Porterfield Family

He is super cute, aren’t all babies!!!? He has a big nose (must be the Porterfield side), Jason’s eyebrows, my eyes (read - little beady things) and my hair color! His eyes are bluish grey, but this may change.

 

How it all went down…

 

 I had my membranes stripped on Tuesday 09/25 (not painful at all), did not feel any different. By Wednesday my contractions became more regular, but not painful. Jason timed them and they were 7-9 min apart, later in the evening they got closer to 5 min. I was able to talk and almost walk through them, but I preferred to just breathe. Not bad at all. That night I was getting more uncomfortable with contractions, Jason wanted to call the doctor to let them know about my already regular contractions, but since they were not very painful I refused to call and decided to wait until next morning. I preferred to go to the docs’ office for check-up in the morning, rather than Labor and Delivery Unit at the hospital in the middle of the night.

So there I was sitting in my recliner breathing through another contraction while watching some decorating show on TLC and all of the sudden there was a huge gush of water. Like a fountain! I never realized how much amniotic fluid is there! Anyways, I woke Jason up and we got ready for the hospital. I thought that all fluids came out (seemed like gallons of it), and we went on our merry way. During a 15 min ride I had four more contractions and my pants were soaking wet! Not a good look! Thank God for leather in the car!

We were admitted at 3:30 am on 09/27 – Thursday. Nurse checked me and I was 5-6 cm dilated, so I was offered an epidural right away. Guess what? I agreed to it too!!! I was hooked to IV bag for fluids and by 5 am my epidural was in. It was not painful at all, took 5 min for the doctor to get it in. Within 10 min I did not feel a thing. So basically from uncomfortable contractions I went into absolute bliss of epidural – my dream! My doc and a nurse were hoping to have this baby out by 7 am, but the epidural stalled the natural progression of labor (happens sometimes), so I was put on Pitocin to get my contractions back in order. Meanwhile Jason and I tried to sleep a little, which is not an easy thing with the nurse coming in and out and all the monitors making noise.

By 9 am my doc came in hoping I was dilated enough to start pushing, just to find out that I was about 8 cm. I was starving and really hoping to have him already, so she decided to move me around a bit to get my cervix going. They put me on my right side, but Aidan’s heart beat started to go down, so they moved me to the left. By 11 am my doc came in to check on the progress and decided to move Aidan a little to help me with dilation. As soon as she moved him I was 10 cm and ready to push! So I started pushing! Within a minute or so, Aidan’s heartbeat started to slow down again and the doc had to use the vacuum to get him out as soon as possible. In a couple of seconds she realized that the cord was wrapped around his neck twice – the cause of lower heartbeat. So she had to do an episiotomy to get his head out. All that time I was pushing like crazy. I did not feel any pain, just a little bit of pressure, but pushing is a lot of work! I was so out of breath! They wanted him out fast, so I did not get any breaks between pushing. Anyways, once the head was out, his shoulders got stuck, so I got another cut. Lucky me! Once he was out he had to go to the neonatologist to have his vitals checked. I got only 10 min to hold him. Once they checked him in the room they had to take him into the nursery to hook him up to monitors, to make sure that he was fine. Meanwhile I was getting my stitches.

Once the stitches were done, and all needles and catheters were taken out I got lunch and was transferred to the post partum room. There we got our baby! He already had his first bath and he was all warm and fuzzy, and smelled so good!

The whole experience was great! I was not nervous or scared at all. From the moment my water broke to the moment I heard him cry, I felt calm and confident. It just felt very natural and absolutely normal. Hospital staff was great, I am super grateful for such a positive experience! So here it comes: I will absolutely do it again! Of course, some day.