Mike and I would like to officially welcome Samuel Stephen Blommer into the world! Sam was born on January 17th, 2009 at 1:27am. On his b-day he weighed 8lbs, 6oz, and he was 20.5 inches long. He is (of course) the cutest baby in the world, and we love him so much!
Sorry it has taken me so long to write this post. It turns out having a new born is exhausting and doesn't leave you much free time. Who knew?!
Here are some details about my labor for those of you who’d like to hear the whole story:
I had to be induced because Sam was two weeks late, so we went into the hospital on Friday, January 16th at around 7:00 am. While I was changing into my gown my water broke! I was happy about this because it meant it really was time, and it made me feel better about the induction.
They started me on Pitocin (the drug that causes terrible, awful, painful, long, and too close together contractions) at around 8:00 am. Because my goal was to have a non-medicated labor (meaning no epidural) the Dr. started me out on a low dose of the Pitocin. I started having contractions that were about 2 minutes apart immediately, but they weren't very strong or painful yet.
Everything was going fine until around 2-3 in the afternoon when the contractions started to get really painful. At this point they were still bearable though because they were still 2 minutes apart.
A few hours later around 6-7 pm the contractions started to get really bad. They were between 15-30 seconds apart, and lasting around 2 minutes. I would describe them at this point as the worst pain I've ever felt in my life!
After managing them okay for a couple hours using the techniques I had learned in my birthing class, I started throwing up, which was awesome! At this point it was about 10:30 pm, and the nurse thought maybe I was getting close to the pushing stage because of how strong/long my contractions were (my pitocin level was quite high at this point). So, she decided to check me. Well, after 15 hours of Pitocin induced contractions I was only at 3cm! 3cm!!!! I couldn't believe it, and I knew there was no way I could continue this all the way to 10cm without some pain meds, so I decided to go for the epidural.
I got the epidural a bit after 11:00 pm, and the baby's heart rate started to drop dramatically right afterwards. The Dr. turned off the pitocin, which stopped the contractions, which brought the baby's heart rate back up. The only problem is that you can't have a baby without contractions! After 2 hours of turning the pitocin on and off, the heart rate dropped again, and the Dr. came in and said we have to go right now to C section before something happens to the baby.
I was completely devastated, but I knew we had to hurry, so in we went!
The c-section wasn't bad at all. I didn't feel anything, and I was able to stay awake for the entire operation. Sam came out doing great, and, despite the whole ordeal, Mike and I are both just happy that he is healthy.
I would say the worst part about the c-section is that you can't really hold your baby by yourself (because you're so numb) until a couple hours later, and I really felt that it affected our bonding. The good news is that I'm just starting to feel like myself again (but really sore), and the bonding department is going great now!
Wow, that was WAY too much info. Now to the good part, the pics!!
