born 12:39am on april 18th. just half an ounce shy of 8 pounds, 20 inches long. of course given his sasquatch parents he was born with a full head of hair - as well as sideburns and that baby-hair on his arms and upper back. but get this - he has a fully defined DIMPLE in his CHIN!! (i have one too, get it from my grandfather) the nurses were sweating him big time.
birth story:
midwife's appt wednesday 2pm. got checked and she mentioned it might bring on some light spotting/cramps, i had started thinning, but was only 1cm dilated so 'chances are this baby's not coming tomorrow, ha ha.' so when i started getting spotty/crampy that night at about 10pm-ish, i didn't think much of it. until it got stronger and worked its way up to 5-6 minutes apart. we went to hospital to meet midwives 10am ish. i was 90% effaced and 3cm dilated.
the room was large and comfortable, there was a birth ball, a glider, a transformer bed w/lots of positions, a nice deep tub. DH was amazing. we spent the whole day just us in the room, doing all the stuff we'd learned in childbirth class. he was super responsive, complimentary, supportive, reverential. at about 3pm i wondered how things were going, and asked to be checked to see if i had enough time to take something for the pain - i had this idea i wanted it to wear off in time for me to push - b/c i needed to sleep. (we hadn't slept since tuesday night) dilation was 4cm after all day laboring! talked to the midwife and decided to break my water to help get his head banging down on the cervix and speed up the dilation. after that, things progressed faster - 6cm two hours later - and the ctx were super strong.
entering transition, the ctx were NO JOKE. i started to feel like i didn't think i could do it. after trying the tub, which felt great but didn't really help with the pain of the ctx, i talked to DH about asking for an epidural so that i could relax and hopefully let things move faster. and SLEEP!! (again, no sleep since tuesday)
so we do the epidural around 7pm or so... 20 hrs into labor. the anesthesiologist effed-it up at first, i felt all sorts of needle-sticking and screamed. didn't look at DH b/c i knew he must have been going THROUGH it to see that, but the nurses got to experience him entering a towering rage, and encouraged him to not be the support person holding my hands for this particular thing, but instead to sit out of sight and try to relax. 2nd try was fine though, and a few minutes later i had to feel my belly to know the ctx were coming and breathe deeply into them to help them along. i got lots of catnaps during the next few hours! yum. i'm really glad i got to spend the day laboring naturally and experience all the labor toys, but i was SO grateful i also got to take a break.
when it was time to push, about 10:30 or 11 at night, that's when the epidural hurt me - i had to spend some time figuring out how exactly to push b/c all i could feel was the pressure moving down. i pushed with each ctx for almost 2 hours! finally out he came. . . what a moment! i had a 2nd degree tear, i dunno how many stitches, with NO NUMBING. (!!!) and naturally the epidural didn't help numb that area, no no no. so that was yet another in the series of excrutiation. but i was holding kaiju at that time so it was all good.
he was a little distracted when nursing - i think we waited too long while stitching and he had discovered his hands were suckable, lol - but tried his best and worked both sides. DH is with him now as he gets his first bath and tests done, and then it'll be time to try again.
funny thing: DH used to hum 'a love supreme' to my belly all the time when i was PG. now, if he puts kaiju on his chest and hums it, the baby calms right down and will sleep.
another funny thing: we've been calling him kaiju all pregnancy long, as a nickname. it's the japanese word for movie monsters like godzilla, rodan, etc. why was 'king kong' playing this evening while we took our epidural-naps?
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