Tristan's Birth Story

Here is my birth story! Forgive any typos....I'm typing with one hand while feeding Tristan!

I had been having contractions all night Wednesday night. They were strong, but not close together so I slept as much as I could in between. Around 5:30 am I woke hubby and told him that we were having a baby today because the contractions had increased in intensity and were anywhere from 3 to 6 minutes apart. They got a lot closer together and were no more than 4 minutes apart so we called my mother in law to come and wait with the other kids until their bus got here. In the mean time i called my mother to come up since she was going to be with me and hubby while we were laboring and delivering.

We got to the hospital around 7:30 am and got checked in and went up to L&D. They, of course, hooked me up to the monitors and checked me....dilated only to a 3 at that time. The nurse that was assigned to me was a real bitch and wouldn't listen to me that she had the monitor on my belly wrong because it wasn't picking up all of my contractions. I mean, this is not my first baby...I know what REAL contractions feel like. The nurse came in and said they were sending me home because I had been there an hour and had no progress and the contractions weren't close enough (we were timing them still.....they were 3 minutes and less apart while I was walking around but slowed once they made me lay flat on my back to "monitor" me). The real deal was that they had no rooms available and i wasn't progressing fast enough for them. We left and got lunch and went home. That was around noon.

I labored at home all afternoon with contractions still around 3 minutes apart. At about 5:15, the contractions got super intense so hubby took the older kids across the alley to mother in law's house and we got back in the van and headed to the hospital. We got to the hospital with contractions only 1 minute apart and super intense. I could not even get from the van to the door so my mom went in and got a nurse to come out with a wheelchair. Hubby went inside and got me checked back in. We waited for 5 minutes for the nurse from L&D to come down and get us and the pressure got so intense that the check-in lady got nervous and called L&D again to tell them to hurry! lol.

We got up to L&D and into the observation room. The nurse told me to get undressed quickly so she could check me really quickly. She did and I was dilated to a 7 and having contractions on top of each other. I was also having TERRIBLE back labor (had been all afternoon). Decided that an epidural was for me. I could take the contraction pain, but the back labor for hours on end was just too much. They rushed me into a room where they are getting everything ready for delivery. They hook me up to the monitors while I stand and sway through the contractions, since that was the only thing that helped with the back labor.

Once the monitors were on, they saw that baby's heartrate went up to the 200s when I had a contraction so they had me get in the bed on my side. As soon as I did I had a HUGE urge to push, told the nurse and just as she went to check me, my water broke. She went ahead and checked and I was at a 10 and baby was starting to crown. They called the doc, who rushed in. She told me quickly that they will have to take the baby to the warmer and take care of him as soon as he came out because there was meconium in my water. I, of course, start to worry, but don't have much time to dwell on that. The nurse asked if I wanted pain meds and I, of course, said yes (I was hurting bad!). She gave me a tiny bit in the IV that they put in (since I had said I wanted an epi, they put the IV in....never got an epi, though). As soon as the doc got sat down at the end of my bed I HAD to push.

I pushed 2 times and my little man came FLYING out! (and OMG, I totally forgot about the ring of fire you get when they are coming out!! lol.) It took him a second, but he started crying on his own. He was born at 6:41 pm. We were only in the labor and delivery room for 11 minutes before he came! I had a tiny tear that didn't even require stitches.

Tristan weighed 6 lbs 4 oz and was 19.25 inches long. He was perfectly fine, no issues at all because of the meconium in my water (doc says that labor was so fast that he didn't have enough time to inhale too much of it to cause problems). He's an angel and taking to breast feeding like a pro after a little issue with not latching correctly for the first 12 hours (used a nipple shield to get him started, now he doesn't need it!).

He had his first appointment yesterday and has gained 3 ounces since we were discharged from the hospital on Friday. I'm doing great. Don't even feel like I just had a baby 5 days ago!! I did have a tiny bit of pain meds during delivery, but they didn't take effect until after baby was born, so I DID have a natural birth after all!! I didn't get a midwife either, because there was no midwife on call that day! But the doc I had was great!

Here is a link to all the pics we have loaded so far of Tristan. We didn't get ANY pics of the delivery because it was just so darn fast!

http://picasaweb.google.com/prettywoman030981/Tristan?feat=directlink