One Week Ago

The Short of It (if you don't have time for a short novel!)

Alexander Bryce Hanks
Born: June 23, 2006
Time: 5:40
At: Timpanogos Regional Medical Center, Orem, Utah
Vital Stats: 7 lbs 12 oz, 20 inches long

The Whole Story
In about half and hour it will be one week exactly since Alex was born. As I previously wrote I had been scheduled to go to the hospital to be induced on Wednesday morning but I was bumped due to an extremely high volume of people actually going into labor naturally. I was disappointed, to say the least, but releived when my doctor volunteered to induce me on Friday--his "day off," if such a thing actually exists for a doctor, exspecially an ObGyn. Friday morning, after a nearly sleepless night I got up and called the hospital at 4:30 AM. They told me that they were cleaning rooms and that they wouldn't be able to take me until 6:30, an hour after I was scheduled to arrive. In a minor state of panic I told the nurse that I would probably just head down to the hospital as soon as I was ready and wait for a room to become available. I wasn't about to let a room slip by while driving from Lehi, where I live, to Orem. She assured me that I wouldn't get bumped (really, how can one make such a promise?), but I insisted on coming in. I calmed down a bit after getting off the phone and decided to take a shower and blow dry my hair, put some makeup on and eat a good breakfast since it would be my last for at least several hours.

At 6:00 Jeremy and I arrived at the hospital. My room was ready and waiting, just as promised. Within half an hour I was in my bed hooked up to an IV drip and waiting for my Pitocin. At 8:00 they started my Pitocin drip and I began having contractions immediately. At around 10:00 they came in to measure if I'd made any progress. My cervix was still only dilated to 3cm. Now the waiting game began. At noon my contractions were sufficiently uncomfortable for me to ask for my epidural--gotta love those! Two more more hours passed with no further dilation, although Alex was in postition, and I was thinning out quite a bit. At about 2:30 the doctor came and broke my water. Soon I moved from 3cm to 5cm, but then the dilation slowed to a standstill. Around 4:45 my nurse came in to tell me that the contraction monitor was no longer picking up contractions, and since I couldn't feel anything, I couldn't tell her what was going on. They decided to insert an internal contraction moniter and an internal fetal monitor. This was difficult becasuse Alex was crammed against my cervix just waiting for his time. All of the sudden, his heart rate dropped from about 135 bpm to 40 bpm. Three nurses rushed into my room, immediately laid me down flat and gave me oxygen. They worked for an agonizing 15 minutes to stabilize him, during which time Jeremy and I both fought hard to keep ourselves under control. Finally they got his heart rate back up and decided to check if the stress had caused any change. I was at 10cm. In 15 minutes. They called the doctor, who showed up about 15 minutes later, and I began to push. After several pushes with no movement he pulled his handy little pair of forceps and yanked Alexander into the world.

This experience was so different from my first childbirth experience. Well, the labor and delivery part was pretty much the same. I reacted very slowly to Pitocin, and she also had a foreceps delivery. It's the after that was so different. After I delivered Kaitlin I was in agony. I started having violent contractions that they couldn't control. The doctor ordered an anti-nausea medication (for all of the obvious reasons) and I think it was Percocet to help with the pain. It knocked me out cold for the rest of the day. I missed everything. With Alexander, I felt great. I got to hold him as much as I wanted, I got to witness him peeing up the wall when they weighted him! It was almost like nothing had happened. Later on they moved me to my room and by the time I went to bed for the night I was able to get up and go to the bathroom nearly on my own. (The nurse had to be present for my first foray out of bed.) When I had Kaitlin I couldn't get out of bed on my own until the day I was discharged. Also I was in so much pain I had to have heavy painkillers. With Alexander I've never needed more than 800mg of ibuprofin.

I'd read all over the place that the recovery time gets shorter with each subsequent pregnancy after one's first. I wouldn't have believed it. On Sunday when we came home I had no problem sitting in a chair, walking around the house and even climbing up the stairs. It's been so easy this time. It's almost embarrassing to have meals brought in from my neighbors because I feel perfectly capable of cooking for my family and even going to the grocery store to replenish my seriously depleted pantry.

A little update on Alex: He's such a good baby! I know they all are at only a week old, but if I remember correctly he's much easier than Kaitlin was. Some of you know that I was struggling with the decision of whether or not to nurse him. I think this was the most traumatic part of having Kaitlin. I just could never get her to do it. Since I wasn't going through all of the physical travails I endured with Kaitlin, I decided to give it a go. We had success--another one of the major differences between Alex and his sister. He's also a great sleeper. Right now he had pretty long wakeful periods during the day, but he's perfectly content, and he sleeps for four hour stretches at night, so I haven't had any major fatique issues to deal with yet. All in all life is good, I've been enjoying my time with Alex so much more than I did with Kaitlin (sorry Kaitlin!), and none of my worst fears were realized. I couldn't ask for more.

PS I'm sure this post is full of typos! I only have a few precious minutes to myself and I have to feed the baby really soon. Sorry--no time to proofread!