*This is a very long post and I'm kind of surprised that blogger even accepted it because of the size. Feel free to stop and come back as you need to!
I'll tell you one thing, I am so in love with this little boy. Oh DEAR, he is so cute and sweet and absolutely worth the trouble he has caused the last couple of months. The family is still doing good and God has already answered one of our biggest prayers for Joshua- he loves to eat! We battled Grayson for almost 2 years on his eating, and as any parent that has experienced this can attest, it is very, very stressful. Because he is only 37 weeks and has quite a bit of bilirubin still in him, we are battling his sleepiness, but not too much because it is nice that he sleeps a lot!
After our false alarm trip to labor & delivery on Monday night I was really worried that I wouldn't know when to come back. Because I was so determined not to have another wasted trip to the hospital, I could see myself waiting so long that there wouldn't be time to get an epidural. Horrors! We (and some close friends) were really praying that my water would just break so there would be no question when it was time to go.
For a week I had been hearing all sorts of conflicting reports about my "progress". The first time there was any progression (2 weeks ago), Dr. B said I was dilated to a 4 and 70% effaced. Wow! I couldn't believe that- it was much further than I thought. But when we went into the hospital Monday night for the false labor the nurse told me (with an attitude!) that whoever had checked me last had been "quite generous". Exactly what I wanted to hear. (Although this incident led to Sara and Victoria praying quite fervently for the nurses I would have during our stay- and they all ended up being awesome!) At my weekly check-up a few days later Dr. Speyer said I was dilated to a 3 and 90% effaced and that sometimes Dr. B can be a bit generous. (But without the attitude) :) By the way, Dr. Speyer is the one who also delivered Grayson. I was hoping that somehow she would deliver Joshua as well, even though our practice has 2 other doctors (whom I also enjoy). Dr. Speyer told me it was her on-call weekend and that she didn't expect to make it to Monday without hearing from me. I was elated to hear that, but still skeptical. After being inside the house with Grayson since October because of his immunity issues (which will be addressed in a later post), and then bed-rest off and on since December, this pregnancy had seemed twice as long as Grayson's. Honestly, at this point, Joshua was becoming more of a myth to me than anything.
We spent the weekend playing with Grayson and getting rest. Grayson's birthday was coming up that week and knowing we might not be able to celebrate it that day, we had a rather small and pitiful birthday lunch on Saturday. And when I say pitiful I mean we threw some pizza and cupcakes at him along with some unwrapped toys. No really, we had a great time, it was just
very simple. Daniel and Michelle came over to be with us and brought him his newest prized possession. Daniel had decided to pick out G's birthday gift, and as a doctor, got him his own doctor's kit. Mickey Mouse style. It's pretty cute. So we hung out and talked and laughed and it made my heart a little less mean and black.
Sunday morning Joe and Grayson went to church while I slept. The church we are attending lasts for 2 hours and there is no way I could sit anywhere for even 30 minutes at a time. I slept until they got home- and what a blessing that would turn out to be! After another nap in the late afternoon we went over to Victoria and Gene's as they had very graciously offered to make dinner for us. I was in a bad mood because here it was Sunday night and nothing was happening on the uterus front. (Am I allowed to say "uterus" on a blog?) It didn't stop us from having a yummy dinner and letting the boys play- although Victoria told me later that she could tell that I was very discouraged.
We got home and put Grayson to bed. Joe desperately needed a haircut and I wanted him to look ship-shape for any possible pictures being taken that week, so I offered to cut his hair. This was a shocking turn of events for him, because I have been farming his haircuts out to the barbershop down the street since I have been feeling bad. We turned on a recorded episode of "Outsourced" and I went to town. I was close to being done, moving to the back of the neck when IT happened.
My water broke!!! Oh glory hallelujah! We were so excited and just couldn't believe it. It was 9:15 pm.
After we made the phone call to Brian and Abby across the street that we needed some Grayson watching for an hour or so, I decided to finish Joe's haircut. He would've looked really silly with his hair completely cut except for a really shaggy neck. It was a quick job, and probably not my best, but we got 'er done! We flew into action around the house to get some last minute things ready. We had packed about a week ago, but I needed to do some really important things, like make sure I had my pearls in.
It had been decided that weekend that Daniel would be the one to watch Grayson while we were at the hospital. Since Grayson has been gallivanting from house to house since mid-December we were really hoping to have someone watch him here at home; his bed, his toys. For some reason Daniel has a month off of his residency to do research or something, so even though his pager had been off for a couple of weeks, he was on call for us! Brian and Abby stayed at the house with the big boy (thank you!) until Daniel got out to the 'burbs.
We walked into the hospital at 9:45 pm. I was pretty excited to make it on the weekend because that meant Dr. Speyer would be able to deliver me. When I was walking to our room I had my first major contraction and had to stop to breathe through it. After they got me all hooked up to the monitors and determined that my water had actually broken (honestly people, I can't produce that much liquid) the nurse checked my progression.
She thought I was dilated to a
2 and only
80% effaced. Come on! There needs to be a better standard at Reston Hospital or something. Joe just thinks somebody has fat fingers.
I got my IV, best one ever (!), and had the first round of antibiotics hung. I tested positive for Strep B during my pregnancy which is just some kind of bacteria hanging around in my body that babies don't like very much. Through all of this the contractions are feeling really awesome. After I had answered all the questions, done all the paperwork, vitals been checked and re-checked, it was 11:30 pm. The nurse told Joe and me to get some sleep. Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to sleep through strong contractions and how is Joe going to rest when every 5 minutes I am panting like a dog trying to breathe through? So I decided to go ahead and get the epidural. You could tell the anesthesiologist had just rolled out of bed in an on-call room to come do it, but he did a great job, traumatic and pain-free. I was feeling like a million bucks having gotten through most of the parts I dread (IV, epidural, labs, catheter) and we were able to rest.
Joe, by the way, was exhausted this whole time. Every evening at 8:30 for the past couple of weeks Joe has jokingly asked me to hold off until the next day so that he can get sleep. I was doing pretty well from my sleep marathon that day. Joe feel asleep and I laid there and relaxed. (Way too nervous and excited to got sleep!) That was how things went between 11:30 and 2:30 with a couple of vital checks in there.
At 2:30 when the nurse came in I told her I was feeling pressure, she checked me and said, "Oh! You're complete!" I asked what that meant and was told that I was dilated to 10 cm and ready to go. However, I still needed another dose of antibiotics, so she hung those, said it would take about 30 minutes and I could just "labor down" on my own during that time (I guess Joshua was doing the work?) and then we would have the baby. 45 minutes later the bag was empty, the nurse hadn't come back and oh my goodness the pressure! I swear, if I didn't know better, I would think Joshua's head was already laying OUTSIDE of me on the bed. I woke Joe up and told him to go find the nurse and tell her that
baby was coming. She came in and said we would start pushing while Dr. Speyer made her way down to the room. Ok! Here we go! I pushed for a few seconds and she said,"Stop!" He was coming
quite quickly- not waiting for the doctor. (I pushed for an
hour with Grayson) Poor Dr. Speyer walked in, her 3rd night on call, with a bleary-eyed smile on her face and we got down to business. The second time I pushed that boy came shooting out of there (Oh, thank you Lord for getting him out of my body) and made his debut. 3:44 am. Like last time I could only see his feet for what seemed like an eternity while Dr. Speyer did the initial sucking out of fluids. When they put him on my chest it didn't seem real. After all of the waiting, it had happened so quickly that it didn't seem possible that he was really here. When he first came out he looked exactly like Grayson had at that moment and that made it pretty surreal too.
They took him over to the warmer and worked him over. Like Grayson he refused to cry. Flat out refused. One nurse in particular kept smacking him pretty hard, but he wasn't having it. He had turned pink and was breathing fine, but she wanted that boy to cry. Dr. Speyer kept telling her he was fine, and of course we kept telling her his brother didn't cry for the first few hours either and she finally gave it up!
He promptly fell back asleep and we spent the next hour as a family, passing him back and forth, praying and marveling over our new little boy and waiting for the hour to become decent so that we could share our wonderful news!
If you are still with me here, you deserve a prize.
Here are a few pictures that we haven't shared yet:
First, Grayson's birthday:
Kind of an odd picture, but look at Grayson and how charming he's being with the camera!
Doctor's kit!
Can't this child's mother comb his hair?
Present from Mama and Daddy-a tricycle! (Not that his feet touch the pedals yet, but that's OK)
He was so proud of himself while riding, he looked up the hill the whole time to make sure we were watching him.
This is how he felt about getting off the tricycle.
DeSalvos @ the hospital. Victoria came too and somehow we didn't get a picture.
Grayson sharing a toy for the first time with Joshua (and part of his doctor's kit to boot!)
An extra special thank you to Daniel and Michelle for being such great friends and taking such great care of Grayson- especially Daniel. They are big buds now! Sorry about the commute from the District and the car-towing incident. We love you guys!
