The Garlands: Kenneth's Birth Story

Many of you know that our baby boy finally arrived! I wanted to write down his birth story before I forget it!

At our last doctor's appointment, my doc ask me, if I was okay waiting for him to make his arrival still or if I wanted to get him here. We decided that with school, Christmas, and our anniversary we didn't want to chance being to close for me to be able to recuperate and go to school. So the date was set for Monday the 26th for us to go in and be induced.

That morning we planned to finish cleaning up from Christmas and the other things we wanted to get taken care of because we didn't have to be to the hospital until 11 am. Well as we were sleeping the hospital called and said that they had openings and we could come up whenever we wanted. So we got up, showered, and gathered together the last things we needed in our bag.

We arrived at the hospital just after 9:15 am. The nurse sat and asked me a million questions and started the pitocin by 10. I sat and hardly noticed contractions, even when the doctor came in around 11 to break my water they weren't too bad. The doctor would've been there sooner but the nurse forgot to call and tell him I was there. (they had called to say i might be coming in early, but never said I did. :) ) Getting my water broken was very awkward, but I was happy when it happened, since I knew one way or another my baby would be there with in the next 24 hours. Once my water was broken it was just a matter of waiting! While we waited we watched the 7th Season of Gilmore Girls, one of my presents from Tim for Christmas. :) Before my water was broken I was at a 5 and only 30% effaced. So I knew we had a little bit of time.
The nurse would come in ever half hour or so and turn up the pitocin. At one point I went to the bathroom and the contractions started to hurt lots more then the had been, I even ended throwing up while in the bathroom. :( Tim was a great guy and helped me with everything I needed. Between 4-5 the pain was really bad and I got a shot of Nubane to help with the pain, it helped but was making me way hot and feeling like I was going to be sick again. I tried to wait it out but between being hot and nauseous, I couldn't breathe through the contractions anymore to be relaxed and knew that wasn't going to help my son arrive. So I decided to get an epidural. Luckily the anesthesiologist was able to get in there pretty quick and after answering all the questions we were good to go. I did have to get poke twice for it, not including the initial poke to numb the area. Once that was in and finally took affect it again was just a matter of waiting. When the shift change came, I got another great nurse. Around 8:30 pm they came in to check me and I was at a 7 almost 8 and fully effaced. Around 9 pm I was starting to feel the urge to push but though it couldn't quite be time yet.
So i waited, then around 9:30 my chest mostly near my heart started feeling really heavy and just overall didn't feel good, so Tim called the nurse and she came sat me up to see if that would help, it did only a little because I then threw up again. Once that was cleaned up she decide to give me oxygen to see if that helped. Once i was on the oxygen that made me feel lots better. I told her that I had the feeling to push so she checked me and discovered I was nearly complete. So we did some practice pushing. At this point it was about 10 pm. I pushed for quite a while, and during this time, time literally seemed to stop because all my energy was going towards pushing. Once the nurse and Tim could see Kenneth's head, the nurse decided it was time to call the doctor. At this time Tim told me it was almost midnight. So again I spent some time pushing, the doctor arrived and after deciding it was best to use forceps to help because Kenneth's heart rate was starting to drop to much.
Another while of pushing and with help of the forceps positioning his head he was born at 1:06 am on the 27th. The doctor did have to give me an episiotomy, so while we were trying to get Kenneth to cry, he was taking his sweet time, the doctor worked on stitching me up. After what seemed like forever he finally was crying and once the placenta was out, the Doctor handed Tim the scissors and Tim cut it. He didn't really want to but after a little encouragement he did. :) Everything after that point seemed to fly by, Tim went to see how much Kenneth weighed which was 7 lbs 7 oz. After they did that and cleaned Kenneth up a little, the nurse asked if I wanted to do skin to skin and I was all more that. :) So I got to do that and started breast feeding him shortly there after. :) While doing that we commenced letting our family members know. :) My parents didn't answer at first, found out later that mom's phone was down in her purse. Didn't get a chance to tell them way later. But we did let my siblings know. Tim had already sent his mom a text message while they were cleaning him up. :) After I was done breast feeding, the nurse gave Kenneth a bath, Tim got to finally hold Kenneth. Once the nurse was done massaging on my uterus, every 15 mins for two hours, and with the bath, I was able to go shower, that felt so good.
Once I was done with the shower and all dressed again, we were able to get moved over to the Mother-Baby unit. At this point is was about 4 am, Tim was ready for bed. I tried my parents again, they didn't answer, but still had to much energy to actually sleep, so after an hour I was able to get a hold of my parents! Once I was done talking to them I was finally ready to sleep!
The rest of the time in the hospital was spent sleeping and getting use to having a baby! We're so glad our little boy is here!
Here's some pictures: