Baby (Long birth story)

I should probably write the birth story down before I forget it. It has been almost 4 months.

So I was feeling crazy itchy. I went into the dr's office (Mon 10-31) for my weekly appointment and they drew some blood to check my bile acids ( I had cholestasis with Manny, too--where you liver decides to stop working, and you get incredibly itchy all over, but especially hands and feet). I forgot that it takes a few days to get results. So I came home kind of sad. On Tuesday I had some contractions and I kept saying-come on! Faster! But no such luck. On Wed I decided to try to walk the baby out. I went on a hike with some friends. More contractions, but nothing. On Wed afternoon the dr's office called and said they wanted me to come in immediately. My bile acids were high. Surprise! So they scheduled me to come in the next morning (Thurs) to be induced. But I talked about if I could go into labor myself, that would be great, right? The doctor said yes, then proceded to tell me ways to possibly induce labor. He said s-e-x (and yes, he actually spelled it out, he's kind of a weird guy), nipple stimulation (really?), walking, etc. I thought about them, but then decided I was too tired and too lazy to actually do anything about it. More contractions that night, but only lasted an hour.

So I woke up at 12:30am with contractions. 3-5 min apart. Yay! And I waited the full 2 hours of 3-5 min contractions the dr asked me to before I called. And this office is a one doctor office. To me not really the smartest idea. That means he is ALWAYS on call. Could be part of why he is kind of weird and looks tired all the time. I think he realized this, too because another doctor was scheduled to join the practice about the time I was to deliver (but not soon enough). I call the office and I tell the lady what's going on. She pages the doctor. I wait a half hour. Nothing. I understand that it is 2:30 in the morning and I am sure he's tired, but this is kind of important. I call back. She pages him again. I talk with him and he says-you know you're scheduled to be induced this morning, you could just wait. (What??) Unless you think they're getting faster. (I think they are getting faster. I was worried I wouldn't know when the right time was, since I was induced with Manny, but I knew. It felt like labor.It was kind of painful.)

I wake up Luis and he says maybe he'll eat some breakfast and take a shower. (Don't worry, at this time I was still waiting for the doctor to call back. And I understand his thinking. With Manny labor was an all day thing. He wanted energy and to be clean.)

We are finally ready and we take Manny to a friend's house (and amazing friend who let's me drop off my kid at 3:45am). We make it to the hospital about 4 and I am admitted. Now the contractions are really not feeling so good. The nurse offers me the IV drugs, and I say-shouldn't I wait, don't they lose their affect the more you use them? (I thought it was going to be a long time until I had a baby.) I end up taking them, but they don't really do anything except make me feel crazy. I really should remember not to use those again. And now I am kind of wanting an epidural. I do not remember feeling this much pain with Manny. The contractions just kept coming, and coming, and coming. I couldn't seem to get a break or catch my breath. But I can't get an epidural until my doctor is in the building. And he is not there. He doesn't show up until 6:15 or so. I'm sure he thought I was crazy or exaggerating and I could just wait, but not really. I finally get an epidural (after waiting for the anesthesiologist to give many others before me.) He saw me and said-maybe I'm going to give her a "fast dose." The nurse kept telling me I was going to have the baby soon, but I didn't really believe her. The epidural started working right away, but just on one side. Blast! Thank goodness it started working after I laid on my side. I got the epidural just in time for it to start working, and then it was time to push. I only pushed a few times and he was born at 6:57am.

Yay!

Here are some pictures.

This is a picture of me trying to show how big I am while Luis is getting ready.

Luis took one for me.

Who knew I would have an 8lb 1oz baby? (Besides my cousin Rachel, she totally called it that I would have an 8lb baby just by looking at me. Apparently she is good at guessing everybody's baby's weight.) Manny was only 6lb 9oz.

Nice and clean
What a handsome guy.

Manny is so excited

As is Abuela

And Luis

Manny loves to kiss him and smell him (which is weird, I know, but he loves to smell him)

Manny happened to have the "class dog" the weekend I came home. How exciting!

And Manny was so sweet. I kept finding toys like this with him (that's a turtle on Marcel's lap)

We are loving having Marcel around. Manny is adjusting better than I expected. He is pretty much sweet all the time (only a melt down or 2 a day, but always nice to his brother). And we are just loving having 2 boys.