Wrapping it all up...

Since this is "Bitter and Pregnant" and I'm no longer pregnant, we'll be moving everything to do with all the kids back over to Bitter Mom.

To fill in some blanks over how the whole labor and delivery thing went, here's the 'birth story' as I retell it:

Friday night I was having irregular contractions, maybe one or two an hour, and figured it was the start of a long process (as it was the last time). By midnight or so, the contractions started becoming more regular, coming every 15-20 minutes or so, and I still figured it would be a while, so I tried to get some sleep.

I woke up around 2 with contractions that felt like they were right on top of each other, so I started timing them, and they were coming every 2 minutes at about 45-50 seconds long. After maybe 10 minutes of contracting, I woke D up to help me time them and to start getting ready. I woke up my mom to tell her we were leaving, and we were out the door by 3 a.m.

I called the doctor in the car, knowing that no matter what I was heading to the hospital. Thankfully I knew what the hell I was doing, because she actually never called me back! She didn't get the message from her answering service because her pager was on vibrate and she didn't hear it - and if she doesn't answer a message, the service is supposed to call her. They never did!

Anyway, on the way to the hospital, I told D that if we decide to have anymore kids that we need to think about moving to the Towson area. :-)

We got to the hospital by 3:30, where D just pulled up to the ER entrance, and a lovely nurse who was leaving saw me and grabbed a wheelchair (though it was just more painful to sit through contractions, but it was a lovely gesture). She wheeled me in while D parked - one of the ER triage nurses came out and thought I drove myself to the hospital!

I filled out some paper, got wheeled up to the L&D triage, got undressed, peed, and got checked out. I was 4 cm, and the nurse and midwife congratulated me, as I could get the epidural right away! (YAY!) I walked to the L&D room (soooo much easier to beat feet between contractions than sitting) then they started their process of asking me every medical history question under the sun, getting me hooked up to an IV, and (finally) calling the anesthesiologist...er, the drug guy! They kicked D out while he get me all set with the epidural, and when he was able to come back in the room, and it was starting to work, he said I was a changed woman. :-)

I think the epidural was in and I was feeling good by 4:15 a.m. D called his mom, who was shocked to hear that it all happened so fast! She got ready and drove up - but she had to stop by our house, because we totally forgot our camera! D & I rested for a while, his mom arrived with his grandparents, we hung out, and they finally decided to check me around 10 a.m. - I had felt some pressure in my butt, which the nurse said was good.

Like I described before, the nurse had me set to do a push, and he was right there, so she made me stop so she could call the doctor in. She also asked if there was anyone else we wanted to be in there, so I had D call his mom (who at the time was looking around the hospital for a blueberry muffin for him!) - she bolted right up and made it just in time!

Right after he came out, they put him skin-to-skin on my chest/belly, which was neat - I didn't get to do that with J - and he warmed up and we just looked at each other. They eventually took him to the other end of the room to weigh him and check him out, while I got stitched up. No episiotomy, but I did have a 2nd degree tear.

Because he came out so fast, he still had lots of fluid in his system, which was suctioned as well as possible, but was a small issue for spitting up and such while we were in the hospital. Also, because of his large size for his gestational age, they had to check his sugars every hour or so for a few hours after he was born, and then before each feeding the first day.

Oh, but besides that it did take us a while to decide what we were going to name him! All drugged up, I couldn't figure out what name he looked like. But obviously, we went with our first choice. :-) We'll be calling him Ethan or EJ.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm going to go wash my hair, and I think we're all going to get out of the house this morning! By 'all' I mean, me, J, EJ, and my MIL - D's back to work today! :-(