The Story of Henry's Arrival

Before I forget, I want to document the whole labor/delivery process with Henry. I will warn you: there may be a bit too much information for those who have weakish stomachs. Proceed with caution.

Wednesday morning (September 2nd) at about 2:30 a.m., I woke up with some decent contractions. They were about 10 minutes apart, and they lasted anywhere from about 30-60 seconds. I got up, I took a shower, and we timed my contractions for awhile. At about 7 or 8 a.m., the contractions fizzled out after an entire night of consistency, and we were bummed (5-6 hours was a long stinking time for false labor, we thought). We went for a walk that morning, we had some visitors later that morning (my mother-in-law, a cousin, and Willi's grandmother), and after that, I took a nap on the couch. Awhile later, I woke up again with some hard contractions. Those lasted all day long at about 10 minutes apart again—even through my scheduled OB appointment that I had that afternoon.

When Dr. Ellis checked me, he said I was only two centimeters (and still had a long way to go). I wasn't surprised by that. I had a feeling he'd tell me I hadn't made any progress since the previous week (although, I did hope for more progress since my body had been having some pretty awesome contractions for the past twelve plus hours).

As Dr. Ellis left the room that day, he said, "We'll see you at the hospital tonight!"

He's funny like that.

Anyway, I continued to have contractions all day and through the evening. Mom and Dad came up to visit to see if they could watch Nora for us if we needed to head into the hospital, but we never felt like we were ready to go. So, we sent them home. We tried to go to bed for awhile, and then we got up and timed contractions again sometime between 11 and midnight. Around 1 a.m. on September 3rd, we called our neighbor, Bill, and he came over with some pillows and blankets and crashed on our couch (he and Pam had offered awhile back to come over in the middle of the night if I went into labor so that someone could be with Nora here at the house). That was so stinking nice of him.

We got to the hospital around 1:30 a.m. (when my contractions were about five minutes apart and lasting somewhere from 60-90 seconds), and I continued to have contractions all night long. Sometimes, they'd be five minutes apart. Sometimes, they'd be ten minutes apart. They were all around 60-90 seconds the whole time, too. It was weird. They never seemed to get closer together.

Willis and I did everything we could to keep things moving. We'd walk the hallways (I'd stop and lean on him when I'd have a contraction—I got the feeling that the nurses were not used to seeing people do that because several times, we got asked if I was okay). We'd have me bounce on the birthing ball. I'd occasionally go to the bed and sit in the contoured chair position (they wanted to monitor the baby every couple of hours, and by that time, I was usually ready for a break). I would snooze between contractions in that position, and it always helped. Willis snoozed while I would snooze, too, and I think that's how we managed to survive.

Around 5 p.m. on Thursday, the nurse that was taking care of us suggested breaking my water. I was apprehensive when she first started talking about it. I really didn't want any interventions. Then, she went on to explain to me that I was about 6-7 centimeters dilated and that my cervix was really stretchy. She said that she couldn't guarantee that it would help, but she felt pretty strongly that breaking the water would allow the baby to get through (since everything was looking like it was ready to go). If I hadn't already been in labor for so long at that point, I wouldn't have thought about it. I was starting to get concerned that I was going to be too tired to get through it if I was going to be stuck at 6-7 for much longer (I was stuck there for a few hours).

She left Willis and me alone for awhile so we could talk it over. We thought about it for a good while, and then we decided that breaking the water would be acceptable, but we wouldn't allow pitocin or anything like that if they suggested it afterward.

Dr. Ellis came at about 6 p.m., and we allowed him to break my water. After that, I had stronger contractions (same distance apart again—5-10 minutes or so). The next few hours got a lot more intense (contractions were still that far apart, but they were harder and harder). Around 9 p.m., I got a strong urge to push. Unfortunately, they told me that I wasn't ready to push yet (I was apparently only, like, 9 centimeters when I started to want to push). So, I had to struggle through several pushing contractions (Willis will tell you that I started to freak out a little bit: I kept asking where the hell everyone went because I needed to push). Willis said I did pretty well with them, but I know I was on the verge of freaking out. He had to talk me through each one.

Eventually, they let me push (the nurse decided she'd try to push my cervix out of the way again—this happened to me with Nora, too). It was so weird: I fully expected things to feel better once I started to push, but they actually hurt more. It hurt not to push and it hurt to push. It was nuts! We tried a few different positions for pushing, and after about a half hour or 45 minutes of pushing (and not making much progress), the nurse finally suggested letting me squat next to the bed. I said, "Yeah! I'll try that!"

I hopped down next to the bed, and the weirdest thing happened: I had one, long pushing contraction, and I just stood there and pushed and pushed without stopping. A few moments later (and while I was feeling some intense pain), the nurse goes, "Whoa! We need to get you back into the bed!"

Yeah. I was crowning.

Dr. Ellis stumbled into the room, pulling on his scrubs, and after three pushes or so of me being back on the bed, Henry came out (at 9:59 p.m.). Boy . . . he kind-of hurt! I have a new-found respect for women who have had babies that are more than nine pounds! Yowza!

Dr. Ellis tossed Henry onto my belly, and as Henry landed on me, his little hand slapped me in the face. He'd been kicking and punching me from the inside for so long, I guess I wasn't surprised that he would continue that behavior. It was neat.

Henry got cleaned up by a nurse (I was shivering so hard after he was born that I couldn't hold him for awhile—Willis was with him, thank goodness). And after I got my shivers under control, I passed out in the bed I delivered in, I was so tired. Willis had grabbed us some dinner, we ate it hurriedly, and I just passed out. We got Willis a cot this time, too, since we were in the big LDR room. He was ecstatic about that.

When I woke up about an hour later, I realized I needed to get up and shower and whatnot. I called the nurse station to get help (Henry was swaddled in a bassinet next to me, poor guy), and when the nurse came in (Willis had been asleep for just 45 minutes), she told us we had to move. Due to the full moon, there were, like, five new women in labor, and they needed the LDR rooms. We were so bummed: we were really looking forward to recovering in that bigger room. Instead, we got moved to a smaller room (actually, we got moved twice because the bed in the next room was broken). Poor Willi had to sleep on one of those stupid, reclining chairs.

So, after about 24 hours of being in the tiny room, we pushed to get out of the hospital. We were running out of options for Nora's care, and we were not getting any sleep. So, they let us out a day early. We were so glad to get home.

All in all, the labor process lasted for about 44 hours. We were laboring at the hospital for about 22 hours. So, yeah. This whole thing about the second baby being easier is bunk.

That's the story of Henry's arrival! It'll be an event to remember. That's for sure.

What's New, La Porte?

What's New, La Porte?

Henry's Arrival

I took a moment today to download the photos off of my camera from the past few days. Here's the slide show! Enjoy!

Henry

We finally had a baby! It sure took awhile (labor was a bit, um, longish), but Willis Henry Brown is here!

He was 8 pounds, 12 ounces, and 21 inches long. He was born at 9:59 p.m. (Central Time) on September 3rd.

He's a healthy-lookin' thing, and he's starting to get used to us, we think. Nora doesn't seem to mind him much yet. She has said, "Henry," a couple of times and, "baby."

She seems to be doing well with him being here so far. I hope it stays that way!

He looks almost exactly like Nora did when she was born. It's a bit spooky. I'm hoping to post pics soon once we figure out how to juggle two kids.

Sorry I didn't get many phone calls out (I pretty much only called immediate family when he was born). We also didn't get back over here to post on the internet about it. We did get to come home early from the hospital, though (they wanted us to stay until tonight, but we wanted to get the heck out of there).

Thanks for all of the prayers, thoughts, and flowers, everybody!

And now, we're trying to catch up on life and sleep. Oi.

More info (and photos) will come soon!

Update

We might actually be having a baby soon! We'll keep you posted.

Photos, Tomatoes, and Zinnias—Oh, My!

I finally remembered to upload the photos that were sitting on my camera. Here's what Nora's been up to for the later part of her 19 months.

My favorite two pics are the one where she's sitting on the changing table/dresser, getting into stuff and the one that was taken after I made her get off the dresser (the one where she's lying on the floor, screaming between my feet). Good stuff!

She needs a baby brother, already.

In other news, I think we're the only people we know that actually got a decent amount of tomatoes this season (if you can call this a season). We planted Early Girls this year, and they came in August, which is earlier than we've ever had tomatoes come out before. If we'd planted our usual tomatoes, I think we'd have never seen a red one. We've actually had so many that we've canned a few times. We made a couple of jars of salsa (we busted open a jar the other night, and it was actually really good), and we've canned several jars of juice and a couple of jars of just tomatoes. We've got a lot of green tomatoes on the vine right now, and I'll be interested to see what happens with those since it's, like, October out there now. The bottoms of our plants are turning yellow, though (Dad was saying something about that being a nitrogen issue, and we never did get that resolved).

I think we'll be planting Early Girls again next year, too. The other ones always come so late in the season (and by the time we get 'em, we have to worry about frost).

We also have some awesome-looking Zinnias growing right now, too. We're gonna be clipping off those heads in the fall and planting a ton more next spring. They are pretty.

I've got some Mums and Asters on our steps outside, too (we picked those up at our local Garwood Orchard a few weeks ago). The Mums are looking pretty good, but the Asters could kick it up a couple of notches. (I'm having to water them every day because I didn't put them in new pots.) I should get some photos of those. All our plants (and our yard) are looking pretty sweet right now.

Baby Boy Brown is due tomorrow. That's kind-of weird. I don't think he'll be here tomorrow, though.

Still Huge

For those of you out there that don't see me on Facebook or Google Chat, I'm still pregnant. I just thought I'd get that out there for you.

I'm also still phlegmmy (and mostly in the morning—I have an awesome hack-fest for about an hour before I get my red raspberry leaf tea and honey going). It's good times. I'm pretty sure I did this last time I was pregnant, too.

EVERYBODY OUT!

I do have an appointment tomorrow afternoon with my OB (due date), and I fully expect to hear him tell me that there's not been any progress since last week. Not much has been happening with that.

We'll keep you posted, but don't get all anxious on me. I think this kid's gonna take his sweet time.

Dilly out.