Where do I even begin? I'm sitting here at 6:30 am with a one week old baby at my side, sleeping soundly, although the reason I'm not still in bed is because he was being fussy. Now he's out cold.
I just re-read my post from the night before we went into the hospital. It's funny how different my birth was from the "plan." I had hoped for a natural labor and birth, to hold Caleb immediately afterwards, and thought that we'd be home on Saturday with our baby. Instead I labored through 7 hours of pitocin-induced two minute apart contractions. I was in the tub, realizing that was the most comfortable place I could possibly be, and still in lots of pain. I decided that I could take laboring naturally but I didn't want to push without drugs, so I got out and got the epidural. After that I labored for another 6 hours without pain, just waiting for things to happen so we could push this baby and meet him! However the progress was slow and Caleb started the day at a zero station and never descended further. It took 10 hours to dilate just shy of 6 centimeters and things should have been moving faster.
At 8pm Dr. K walked in and gently told me that we needed to think about a c-section. She would let me labor a little longer if I preferred, to see if anything would happen, but her guess was that Caleb was stuck in my pelvis and that the positioning just wasn't right. My first thought was "I'm 28! I had the perfect pregnancy! I'm in great shape! I'm supposed to push this baby out- all my girlfriends did, I can too! This is my first child- all my subsequent children will most likely have to be born by c-section too!" My second thought was "Well, at least I don't have to push..." Brian and I discussed it very quickly, but both of us had the gut feeling that we didn't want to labor another couple hours, attempt to push for a couple hours, and ultimately need a c-section anyway. We trusted that Dr. K had our best interests at heart and wasn't trying to speed things up or get home in time for a good night's sleep. We told her that we would agree to a c-section and not wait any longer. Brian and my wonderful doula got suited up to join me in the OR. Just as we were about to leave the room, I remembered something about going to surgery with contacts in- you weren't supposed to or something? I asked someone to grab my bag so I could take them out, was handed my glasses and we headed to the brightest room I've ever been in. It was supposedly cold in there but I had been hot all day and vehemently protested when some lovely person tried to put a warm blanket on me. Brian stood with me up by my head and I could hear Caleb cry the moment he was born. I gasped so sharply upon hearing him that one of the doctors asked if I was ok. Brian was able to go be with Caleb as he was toweled off, then bring him to me to see. I was thrilled to see his little face and all his hair, but honestly I was shaking from the drugs numbing my body and feeling sick at the same time. Not the experience I had imagined in meeting my son. Brian and Caleb went back to our room while my doctors finished up and my doula came in to be with me.
It took a few minutes back in the room for the strongest of the drugs to wear off, but I eventually felt strong enough to hold Caleb. He was so tiny, so perfect, so much more beautiful than I could have possibly imagined. 8 pounds even, 20 inches long, with dark hair in the exact pattern of Brian's. At this point the nurse and my doula started working with Caleb and me on nursing, which is an entirely different saga that I won't get into here, but sometime around midnight we all started on a futile attempt to get some sleep. And so the adventure of being a parent begins...
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