So, last Friday the 24th I went to my doctor's appointment. To be honest, I was massive and miserable and swollen - in fact, when they weighed me we determined that I had retained more than 10 pounds of fluid from the previous week. While I was being examined, I asked the doctor how big he thought Zach would be, and he said probably between 7 and 7 1/2 pounds. I was dilated to three at that point. Because of all the water retention, he told me to just lay around in bed or on the couch until my appointment the following week - so basically I was on unofficial bed rest. By Saturday, I was completely bored with this and I was feeling a little better. So Saturday night around 5:00 Chris and I went to dinner, and then because I was worried about how bored I was getting, we went to Wal-Mart so I could get a new book to read. We were back home by 6:30, and I sat down on the couch to start reading my new book.
At around 9:30, I suddenly felt some wetness and I thought that I had wet my pants. I went to the bathroom, changed, and came back to the living room. Within the next two minutes, I had soaked through those clothes. I told Chris I thought my water had broken, and we called the hospital. They told me to come right in, and while it's normally a 5 minute drive from our house, I think Chris got us there in about 2 1/2 minutes! When we got there, I was 100% sure my water had broken due to the constant leaking, which the nurses were able to confirm. They asked me how far apart my contractions were, and I stupidly said I didn't think I was really having any. But when they hooked me up to the monitor, they were 4 minutes apart!!! I had been feeling a lot of discomfort all day, but I just attributed it to the baby being so large. At that point, they game me an IV and we called our family, all of whom were there in record time.
My contractions progressed pretty quickly and tended to linger without giving me much of a break. Chris was such a trooper and held my hand the whole time. By about 3:30 in the morning, I was dilated to 8 1/2 and I was in a lot of pain, so I asked for an epidural. Honestly, I was a little scared about it, but it hurt worse to get the IV than it did to get the epidural. It did gross Chris out to watch though. The worse part of that was that in order for them to give me the epidural they wanted me to get an additional bag of IV solution in, so they turned up the drip. This made my entire body tremble uncontrollably. Chris held my legs steady while the anesthesiologist was doing the procedure, and the nurse helped hold my arms and shoulders steady. Luckily, it didn't take long and once it was in they turned the IV back to a more normal level. It kicked in pretty much immediately, and while I could still move my legs and feel pressure, I wasn't hurting any more. In fact, I was able to just rest for a while, which was great, because I'm not sure I would have been able to push without it. At around 7:30, the doctor said I was ready to push, and at 7:52 he was born! Chris held one of my legs and did all of the counting for me. I don't know that I would have been able to stay calm and focus on pushing without him right there. Chris actually watched him come out, which he wasn't sure he wanted to do, but I think he's glad he had the experience. He also got to cut the umbilical cord, and watch all the cleaning up process. I had some tearing, which given his size is pretty much expected, but overall I have to say that the whole labor and delivery process wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely the worst pain of my life and the hardest thing I've ever done, but still, it wasn't as horrible as everyone makes it out to be!
Zach is one week old today, and it seems hard to believe I had him just 7 days ago! He's doing extremely well and gets cuter each day! Tomorrow we go to his first doctor's appointment, which I'm looking forward to. I had initially planned on breastfeeding and did while we were in the hospital, but he pretty much refused to breastfeed. All of the nurses helping me said that he was just one of those stubborn babies that don't want to breastfeed. And besides, he eats a lot, and I wouldn't have been able to produce enough for him regardless. So we switched him to formula and he's doing well with it. He's sleeping about 3 hours at a time too, so that's been good. I can't complain of too much sleep deprivation yet!
On our first walk throught the neighborhood.
With Daddy...
