxton Hicks would feel like, so I never would've associated that with a contraction." Around 9:00AM is when the OB there on call (Dr. Teste) checked me. I was only about 50% effaced and not the slightest bit dilated. He discussed with us our options of induction and said that he'd come back after a few hours to see what our decision would be. If I progressed on my own, there would be no need for the induction measures.

Around 1:30PM Dr. Teste came back to know if we made a decision. So far there was no progress, but I still wanted to wait a little longer to allow my body to naturally go into active labor. However, I was getting anxious...my window for having an October baby was running very narrow, so I really did want to get the show on the road. Around 3:00PM the midwife Kathy inserted a prostoglandin (cervadil?) to help ripen the cervix. At this point I was only 1 cm dilated, so there really hadn't been much progress at all.

Around 7:00PM I was tired of being restrained to the bed, so I asked if there was a way I could walk around. There was nothing wrong with my legs, and I've heard that walking helps to kick-start the labor. So they switched the monitors to portable ones and let me cruise around the maternity ward. It wasn't a very big area, but I just did laps around the whole ward. The nurses at the desk were somewhat surprised to see me walking so fast, but I wasn't in any pain, and I really wanted that baby to come! :) The walking didn't really seem to do much at all for me though. Around 10:00PM I started to try to get some sleep. I knew that labor was going to be difficult, and I was going to need my rest, but with the excitement of the impending birth of my baby boy, there was not much sleep to be had. Then, the clock struck midnight, and it was no longer October. It was going to be a November baby after all...sighs!

November 1, 2009

At 2:00AM we added an hour for the Daylight Savings change. When 2:00AM hit again, they removed the cervadil and found that I was 100% effaced. Woo hoo! But I was only 2 cm dilated. Ugh! This was one stubborn labor. At 3:00AM they started me on pitocin to induce contractions. By this point it was still pretty pain-free; however, that wasn't the case anymore within a few more hours. I really lost all track of time, but the contractions steadily became harder and harder.

At 8:15AM the nurses changed the fetal heart monitor because they found that the baby's heart rate was dropping with the contractions. They were unsure if the monitor was just picking up the wrong heartbeat or not, so they inserted an internal monitor. (That really hurt! It felt like they were sticking a needle into my cervix and taking their sweet time to remove it! Ouch!) His heart rate returned to normal after a little bit though. At this point I was really in pain from each contraction. I didn't want to talk or yell out, but I wanted them to know when I was having one. So, I just whispered "oooh oooh" through each one to give them some sort of clue that I was in pain. It was at this point that they administered the epidural. I was only dilated to about 5 or 6 cm.

At 9:45AM I was dilated to 8 cm, and I wasn't in nearly as much pain...both very good things, but they were still concerned about the baby's heart rate. At 9:55AM the baby's heart rate dropped again, then it came back up. At 10:00AM they told me that we just might have to seriously consider the option of doing a c-section. So I signed the consent form. I really didn't want to go that route, but I didn't feel scared about it, or that it was the wrong form of action at the time. It felt like a calm and rational decision to me to sign those forms. Then, just 15 minutes later, I was being wheeled into the operating room. They prepped me for surgery with an extra high dosage of the epidural, and my body started to shiver. I didn't really feel cold, but I couldn't keep my body from shivering. At 10:34AM they started the incision, and at 10:40AM they brought out our baby, Canon Michael. It turned out that the cord was wrapped around his neck, so that was most likely the cause of the baby's distress.

He measured in at 7 lbs. 2 oz and 20 inches long.

After a few pictures, cleaning off the baby, and stitching me back up, they wheeled me back into the labor/delivery room and brought me my little baby. We attempted to nurse, but he seemed mostly uninterested. I noticed that my body was still shivering, and even though I wanted to still hold him, I feared that the constant shaking would not help to calm the little guy, so I asked my mom to take him. I asked about his APGAR score, an 8 or 9... so that's a good healthy baby! YAY! I was so glad to be done with the whole labor thing, but it was at this point where I was starting to get nervous about the recovery I would have to go through. The nurses took my baby to the nursery, which I totally expected so I didn't really mind, but there was something a bit unexpected.

At about 1:40PM the nursery nurses were all crowding around Canon. They discovered that he seemed to be having some breathing problems. He was taking rapid shallow breaths, which was not normal. So they took him to the NICU. X-rays of his lungs showed that there was more fluid than normal. (Theory has it that because he was not delivered vaginally, where the extra amniotic fluid would get squeezed out traveling through the birth canal, that fluid remained in his lungs and he just needed to cough it out or let it evaporate.) There was a possibility that it was pneumonia, but that takes a couple days to diagnose, so they started him on an antibiotic right away, just in case.

For a few days they had Canon on oxygen therapy with only a very minimal amount of extra oxygen. So, they were feeding him through a tube and had a tiny IV hooked up to his hand for the antibiotics. My mother was only allowed up in the NICU for the first day, but after that only Mark and I were allowed to visit him. Canon was in the NICU for 1 week because of the antibiotics, but really, he was perfectly fine. Once they felt that his oxygen levels were stable without the extra oxygen, he was able to mouth-feed, and I was able to start trying to nurse. He's been diagnosed as a "strong, very healthy baby boy" and we are so glad to have him home. He's doing just great and we're doing our best to adjust to parenthood!