April 22nd

I am sitting here thinking about where we were a year ago today and it is all I can do not to cry as I am writing this. I feel so blessed. Scratch that. I am so blessed. This time last year I was probably doing the same thing I am right now. Playing on the computer and winding down after a long 12 hour shift at work. It seems like forever ago. Was there even life before Donovan came along? I know it must be true but I can't seem to remember that life very well. I remember that I never wrote on how Donovan's birthday came to be so while I have a few minutes (who needs sleep?), let me reminisce.

Donovan (baby Q as we affectionately called him at the time) was due April 23rd. Weeks prior to this date my Dr had said that there was no way I was going to be pregnant still by the time my due date rolled around, but incase I was they would start doing weekly testing on the baby and my fluid to make sure everything was ok. Well April 22nd rolled around and I was still pregnant. That was the day that I was scheduled for my 40 week appointment. I think it was a 10:30 appt if memory serves and my Dr's office called a little bit before to tell me my Dr was busy at the hospital and to see if I wanted to see the other Dr, the Nurse Practitioner or to reschedule. The other Dr, Dr Smith, is great so I chose her because I know her well from her time as a resident at St Johns and I thought I could tell her how miserable and painful it was for me to work the previous day and I could get her to talk my Dr into inducing me by 41 weeks. She started off the appointment by listening to the baby's heart rate, which had been in the 140s always and that day it was in the 1 teens to 120s. I noted that and told her I was a little concerned since it had always been higher. She said that if I had time we could do the testing that my Dr had talked about doing right there in the office right then which I quickly agreed to so I could reassure myself everything was alright.

The first test she did was called an NST. Basically they put baby on the monitor and monitor my contractions and the baby's heart rate. I happen to do these tests all the time on patients at work so I know what a happy baby looks like. My baby did not look happy. It didn't look bad either, it just didn't look great. I was also sitting in a position I knew could be the cause of the bad strip of monitoring so I decided that if the second part of the testing was fine, I was going to have the Dr repeat the monitoring with me in a better position for baby. Then when she did the second test, which was an ultrasound to measure the fluid level around baby, that was low (5cm of fluid). Normal is between 8-20. So Dr Smith called Dr Shelton and they both agreed that today needed to be the day we met Baby Q. They let me go home, pack up my stuff, eat something and wait for Tom to get home but then we were straight to the hospital for all the fun to begin. I remember that Tom was at Jimmy John's eating lunch with some co-workers when I called and said "You need to come home, we are going to have a baby today." Of course knowing what I know as a labor and delivery nurse, I knew that since this was my first baby and I was only dilated to 2 cm that the birthday very well was going to be the next day, April 23rd and our original due date. I remember driving to the hospital with Tom and I was amazed how calm we both were. Tom was asking me what time I thought we would deliver and I was predicting and hoping it was at least by 2 or 3 am.

So we got to the hospital and checked in to the room I had had my eye on for the past few months. Nice, big and brand new. I remember my IV hurting so bad but I told myself that soon enough I wouldn't even notice the pain because of the contractions. One of the residents came in to say hi before they put me on the Pitocin and she was impressed with how much I was contracting already, she had thought they had already started the medicine. They started the pitocin sometime around 1:30 or 2pm I think. I think I closed my eyes for a few minutes before I started to feel the pain. They didn't have to give me much medicine to get labor in full swing, I only got to 7 on the Pitocin (normally people can go up to 20). I remember I really started to feel uncomfortable around 4pm. All of my labor was back labor and that was so painful. I spent most of the time alternating between standing and sitting on the birthing ball. Tom was such a good labor support guy. I would tell him when a contraction was starting and he was rub and/or push on my lower back as hard as he could. I definitely could not have done it without him. Then around 5 or 5:30 my nurse asked if I was ready to be checked. I told her I would wait another 30 min just to call her right back in and change my mind as soon as she had left the room. I was hoping I was at least 3 cm dilated so that I had made some change and could get my epidural and to my suprise I was 4cm and 90% effaced.

The doctor that did my epidural was amazing. She was so fast, I didn't even feel a thing and next thing I know she was having me lay down so she could test it and give me my medicine. At first it did not seem like it was working so she gave me a little more medicine before mentioning we might have to replace it which I was terrified of doing. Luckily the extra medicine was exactlty what I needed. I had a little panic episode a little bit after the epidural was placed and it turned out my blood pressure had just dropped due to the epidural medicine so that was fixed pretty fast. At some point after that Donovan's heart rate was doing some big dips so the nurse said we might have to break my water and place internal monitors. Again, I don't know how I stayed so calm but I knew what his heart tones were and I knew that they would be ok so I said I wanted to see if we could do without either of those things because I have seen too many things go wrong the more interventions you do. So around 6 or 6:30 I was resting, trying to get a last minute nap when I felt a pop and a big gush and my water had broken on it's own. At that point I was dilated to a 6 so I was impressed by how fast everything seemed to be going.

My night nurse Leah, came in a little after 7 and checked me and I was a 7 at that point. She told me to let her know if and when I started feeling pressure in my bottom, which is what we tell our patients because that is usually what they report it feels like when they are 10cm dilated. Sure enough not too long after we had that conversation I started feeling it. It didn't hurt and I didn't tell her because I already knew that I was complete and ready to push but I wanted to use my contractions to get the baby as low as I could before I had to start pushing, and my doctor was around and I didn't want her to know I was complete yet. So at 8:43 Dr Shelton came in to round on me and checked me. I remember her saying, "What do you think you are?" and I said "Complete plus 2" which means the baby is way down and you are ready to push. She said that was exactly what I was and that we were to start pushing. So Leah, Tom and I started pushing a little before 9pm. My contractions were coming every 2 minutes which meant I had about 60 seconds to catch my breath between contractions. I thought that was too short of a break time so I asked Leah if we could push everyother contraction, which is what we did. At one point the resident that was going to be in my delivery came in and I used that as a distraction so that I would get to skip pushing with everyother contraction and get more of a break which she promptly busted me for.

The pushing was very strange. I felt no pain but I could feel him actually moving down. I knew exactly when I was pushing well, and when I wasn't. At some point we were ready and all we were waiting for was Dr Shelton to finish her salad at the nurses station. I remember thinking that it must have been the largest salad in the history of salads. Once she finally came in we pushed with a few more contractions and out popped a boy!!!!!! At 9:43 pm Donovan Charles was born. Tom got to announce that it was a boy and he even cut the cord. Tom was a little nervous about what he was going to see before the whole event started but once we started pushing he got over that and did everything a daddy should do. My friend Lizzie was my baby nurse, or Donovan's first nurse as we can officially call it. She put him on my chest and let him stay there for a long time. I kept telling her "It's ok Lizzie, you can take him to the warmer" but she just left him on me. It was a good thing too because after contracting for the past 12 weeks and then delivering a baby, my uterus decided it was tired so I was bleeding a lot and the doctors were doing some not so nice things to me to keep the bleeding down so Donovan was a good distraction. It was only after Donovan was born that we even called my parents to tell them we had been in the hospital. My mom is a worrier and being that they were in Denver she knew all she would do is worry when she knew I was in the hospital so she specifically asked me to not tell her I was in the hospital until it was all over. I had even called her on my way home from the doctor's earlier that day and told her that I had no news so they were caught off guard in a good way when we called later to tell them that was a lie. Then we called my sister, and Tom's parents and brother who all came up to the hospital to meet Donovan.

From minute one we were all in love. There is no sight more beautiful than seeing your perfectly healthy new best friend that you have been patient and not-so-patiently waiting for. It is indescribable. I have tears running down my face as I think about it now. It is funny though because the whole time from right after Donovan was born until the time we left the hospital, Donovan never really cried. He would grunt and talk but not really wind up and wail or even just cry. We were telling everybody that we got the best baby and "Look how great he is, he doesn't even cry!". HA. HA. Joke was on us. Donovan is the loudest kid I know and has been so ever since we brought him home. We haven't even used a baby monitor since he was about 5 months of age.

So that is the long and short of Donovan's birth and how his birthday came to be. My labor was pretty quick for a first time mom so I count myself to be very lucky. For that reason and many others that is. Here are some pictures from the birthday.