A Long Overdue Welcome!!!

Welcome to the world Ryan Joseph! You made your arrival on Friday, November 2 at 2:40 a.m. (a night-owl like your brother who was born at 1:33 a.m.). You weighed 7 pounds, 6.5 ounces and were 19 and 3/4 inches long. Here's your birth story...

On Halloween, I went to my 38-week routine OB appointment. My doctor was running very late, and I ended up sitting on the exam table with nothing but the paper drape over my bottom half for about 40 minutes. As I was sitting there chatting with Joe, I felt a trickle of fluid. I had been putting a lot of pressure on my bladder and had always had some trouble during the pregnancy with urine leakage, so I didn't think twice about it (even when I got up and noticed a fairly good-sized wet spot on the exam table paper). The doctor came in and checked my cervix, scheduled my induction for November 8 (39 weeks), and I rushed out the door to go pick up Ethan at daycare to get him ready for trick-or-treating.

On Thursday morning (November 1), I headed out the door for my weekly perinatologist appointment and ultrasound. Baby looked great and was measuring nicely for 38 weeks. The u/s tech asked me if I had been leaking fluid, as the fluid was very low. Normal range for amniotic fluid is between 8 and 23. The week prior, my fluid had been at 16. At this exam, it was at 4.8. The doctor came in and I told him about my experience at the doctor's office the day before, and he and I both got a good laugh over the fact that my water had broken IN MY DOCTOR'S OFFICE ON THE EXAM TABLE, but I had not felt it important to mention it to my doctor! Of course, my next question was "what do we do about this?" He looked at me and said "you're having a baby today." He said that because my water had broken many hours ago, he was concerned about infection and that we needed to go ahead and get the baby out. He sent me right over to the hospital. Joe had gone to work (about 55 miles away), so I called him and told him to come to the hospital. I went home and got my hospital bag, called my mom to go with me until Joe could arrive, and off I went.

I was hooked up to some fluid in preparation for my epidural and also given some IV antibiotics. When I arrived at the hospital, I was a good 2-3 cm dilated and about 60% effaced. As I was waiting for my doctor to come in and discuss the best course of action, I was having some contractions on my own. My doctor ended up giving me pitocin to just speed things up and help me along. I got my epidural and quickly progressed. I was feeling some pressure at about 1:30 a.m. so I called the nurse to check me. She said I was 8 cm and it would probably be about 2 hours before I was ready to push. A few contractions later, and the pressure was absolutely unbearable and the urge to push was insane. I called the nurse back and she checked me and said "we need a doctor in here". She had me push with the very next contraction. A few more pushes and the baby's head was right there. Actually, the nurse was holding the baby's head in so that the doctor had time to get into the room and deliver Ryan. I pushed for 7 minutes total and Ryan was born, crying and wiggling all over! I did tear along my episiotomy scar from delivering Ethan and I required some stitches but the recovery has been much easier.

I have a ton more that I want to post, but life with 2 kids is so busy and full. I want to make sure that I capture Ryan's "babyhood" on my blog just like I was able to capture Ethan's. I will TRY to be back with an update this week!