Catch Up Time

As usual, I have been extremely neglectful of my poor little blog. If my little boy will cooperate, I will catch up on the last couple months.
In June and July a lot happened around here. I got huge, we had 3 baby showers, the nursery was completed, and Rex arrived!

First, I just have to say how grateful and blessed we feel. We have been so taken care of by our wonderful friends and family, both practically and emotionally. We are so thankful. Due to the incredibly generous people in our lives who donated money to my maternity leave, I can stay home with Rex until October. That is such a gift and it was really humbling to see God taking care of us through the wonderful people in our lives. Every day I think of how happy I am to be home and I think of the wonderful people that made that possible. Thanks to everyone for all the love and support.Things would be much more stressful without you!

So my due date was August 16th. In July at my 33 week appointment, it looked like Rex would not be waiting till August. I was already dilating and contracting. This sent us into a wee bit of a panic, there was much to be done. I had to pack my bag, get some last minute items and Wolf had to make sure he was reachable at all times. At the beginning of the following week, I went to the hospital having contractions about every 4 or 5 minutes apart. They discovered I was dehydrated and since it was 6 weeks early, they slowed the labor down and it stopped. While I was hooked up to the monitors, Rex's heart rate dropped pretty drastically once and very briefly. That won us an overnight stay in the Hotel Mercy Hospital. It never dropped again, but while we were there they did an ultrasound and discovered that Rex was a big boy and would have been fine if he had been born that night...We left the following afternoon, and continued the waiting game.
The next few weeks were long....and hot! I was contracting and continuing to dilate but the contractions weren't ever close enough together. My feet and ankles were no longer separated but now big cankles! Very attractive. My doctors and I feared me going to 40 weeks because of the size of Rex and the fact that I am not the largest person in the world. A natural birth was the preference, but the bigger he got the less like that would be. I did everything they told me to help jump start labor....Winnie and I and anyone else I could drag along went on lots of hot and sweaty walks. My feet hardly fit in my sneakers, it looked like they were bubbling out of them...so perty.
On July 29th my doctor said my water was ready to break any moment and I was now 4 cm....so she tried to help things along, and succeeded in starting some more consistent contractions. I contracted all night, and finally at about 5 am on thursday the 30th, we went back to Mercy. Contractions were about every 3-5 minutes apart. The on call midwife that checked me first was really nasty..like she almost made me cry. So, I walked around the hospital for about an hour and half trying to make the contractions come on harder and waited for her to go home. At 7 30, she finally did, and another midwife saw us. She said that Rex was not lodged in the way he should be at this point, which could either mean that he's too big for the birth canal, or his cord was in the way. If it was the cord, it would be extremely dangerous for my water to break somewhere other than the hospital, because the cord could come out with it. Plus she was concerned about the heart rate dropping the last time we were there. My doctor came in and agreed with all of that and they informed me that we would not be going home without a baby.Yay!

They admitted me about 8 am, drugged me up with the epidural, gave me patosin and we waited. The contractions came on hard and strong but he still wasn't making progress, so they broke my water and we waited some more. Every time I would contract, his heart rate would plummet, so they tried all sorts of things to try and move him around in there to get off his cord. Nothing worked, so at about 2 50 in the afternoon they told me it was time to get him about to make sure he was alright. I went in for the C section about ten minutes later and he was born at 3 21. The cord was all wrapped around his neck and he was face up, so its good they got him out!
He was 6 pounds 5 ounces, and 20 inches long and very healthy! My mom and wolf were with me throughout the whole labor and were wonderful coaches, I was so happy they were both there!

So, that is how our little Rex made his arrival. Now he's home and we are figuring things out together. My next post will be about my experience so far with motherhood...this post is far too long already to include that.

If you are reading this, you are a patient and loyal blog reader....thank you!