January 7, 2009 - Blaise's Birth Story

A bit overdue, but I thought I would post some "normal" information and no better place to start than the night of Blaise's birth.

My pregnancy was as easy as pregnancy could be - I didn't even have morning sickness. I was noticeably more tired in the last few weeks, which was probably the insomnia and I had a pinched nerve in my hip, but that was really the "worst" of it all.

Early morning on January 6th - around 2:30 - I woke up with light cramping. It wasn't too bad, but enough that I didn't go back to sleep. I was having light cramping all day and they were regular. As the day went by, the cramping became more intense. I was timing them using this website: http://www.contractionmaster.com/ They were all between 4 and 5 minutes apart. I had lost my mucous plug a day or two before that, so I was trying to be very aware of what was happening. Once Jan got home I told him I thought I had been contracting all day. The pain was still only about as bad a strong cramps so I wasn't sure how close I was to going to the hospital. Around 5:00pm I called my midwife and she came over to check me out. She said I was 2-3cm dilated and the amniotic sac was taut and ready to burst. She drove us to the hospital and we checked in about 6:00pm.

They hooked me up to the monitor and I continued to labor. I spent about an hour in a warm bathtub which was relaxing. I seem to have forgotten a lot of the inbetween stuff. My midwife was really nice and gave me good directions. I seemed to have forgotten what I had learned at the class we took. My water hadn't broken yet which we were all surprised about. I was extremely tired as the night wore on because I had gotten up at 2:30 that morning. Once I reached 7cm it must have been around 11:00pm. I had the epidural at this point, which gave me about 1 1/2 hours of needed rest. Jan and I even slept some. After the epidural wore off I was close to pressing. I pressed for longer than I thought I would have to - it must have been at least an hour. I kept asking the midwife how much longer and wasn't really getting the "one more push" answer I was hoping for. There was extreme pressure - especially since my water STILL hadn't broken, but this was at least acting as a cushion for the baby's head. I think I shocked Jan and even surprised myself at how loud I was throughout the pressing :) The midwife had to finally break my water to get things moving and then the head was crowning and they said the baby couldn't decide which way to turn - it kept changing directions. The midwife turned his head for him and I had to try and not push - which was nearly impossible. I kept asking, "can i push?" "can i push?" - but I think I was pushing the whole time anyway. Soon after that he was here - Jan looked down and said "It's Blaise!" It was 2:37am.

He wasn't crying, but he was making some little noises. The doctor looked him and they cleaned out his lungs and he was on my chest within minutes. I think I asked about 20 times if he was okay. They kept telling me he was, but I kept asking.

We stayed in the delivery room like this for about an hour while they worked on me and then afterwards they weighed and measured Blaise and gave him his vitamin K. We opted against the antibiotics for the eyes since I had been examined the day before by my doctor. I was trying to save his little body from antibiotics - HAH! That all went down the drain a few days later.

Then we moved for about 2 hours to a recovery room, where Blaise nursed for the first time and we snuggled with him. I think we all slept on and off too. Once they were convinced we were all okay, they diapered and dressed Blaise and moved us to our hospital room. We called my parents around 6am and my Dad got ready and came up to meet his grandson. My mom had been sick, so she wasn't able to visit us in the hospital. We talked to Jan's mom and sister and gave them all the gory details. My Dad stayed for awhile and then he went home with Jan so he could get some sleep. I was supposed to try and sleep as well but that wasn't so easy. I dropped off Blaise in the nursery and cried when I left. I did manage a bit of sleep and then they came back in the evening. I think I took a long awaited shower that night.

I wanted a name that was pretty, uncommon, yet still a name. Older names seemed the right direction for this, I just had to sift through a lot of weird old names to find the good ones. I always thought finding a girl name would be easier, but we had a boy name around week 12 and our girl name came much later. Maybe it was easier for me to focus on a boy name since I was convinced we were having a boy. I wish I could say that was mother's instinct, but it was more scientific than that (Kelly - let me know if Darren wants to know the details :) ). I really liked Blaise and when I told Jan he was immediately on board - our Baby Boy had a name. We decided on Karl as a middle name since Jan's father's name was Karl-Heinz and my paternal grandfather was Karl Scofield. It seemed like an obvious choice.

I can't believe that he is already 5 1/2 weeks old! On the other hand, it seems as if he's always been here.