You'd think I would have a lot less time to blog...but the poor little guy has pretty much been knocked out on Tylenol since yesterday around noon after the circumcision. I figured I'd take this opportunity to complete the "birth story."

So I guess I left off at the last Fentonil shot. Lofty goal - thinking I would blog through the labor! So I got my second shot, and it just didn't have quite the effect that the first one did. It did ease the abdominal pain, but I didn't have flashbacks to college like I did the first time. Then after about 30 minutes, I started feeling really painful contractions but only in my spine. This usually indicates the baby is "sunny side up," or face-up, placing a lot of pressure on the spinal cord. I'm not sure if that was the case at the time, but he did eventually turn correctly and all was good.

Anyway, the back labor prompted me to go ahead and request my epidural. I'd been trying to hold off till 5 cm. because I heard that it'll slow down labor any sooner, but at 4 my midwife said I was ok to go whenever I was ready. Got the epidural around 9, 9:30 maybe, and from that point on it was pretty much a day of lying on my sides and watching Baby Story on TLC.

I was on track with the whole 1 cm. per hour, 2 hours for pushing expectation, but then in the early afternoon they had turned me on my back for something, and being on my back caused my blood pressure to drop, make me nauseous, and slow down the baby's heartbeat. At that point, they turned off the Pitocin to give the baby a little break. During that time, the contractions practically stopped and the spikes in his heart rate weren't jiving with the contractions. They turned the Pitocin back on and started to put fluid back into his environment, as the heart rate abnormality might have had something to do with the cord placement. By putting more fluid in there, it would hopefully unjar the cord from wherever it might have been wrapped.

At that point, Andy's friend who was photographing the birth had just arrived, my mom was in the room, and that's when all modesty just flew out the window. I never really believed that you could just care less about who saw what up close and personal, but I do now.

So we had been on track for a delivery by about 4PM or so, but stopping contractions and starting them back up again was supposed to have slowed us down a few hours. We started thinking 9 or so was a better target time. I was 5 or 6, depending on who you asked, around 3:30ish maybe. Around 4:30 or so I started feeling this uncomfortable weight pushing down with some of the contractions, and I kept trying to describe it to everyone but no one could really figure out what was going on. Eventually my midwife checked again, and apparently I was fully dilated. It must have been baby's head trying to get itself out.

Lisa (the midwife) said we'd give it about 30 minutes, but I said I really felt the urge to push. She said we could give it a trial, and we did, but we kept going from there.

Now at this point, she had mentioned earlier that the reason I could feel my toes was because I had a walking epidural, not a full epidural. I didn't really think about it at the time, but I guess at some point I DID know that a walking epidural wouldn't ease the pain of the delivery itself. Basically it killed all the abdominal pain and back pain, and then I couldn't feel anything that they did to me as far as exams or troubleshooting went. But ohhhh could I feel the delivery. I swore the head was halfway out, and then Lisa would say "oh I can kind of see the head." I'm like "HE HASN'T EVEN CROWNED YET?!"

In order to avoid tearing, she would allow the body parts to make their way out slowly, so there were some times when the head was halfway out, then the shoulders were halfway out...but then it was amazing because I felt her go in and take the shoulders out, and then the rest of his body sliding out, but once those shoulders were out and even before the legs were out, the pain of all that was just immediately gone. Crazy - I never thought I was going to actually feel the delivery, but now that it is all over I am glad that I did. It was painful for sure, but it makes me feel like I have done something that I didn't think I could do. I just can't imagine having gone through it feeling the contractions as well.

So at 5:55, after a bit less than 45 minutes of pushing, Liam Nathaniel Garland was born. He weighed in at 8 lbs., 2 oz., 20 inches long.

He just had to spend the night in the transition nursery because the whole cord/heartbeat issue caused him to have some breathing problems due to fluid in the lungs. Poor little guy. He's all good now, though, and he just makes me smile. I can't wait till he's over his final dose of Tylenol so he'll interact more like he did the night he was born. He's so cute when he looks into your eyes and makes little faces.

If I at any point recommended adoption, I take that back...it's been a great experience despite the pain (and the afterpains are not anything close to what I thought they would be). Now it is over, and we'll recover and move forward with life with our new little guy.