[We have a .....]

WIENER! Wait, what?

Saturday, May 25 I started to feel off again.  I was having some contractions, but they weren't painful.  However, I did notice them, so it was different from when I was in the hospital.  I called the after hours number for my doctor's office.  The midwife told me to take a Tylenol PM and see if I could sleep through them.  So I did.  And I slept through them.  Sunday, I was still having some and called again.  It was the same midwife, who wasn't familiar with my pregnancy, so we decided to head to the hospital after much debate.  We were hoping we were just being paranoid, but decided we had to go in.

It wasn't busy at all when we got there at 11:15.  I went to the assessment area where they tracked my contractions and checked to see if I had progressed any.  I was having regular contractions every 7 minutes and I had dilated beyond what I had been when I left the hospital on bed rest.  I was in labor.  I got two shots of terbutaline to stop the contractions (the first one didn't work).  It made me extremely shaky!  But it seemed to work!  They wanted to keep me overnight to monitor me because they thought my water would break at any second.  They decided to keep me in Labor & Delivery instead of the Antepartum unit.

We had a calm night.  They were treating me like I was in Antepartum even though I wasn't.  It was bed rest in the hospital again (no monitors, IV, etc, could only get up to go to the bathroom).  We both slept well and were thinking they would send me home in the morning.  The night nurse forgot to bring me my medicine that stops contractions until 4 hours after it was due.  20 minutes after she brought it to me, my water broke.  It was 6:35 AM.  I was sad because that meant no breakfast!  The doctor wanted to start me on pitocin to get things started, but I asked if I could wait and see what would happen.  Almost immediately (long enough for John to jump in the shower and wash his hair), my contractions were 3 minutes apart.  SO glad I asked to stay away from pitocin!  They were coming regularly and strong.  My parents had driven down the night before (we had asked them not to, but thank goodness mom decided to come anyway).  Mom stopped and got breakfast for those that could eat and brought it to the hospital.  I am not sure what time she got there, but my contractions were about 2 minutes apart now.  J had to stop eating every couple of minutes to help me through a contraction.  The nurse checked me again, and I had made a TON of progress.  She thought we would have a baby soon. (Side note, the nurse that forgot to give me my medicine said we were having a girl and would have her by midnight.)  The contractions started coming on top of each other.  Checked again, but no progress.  I was begging for an epidural at this point (9:00 or so).  The nurse, Joy- what an appropriate L&D nurse name, started getting things ready for the epidural.  She had gone to get a bag of fluids and when she came back, I was screaming, "I have to push, I can feel the baby!"  In about .02 seconds about 20 nurses dashed into our room.  Sure enough, the baby was ready to come out.  I pushed for just a few minutes (3 pushes, I think) and the doctor said, "We have a wiener!!" It was 9:18- less than 3 hours after my water broke.  I guess you could say I had a quick labor.  But my body had been in labor for weeks, really!

The NICU nurses took him to evaluate him.  He had to be given a little oxygen, but I could hear him screaming.  My mom went to go tell my dad, who had been banned to the waiting room.  He thought my mom was coming to tell him it would be a while.  He sure wasn't expecting to hear he had a grandson!  The NICU nurses let me hold him for a couple of minutes before they took him to the NICU.  J went with him.  We made our phone calls and sent out mass texts.  It was all so surreal.  We had a baby, but he was nowhere to be seen.  I couldn't believe we had a son!  It wouldn't hit me for a couple of days, but man it is awesome!

So that is the story of Cooper Marshall's entrance into the world.

May 27, 2013

5 lbs 1 oz

17.5 in