The Scoop

FINALLY, I'm relaying the Labor & Delivery details (minus the icky stuff). Read if you care...

Wednesday, July 16th, Drove to Orem Community Hospital around 2pm because I thought my water was breaking (it was the slow leak kind--not the gush kind). When I called they told me I should come in to go in to get it double checked. So my mom, who got here the night before, and I drove to the hospital and I called Scott on the way there. Sure enough my water indeed had broken. [They said they had 5 other women come in because their water broke--that was the day it was cloudy and supposed to storm which they say was the cause for all the water-breakage--interesting.] So they admitted me and started me on Pitocin around 3:30. It was nice to have my mom there while we waited for Scott to get to the hospital.
I was getting through contractions pretty good until about 6:30p and that's when I asked for the Epidural--or rather Scott took charge and told me I was going to get it and bugged the nurse to get it done. I had a few painful contractions during the process, but was glad when it started kicking in. I slept while Scott watched Zorro--a decision he regretted later because he should have slept too.
Around 9:30, I could start feeling the contractions again and ended up getting another dose of the drugs since the little push button for self dosage wasn't doing anything for me. Unfortunately the dose didn't work very well at all and wore off about 45 minutes later. Not to mention the second dose sent me from 6cm to a 10cm in less than a half hour. They were going to have me start pushing around 10:15, and I did a little, but when the doctor came he said the baby still wasn't down far enough and give it another hour. Well it was in that hour that the horrific contractions began to come full force because the epidural wasn't working. I ended up enduring the worst pain (moaning, yelling, crying, attempting to breath and relax but really just squeezing the daylights out of Scott's hand-kind of pain) for nearly an hour and a half. Though miserable, I get to say that I experienced true labor pain. I actually liked the pushing part because I couldn't feel the contractions when I was pushing! Around 11:30 the anesthesiologist came back a third time and gave me a monster dosage of drugs and said if this didin't work there was nothing else he could do. Fortunately the drugs did kick in completely and I could relax. They still had me push through the first couple contractions--per my request because I think it felt better. The doctor came back around 12:30 and I pushed a few times, but that was it. Dr Judd needed to use forceps cuz Luke was trying to come out sideways. Scott wasn't going to watch, but ended up watching pretty much everything. He did not, however, "cut the cord", but honestly, I wouldn't want to either. Luke was born officially at 1:12 am.
The next couple of hours was long, and it was hard to get actual rest. It seemed that every time Scott laid down to sleep something else came up or someone came in. He left for a while with the baby while they took Luke to give him a bath. Scott went so he could videotape it for us--which we may put up on the blog eventually. Meanwhile, I tried to relax and sleep--but it was hard to because they left the blood pressure cuff on my arm and it tested my blood pressure every 15 minutes! I was too tired to push the call button to make them come and take it off. My mom says I'm not aggressive enough... Finally around 4, the nurse came and took it off, as well as my IV and I got up for the first time--which was kind of hard since I just got feeling back in my legs. After all that I could finally go to sleep for a couple hours.

SO, ...that was basically it. The next day I anxiously awaited breakfast and then spent Thursday and Friday struggling to rest and recover. It was hard to get on and off my bed mostly. I got lots of flowers--from Bill and Brenda, Cluster resources

Luke was also struggling a bit. We got off to a rough start trying to feed him and keep his blood sugar up. He just wanted to sleep all the time, and not eating made his glucose drop--thereby causing even MORE sleepiness. When we got home Friday night, he caught on to the feeding part great and I was thrilled because that meant I didn't need to fuss with all the seringes, and pumps and whatzits that the hospital sent me home with to try when he didn't eat. HOWEVER, the whole next day he didn't have a single diaper...causing us to take him to an after hours office at Mt Timp hospital pediatrics. The doc said he wasn't worried though--since his weight was good and his jaundice wasn't that bad and because he had had dirty diapers before. Luckily, when we got home he had decided to get things and gear and give daddy a very messy diaper to change...and it only got more regular from there.

So not meaning to write a humongous post, but feel free to quit reading whenever you desire.

Since being home, I've started recovering really well--much easier to get up and down and I've eased up on the pain pills. I also have a bit more energy, but now suffer from sleep deprivation. Although I do have to say that Luke was an angel and slept four hours straight and then another 3 hours the other night and let me have a little break to sleep! Luke is adorable and we love the moments where he just stares at everything and everyone. I'm trying to get more pictures every day too. He's just so dang small and I know he's going to start growing like a weed!

So that's the scoop, feel free to ask questions if you feel like I left out some details or something. I don't mind. And wish me luck on keeping up my blogging--it's quite the struggle!!