Jerad & Amanda: Today was D-DAY!! Welcome Baby Zeus!!

I was up ready to call at 6AM!! And they will be ready for us at 7:30AM!! We get to meet our little guy today!! So here is our birth story:

We got to the hospital at 7:30AM where they had me put on the beautiful hospital gown and hooked me up to the monitors that are ever so comfortable and not in the way at all when you move around. (Yes, that was sarcasm) It turned out that I had already been having contractions every 6-8 min apart and didn't even know it. They started the Pitocin at 8AM and I think I started to feel slight contractions within 30-40 min. At 8:30, Dr. Cho arrived and said that I was 3 cm dilated and broke my water - no going back now. :-) At this point I am nervous because this is a completely new and unknown experience for me and no matter what others have told me before, my labor and delivery is going to be unique to me but at the same time very excited. When we were checked in, I was assigned to a wonderful nurse - Nurse Liz. I just wanted to state that right now...I wish she would have worked 12 hour days so she would have been the one to finish with me. Back to the story...by about 10:30 I had asked for the epidural and Nurse Liz had checked me and I was at 6 cm so I was moving right along. Dr. Bryan came in a little bit later and administered the epidural. I wasn't pain free instantly, but I will say that it worked pretty quickly. I was asked to lay on my left side for a while and then my right side started getting pains. It turns out that the epidural works with gravity...so I had to flip to the right side for it to flow to the right side. Ahhhh...now things are feeling good. By 12:10, I was at 9 cm....Nurse Liz was pretty shocked at how fast I was progressing. At 1:05, she came in again an I was at 10!! She had me sit in a laboring position in order for Little Zeus's head to drop a little more - which is sitting up in bed with my legs in the butterfly position. At 2:08pm, I started pushing. I will say it is hard to know when and how to push when you don't quite feel it. At 2:55, Nurse Liz showed Jerad the head. And there was a lot of hair on that head!! At 3:30pm I was still pushing and Nurse Liz was off the clock so I got a new nurse, who I don't remember her name and didn't quite connect with. She was great at the encouragement in pushing but I needed her to count b/c I was out of breath and didn't think her counting was on track as she would interrupt it with her cheers of "push push push". But later on, Jerad said that he was counting in his head with her and that she did stay on track....but in my shoes...or stirrups...it didn't feel like it. And Nurse Liz stood by my side, held my leg and counted and I had Jerad on my other side. This other nurse didn't stand by me...she stood at the end of the bed and was very hands off.....I had to hold my own leg! At 5pm I was still pushing and didn't have much left so Dr. Cho suggested the vacuum. I was hesitant b/c when we were in the birth and prep class, they showed us a vacuum and it was kind of scary and Jerad and I were opposed to it at that time. But I was so tired and needed some help and I really preferred not to have the C-section. Jerad left it up to me and supported whatever decision I made as he said that I was the only one that could know how much I had left in me. So I agreed to the vacuum....Dr. Cho pulled it out and it didn't look anything like the one they showed in the class...it looked much friendlier. I felt better but still needed to have steam left to push as she used the vacuum. After one episiotomy and 4 pushes/pulls, our little Zeus arrived at 5:07pm on August 7th, 2010 with the biggest conehead I have ever seen. He was 7lbs 15oz and 21 3/4 inches long. After he was out, I now know why I struggled...the little guy was coming out a little crooked. The left side of his crown was coming out first, not the center of the crown...so this conehead was also cock-eyed. But we love him so much that we don't care!!

Here our little guy is, getting weighed right away.