I woke up in the wee hours of Sunday morning to some cramping. For me, cramping was nothing new. I had been dealing with some cramping for about two weeks, so it didn't mean much to me. I went to the bathroom and then I went back to sleep like I always did about 5-7 times a night. Thanks to J waking early with Little T, I was able to sleep in until about 8:30 am. I woke up, said good morning to Mu family and went to the bathroom. That's when I saw blood. I alerted J with a big smile that I may be in labor and went to take a shower. I figured I may as well start the day fresh and clean. During the shower my contractions were coming closer. Some as close as 4-5 mins apart. So I called the doctor and they told me to get little T squared away and come on into the hospital. We called J's parents to pick up Little T and I packed her a bag very haphazardly as at this point my adrenaline was kicking and I was excited, anxious, nervous, all of that.
We got to the hospital around 10:30 am and they hooked me up to the monitors. By 12:20 pm I was 3-4 cm dilated and 50% effaced. My contractions were coming sporadically. I would get three in quick succession but then get a long break. Dr. Logan wanted me to walk around for about an hour to see if that would help them come more regularly. So we went outside and did a couple laps around the campus. It was a somewhat chilly but beautiful day, so we enjoyed that. By the time I got back to Admissions I was having some intense contractions. At 2:15 pm I was 6 cm and 90% effaced. They saw that I was shaking during my contractions and decided I must be in transition. That's when they moved me to our room.
When we got to our room we realized immediately that we were in the same room where I'd given birth to Little T! For some reason that meant a lot to me. They told me I could get in the tub, which was so cool cause I wasn't able to do that when I was induced last time. The bath was amazing. It felt so good that it actually slowed down my contractions so I couldn't spend too much time in there.
I got out of the tub after about an hour. J and I spent the next hour watching football (between some really intense contractions). At this point I realized that I could do this unmedicated. I knew I could handle it, but I decided I really didn't want to. I wanted to be able to enjoy the birth and called for an epidural around 4:30 when I was 8 cm dilated and fully effaced.
They gave me some time to rest, once the epidural kicked in. I had to keep switching sides cause the epidural wouldn't work well on whichever side I wasn't lying on and the baby didn't tolerate me being on my back for long.
At 6:30, they decided to break my water. I was pretty upset when I found out that there was meconium in the water, which meant that baby had pooped in the womb and it meant we'd need to have the NICU nurses in the room with us. I was worried that s/he may have aspirated the meconium and would have trouble breathing. So, that was very disappointing and scary.
At around 7:30, I started to feel pressure and told the nurse. She brought the doctor in and they had me do a practice push. Everyone was impressed with my "control" in pushing and said the baby would come fast.
At 7:41 I started pushing for real. They had me stop around 7:44 because the cord was around baby's neck. Doc fixed it and I continued to push. LTD was born at 7:46pm after five minutes of pushing. I immediately saw that it was a boy, which didn't surprise me at all! I was thrilled and so was J. We were both shocked to find out how big he was! At 9 lbs 7 oz and 21.5 inches, he was a big boy!
And we knew right away he was a Pats fan because he arrived with minutes to go before kickoff. Mama and daddy were so great full for his timely arrival!
It's been almost three weeks now and we're so in love. He's sweet and happy and looks a lot like his dad and sister. He smiles a lot when he's sleeping and even tries to roll over sometimes. He's incredibly strong and doesn't mind tummy time much at all.
We've had some breastfeeding challenges. His latch is not great, which means my nipples are torn and bleeding, but we saw an LC today and I really feel like we're going to improve dramatically.
He's steadily gaining weight unlike his sister before him, so I couldn't be happier about that.
We're getting some sleep. There are good nights and bad. But mostly good. I am just head over heels in love with both of my kids.
Thank you to all of you who helped us get here!
