Mom and Baby Spotlight

This weeks spotlight is featuring me! MrsD_111106 or Leslie as I'm known in the real world and my wonderful son Nathan.

Nathan was born at 3:12 pm on May 8. He weighed 8lbs, 9oz and was 20 inches long.

The day that Nathan arrived started at 2:30 in the morning. I suddenly woke up with a strange pain and I knew right then that my water was starting to break. I somehow leaped out of bed and ran into the bathroom where my water broke just like in the movies. Brad was awake the minute I jumped out of bed and started getting dressed. I called my parents and my mom came right over. We were in the car by 3am headed for the hospital. It was really great timing since the hospital I was going to deliver at was about an hour away and I was so worried that we'd hit rush hour traffic. During the car ride, my contractions started and were 3 minutes apart. After having zero contractions to having one every 3 minutes was pretty bad. It was like I was induced.

Once we got to the hospital, we were sent to the triage area to check that I was really in labor (water broke, so duh). The contractions were so intense that they made me throw up, which is not fun while in labor. We got moved up to my room after about 30 minutes of paperwork (why do they have you sign so many papers during contractions??) and exams. I requested and epidural and the angel of a man who was my anesthesiologist showed up almost immediately.

During the course of my labor, they discovered that there was meconium in the fluid and I started getting a fever. Luckily I was able to sleep while I labored. I get to 7cm when the doctor started some pitocin. My contractions were starting to become irregular and Nathan was having trouble staying down in the birth canal. The pit worked for about 5 minutes, and then would start to wear off just like my own natural contractions.

After 12 hours of no amniotic fluid, the doctor said I could continue the pitocin for an hour or deliver by c-section. I suspected this would happen as it has for almost all of the women on my mom's side. We're a little crooked up in there so Nathan wasn't coming down straight and couldn't cause my cervix to dialate enough. We chose to do the c-section while Nathan was still showing a strong heart beat and not in distress.

Within 20 minutes of getting prepped for delivery, we had our beautiful baby boy. Because he came down crooked, he had a pretty big bump on the side of his head where it was pushing down. It's gone now, but it made his hair all crazy for a while. The only complication I had after the surgery was fluid in my right lung that appeared about a week later. I guess it can happen when you're stuck in bed for a few days. That was a whole other stressful ER visit.

Nathan is now 10 months old and a crawling machine. I'm cherishing every day I spend with him while I'm on leave from teaching. I have to go back in August and every minute is precious to me.

The picture on the left is Nathan while we were still in the hospital. Look at that head of hair!






The picture to the right is Nathan during our attempt at his monthly picture in February. It has proven to be quite difficult to get this picture now that his so mobile. :)