William Oliver Ainge was born on Thursday, December 6th at 1:12 PM. He weighed 6 lbs 9 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. For those of you want to hear the birth story, read on. If you don't want to know, enjoy the pictures!
Nothing ever happens the way you expect it to, and my labor and delivery definitely fell into that category. The classes I took and books I read didn't prepare me the way I thought they would. First of all, everyone said that when I was actually in labor, I would know it. Well, not exactly. I woke up Thursday morning with a backache, but didn't think too much of it because it didn't feel like contractions. It was hard to pick out the waves of pain because my back hurt ALL the time, not just off and on. So I sent Adam to work and tried to relax with a heating pad, but after about an hour I realized that wasn't working and called Adam to come home. He asked if I thought I was in labor, and I said I didn't know, but I was in enough pain I wanted to go to the hospital. When we got in the car Adam started timing my contractions, and they were only 3-4 minutes apart. Well they say to go to the hospital when they're five minutes apart, so Adam was a little freaked out.
Things weren't exactly how we thought they would be at the hospital either. We got checked into the hospital around 10:30, and I was only at a 2+, so they made me wait an hour and make sure I progressed enough to keep me. I only went to a 3, but it was enough that they said I could stay. Everything we'd learned said that it would be another 5-6 hours after that and then pushing, but we soon found out I wasn't having the average delivery. About half an hour after only being dilated to a 3 I thought I had to pee, so I got up and went to the bathroom. Then something started coming out of me, and it wasn't a baby. I yelled for Adam and when the nurse saw what was going on, she looked a little worried. I had no idea what was going on, but the next thing I knew I had an oxygen mask on and there were a whole bunch of people in my room flipping me all over the place. Basically, I had gone from a three to a ten in that half hour, and my bag of waters kind of came out when I got up. I didn't even know that could happen, but apparently it does. The baby's heart rate dropped, and then meconium started coming out with my water. I started getting really nervous that I would have to get a C-Section, but they pushed my bag back inside and got the baby's heart rate stabilized. We were both okay, but they still hadn't gotten a hold of the doctor and the anesthesiologist showed up right in the middle of all the chaos. The nurse told him it was too late and I was going to deliver the baby right then (uh...what? without a doctor?), but then my doctor finally talked to the nurse and said to give me an epidural so I could wait until he got there. Not that I enjoyed not pushing when I really HAD to push, but I was glad to wait for the doctor. And really, by that point I was already feeling much better than when I was dilating.
The anesthesiologist was a really funny Indian guy who kept calling me "my dear," and got me the drugs as my baby was trying to push his way out. I had always planned on getting an epidural as soon as the pain really set in, but that didn't really work out. He only got started on the epidural about half an hour before the the doctor showed up, so I never went numb, but I think it took the edge off. Luckily, I only had to push for 12 minutes, and then our little guy was here!
So, was it how I'd always imagined it would go? Not in the slightest. Next time I will be a little better prepared and make make them give me drugs immediately! But everything worked out and Adam didn't even pass out when he saw all the gross stuff coming out of my body. And now we have a beautiful baby boy and couldn't be any happier!
