Saturday, November 24, 2012

Those hips do lie, Shakira!

I guess you all have figured it out by now....Baby Z is here! And we can officially call him Baby XYZ!

Xander Yannick Zora
11:04p.m.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
8 pounds, 6 ounces

We'd been to the OB on Friday to have an ultrasound and check his estimated size. They took a look and guessed he was 9 lbs, 9 oz Friday. The doctor gave me the option for an induction or c-section Monday because he was pretty sure my pelvis would not be able to handle that without complications.

We opted for the c-section. I just had this feeling that my body wasn't even going to go into labor so the thought of sitting around on pitocin trying to make it happen didn't seem like a good idea. I hadn't even really had a Braxton Hicks contraction at this point, so I was convinced I'd be one of these 42 week preggo women. Well, was I wrong!

Saturday morning around 2:30 I woke up and realized my water had broken. I wasn't having any contractions. We called the doctor, who said come on in to the hospital. We arrived around 3:30, which was very nice. We got a good parking spot...no waiting in line to get checked in, etc.

By 4 a.m., my contractions had started on their own. They were totally manageable at this point, but I was in the bed. So I decided to get up and walk around, rock in the rocking chair, etc., thinking this would/could help me progress. Wrong again. All this did was make my contractions stop! While the relief from pain was nice, I knew that was not the direction I should be going in.

So around the middle of the day, we started pitocin. By 3 p.m. I was ready for the epidural. I had progressed about to the halfway mark, and the doctor was impressed. He even looked excited. By 9 p.m.-ish I was complete and ready to push. The doctor was pumped at this point. I guess he realized this could mean less work for him, right!?

So I pushed for a good hour and half, and then the doctor came back. He checked me, and his whole face changed. He said something to the effect of, "If you can get this head out, I'll deliver the rest of the baby." with a look on his face like "this ain't going to end well." So needless to say, in all that pushing, I'd moved Xander nowhere.

So Simon and I talked and decided it was best to go for the c-section anyway. I was exhausted....remember, I'd been up since 2:30 a.m. and it was not 10:30 p.m. with no real food too. I knew I'd only get worse at pushing as the night wore on.

The procedure was quick, and the whole team was great. Before I knew it, I was in the recovery room with Simon and Xander. He was perfect....even had a little cone head from trying to come out 'normally.' Though he was smaller than everyone guessed, he was 'sunny side up' as they call it. Doctor said this was probably one of the contributing factors to why I wasn't moving him with my pushing. Then he told me I have a 'narrow' pelvis. WHAT? I've been described as a lot of things, but narrow has not really been in my body-description vocabulary! All these years of joking about my birthing hips went to pot with this one baby! Shakira is evidently wrong....at least my hips do lie!

Oh well. What's important is that he is here, and we are both doing quite well.

Some photos from our adventure:

The sign outside our room:



Family Portrait:

 

One of his favorite places - the Moses basket:



Today is his official due date, and all is going well. We had a good night of sleeping, eating and pooping last night, so no complaints. His arrival a week early was certainly very convenient. We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with family, and Simon got two free days off from work! Hopefully he'll continue being a very cooperative baby!

Nanny has been here all week and went home this morning, so today begins the real test for Simon and me.

I suppose I'm going to need to change the name of this blog.....any ideas?

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