Cody's Birth Story

I'm typing this now as my lovely Codybug is snuggled into me with that look of satisfaction from being milk drunk.  :)

So for weeks now I've been having more regular Braxton Hicks contractions.  And this past week at 38 weeks pregnant, they were starting to organize into evening predictable patterns.  I thought surely there's no way I'll make it to my due date this way, but I didn't wanna get into that mindset and make myself miserable that way.

Thursday night I had the same predictable BH that I'd been having.  We went to bed as usual.  It had rained later in the evening, and a frog decided to perch itself right outside our bedroom window.  Croaking. And croaking.  That thing never shut up from 10:30 to about 12:45.  So, finally, I'm able to go to sleep.  I woke up around 3:15-3:30 (typical), but this time I had a crampy contraction.  Usually they don't come in the middle of the night, but it had happened occasionally.  Not crampy though.  So I got up to pee, drank some water, went back to bed.  And then had another crampy contraction.  Hmm.  So I put them in this app I had on my phone to time/record contractions.  I tried going back to sleep but couldn't get comfy and kept having these contractions about every 7-10 minutes.  Come about 4:45, I had decided that if I was still having them when Scott got up for work, we'd probably head to the hospital.  I went pee again, and then back to bed and Cohen came and cuddled with me for a few minutes before rolling back away from me.  I guess I was being too squirmy for him.  Ha.

Scott always has two alarms.  One at 5:30ish that he snoozes and another one a little after 6.  Sometime after his first one went off, I went to pee again, and there was just a tiny bit of red.  Okay, then.  This is it.  I went on his side the bed and woke him up.  Sheer panic!  Haha, okay not really, but he did have a bit of the deer in headlights look.  I told him what was going on and that we needed to get ready and go to the hospital.  So we got up, he called his mom over, which actually worked out well since Tori had spent the night with her and Cohen just loves his "Toria".

We got to the hospital about 6:45, and they got us checked in and then into a pre-admit room.  They asked me a million questions, put me in a gown, and had me pee in a cup.  Really red that time.  Yep, this is definitely it.  Hooked up the monitors for babe and the TACOS (contractions), checked me and I was 5cm and about 80% effaced, and then told me Dr. S was going to be in to check in on me shortly.  But wait, Dr. S isn't my doctor.  Of course.  Dr. P, my doctor, is off today and not on call.  Figures.  Now I have gruff man Dr. S who I've never even met before.  I'm bummed, but I figured I really do all the work anyway, I don't particularly need a doctor.  (Little did I know...)  He comes in and tells me that once I'm in a L&D room, he'll come check on my progress, and maybe break my water or start a tiny bit of Pit.  I told him I really didn't want Pit, and he said that he didn't think I'd need it, but it may help move things along if need be.

Oh, and by the way, I told EVERYONE who came in to talk to me how fast Cohen arrived.  You can read his story HERE, although I wrote it right before he turned a year, so it wasn't as fresh in my memory as this one is. 

A little bit after all that, I get moved to a labor room, lucky number 13, and the very last room they had free.  :)  I tell my main nurse about how fast Cohen came, yadda yadda, get asked a million more questions, sign some papers.  At some point Nana brings Cohen and Tori to see us, and Cohen is clearly a bit weary of seeing me in a bed like that.  They only hang out for a little while before he convinces her that he's ready to go.  Lil stinker wouldn't even give me a hug or kiss!  (Though anyone who knows him knows that's nothing new.)

Dr. S comes in at around 8:30, says I'm still about 5ish cm, very thin, and is gonna break my water to move things along.  He says that if that doesn't pick things up in an hour or so, he'll come back to probably start Pitocin.  Ugh.  Dr. P wouldn't be like this at all.  Oh well, this is what I have, stay positive, I've got this under control. Oh, and about "making things pick up", I never had regular contractions with Cohen until I hit transition, and he was out of me in 15 minutes.  So, I kinda figured that's how it'd work this time especially since this was all me and not chemicals making me contract.

At about 10-10:15ish another nurse comes in to check me as my nurse was off helping another patient.  7cm.  I knew my body was making progress, and that 7cm is just about the start of transition, so I figured it wouldn't be long now.  Up until now, I was able to laugh and joke with Scott.  Things started picking up for me, but not really on the monitor.  At about 10:30, I told Scott it was almost feeling like I had to push.  We paged my nurse, she came and checked me and said I was 8-8.5 and then as she was walking out the door she said to let her know when I really felt the urge to push.  Listen lady, I told you how fast my first came, I'm telling you I'm feeling like I need to push, and you're gonna leave?  Whatever, I don't need you.

I keep breathing through contractions, and squirming, and about 5 minutes later I tell Scott that it REALLY feels like I need to push.  So, he pages the nurse, she comes and checks me, says oh yeah you're complete.  Then goes to her computer (right next to my bed) to put stuff in it, and gets on her phone to see where Dr. S is and let him know I'm ready and he can head this way in about 5 minutes.  I tell the lady that this baby is COMING, and she tells me to just keep breathing, keep my legs closed and don't push.  Ha.  Really lady?  If I wasn't preoccupied she would have gotten some serious sarcasm thrown her way and laughed at.  I tell her again that this baby is coming, and she puts her hand between my legs and is telling me not to push.  *sigh* 

Another nurse rounds the sheet divider thing to protect people from seeing into my room if the door is open to ask my nurse what she needs just then.  Not sure what my nurse said at first, but that may be because baby was coming out!  I could feel my body working with him moving him down, and I didn't even consciously make an effort to push.  Just listened to my body and trusted that it could do this.  Heck, it's about the most natural thing there is in life.  No need to be scared or nervous or worried.  Cody came out all at once at 10:45am.  Scott later said that my nurse got extremely frazzled at that moment and was catching the babe and pulling wires at the same time.  I guess alarm wires.  I remember her saying, "There's the head! Oh, and the shoulders!  He's out!"  Haha.  I told her he was coming.  She should have believed me.

There wasn't even blankets or anything ready for him.  The nurses pulled up my gown and laid him right on my chest and wrapped us up.  It was perfect.  He came out pink as can be, crying, and peed all over me.

And then Dr. S walked in and everyone was joking about not needing him.  I just kept saying, "I told you he was coming.  No one believed me."  Dr. S helped get my placenta out and a couple of bigger clots that were still in there.  I had a very small tear so he stitched me up as the nurses took Cody to check him all out.  There wasn't even a scale in the room since there were so many other patients there and everything happened so fast for me!

After he was all checked out, foot-printed, DIAPERED (he peed on two other nurses as well), and weighed, he was put back on my chest for skin-to-skin and to nurse.  He latched great right away.

8 pounds 5 ounces and 20.5" long.  He doesn't look like Cohen to me.  I mean, I see the resemblance, but not just alike.  Cody's face is rounder, he's not nearly as swollen and puffy as Cohen was (since I wasn't induced and didn't have all those fluids being pumped into him and me beforehand).  Cody has a bit more hair and it's lighter than Cohen's was when he was born.  His eyes look lighter too.  And their noses are different.

 And we were able to go home right at 30 hours after first having arrived in labor.  The transition so far has been smoother than I could have ever imagined.  And I feel a million percent better than after having Cohen.  I couldn't even sleep in my own bed for about two weeks.  I couldn't move in it much less get out on my own.  I'm still sore this time, but it's nothing like the first time was.  And I bled for weeks after Cohen.  I've already basically stopped bleeding now.  I still have that discharge and the occasional very small clot, but I'm not bleeding.  It's crazy to me how much different (better!) I feel this time.

And my milk is now in and so far I don't have obsessive crazy oversupply like with Cohen.  No drowning in milk.  No being so engorged babe can't latch.  So nice.

And there's the journey of Cody's entrance into this world.