Bryson's Here!

On Sunday night, February 28 (8 days overdue) my water broke around 10pm. I really didn't know what to do because I wasn't having any contractions, so I just let Robert sleep and googled everything I could about what happens when your water breaks. After reading everything online I could find, I decided around 11 it was time to call the doctor and ask her what to do. The doctor on call told me to head on to labor and delivery. So I went to wake up Robert. Of course this would happen on the night that our dinner didn't really agree with him, so he downed some Pepto and started getting his stuff together. Mine and Bryson's bags were already packed but since we were convinced we would have a scheduled delivery, Robert didn't pack anything. So after we got everything together, we headed out the door, only to get half way out of Helena and realize that we left the insurance card at home. So we had to turn around. After all of that we finally made it to St. Vincent's shortly after midnight. I was hooked up to a monitor and was apparently having consistent contractions that I couldn't even feel. They did the test to see if my water had truly broken and since the results were inconclusive, we were told that we would be staying the night and to try to get some sleep. The nurse checked me and I was still only a fingertip dilated. She said that more than likely when Dr. Benton came to check me in the morning that she would have to start pitocin to help me dilate more and that I should just try to get some sleep before then. Robert was able to get some sleep, but I just sat up and watched tv. Sometime during the night I felt that gush of water that everybody talks about when their water breaks. The nurse came in and did the test again, and it finally showed that my water had broken. We now knew that we would be having a baby on Monday. She checked me again and at this time I was only 1cm dilated. I tried to sleep, but still couldn't. Around 6:30, Dr. Benton came in and checked me. I was still only 1cm and Bryson still had not dropped. She finished breaking my water and put an internal monitor in me to monitor my contractions a little better. This was not fun and very painful. She also started me on pitocin to help me have stronger contractions since my water had already been broken for so many hours. After I got the pitocin, I could finally feel the contractions. At first they were not too bad. Then they got a little more painful, but I wanted to wait as long as possible before getting any pain medicine. Sometime between 10 and 11 (the only reason I know that time is because we were watching The Price is Right) the contractions became unbearable! I think I had them coming very strong a minute apart but it just felt like on continuous contraction. I decided that I finally wanted some pain medicine. The nurse came in and got me hooked up and the pain got a little better. Sometime after 11, Dr. Benton came back to check me again and I was still only 1 1/2 cm dilated and Bryson had begun to drop, but only the crown of his head. She gave me my choices. I could try to continue and hope to have a natural/medicated delivery or just go ahead and do a c-section. The problem with going the natural way is that my water had been broken for so long that I would soon begin to run the risk of infection. Also, since only the crown of his head was dropping it would be more difficult for me to deliver since it appeared that there wasn't enough room. Also he was face up which apparently is a bad thing. I didn't realize babies had to be face down in order to deliver. She said she could try to turn him or he may turn on his own, but she doubted that would happen. It just seemed that so many things were stacked against us so I wanted to take some time to think about my choices. While we were discussing our options, I asked for an epidural. I have no idea how some women go through child birth without any medication! and the epidural was not bad at all. So once I couldn't feel the contractions, I was able to concentrate more on my decision. Around 11:30 we decided to go with a c-section. There were so many other c-sections that we had to wait until 1:30. I guess my mom was right about the whole full moon theory because there were a lot of people having babies that day. After anxiously waiting to be wheeled back, it was finally our turn. I was a little nervous because I have never even had stitches before, much less been cut open by a doctor, but I was also anxious and excited. The c-section itself was not bad. I could not feel a thing. The only part I could feel was when they actually took him out. It did feel like an elephant sat on me but just for a second and then we heard him cry. It was the best sound I had ever heard and I immediately started crying. When I first saw him, the tears only got worse. But shortly after that, I had this horrible burning pain in my chest. I have never experienced anything like this and I was scared. The doctors had also never seen anything like it before and didn't know what was causing it because my EKG and blood pressure were perfect. This pain was a million times worse than labor pain and I swear that my heart was about to explode out of my chest. All they could do was pump me with more pain meds and tell me to breathe. After they were done cleaning him they wanted to know if we wanted a picture, but I was in too much pain to care about a picture at that point. I feel really bad because I feel like I neglected my child the first minutes of his life and we didn't get that classic c-section picture. We did get one on the way out of the operating room after I felt better. He was born 9 days overdue at 1:43 pm and weighed 8 pounds 7 ounces and was 21 inches long. His apgar score was a 9.9 which is wonderful. The highest you can get is a 10 and from what I've heard, not many people get a 10. The rest of the afternoon and night we spent with our family just loving on him. We sent him to the nursery every night we were in the hospital but I still didn't sleep. All I did was wonder how he was doing. The last night was the hardest and I actually cried when they took him. I am going to have such a hard time when I have to go back to work and leave him.
My recovery has been good so far. I have been very sore and have had to sleep on the couch because our bed is so high, it hurts to try to get in it. I tried to let him sleep in the bassinet but all I did was sit up and stare at him. I am so worried that something will happen when I close my eyes. So for now, while I'm on the couch, he sleeps on me. That way I can feel him. We have both slept good. I think I have gotten a total of at least 6 hours of sleep every night except for Sunday night. I got my staples removed yesterday and now I can move around a little better because I don't feel like I'm going to pull them out. I am still sore, but I'm slowly trying to get back to doing more things around the house. The faster I can recover, the faster I can lose this pregnancy weight. I will post some pictures in my next post which will probably be later today depending on how my day goes. I still have school work to do, but I got far enough ahead that I think I'm ok for now. However, any chance I get I'm going to do school work so when I have to go back to work in April, I won't be spending all night doing school work. Sorry for such a long post, but I thought that some people would be interested in how everything happened.