Gus's Story

Early Saturday morning, around 3 am, I started feeling some pain. But it was a sharp pain, not like the crampy pain I remembered contractions being. So, I got up and decided to take a shower to see if it made me feel better. And if it didn't, at least I'd be clean. So after I got out of the shower and decided it was time, I woke up Blake. Blake had fallen asleep on the futon while reading. I nudged him and said, "Blake, wake up." All I got back was a long whiny moan. So, I said a little sterner, "Blake, we need to go to the hospital." This time I got a response: "Don't talk to me like that!" Ha! Silly Blake is such a fun, animated sleep-talker. So, I went in our room and started packing a bag when Blake came in and said, "Did you say we need to go to the hospital? Did I say don't talk to me like that?" So, we called sweet Hillary to come watch the boys and we were off to the hospital around 4:30.
We arrived at the hospital and after the nurse concurred that my contractions were coming pretty strongly about 4 minutes apart and I was dilated 3 cm, she announced I had won myself a ticket for admission. I made sure everyone knew I was ready for my epidural as soon as possible and was wheeled up to labor and delivery. My contractions were coming stronger and I was so proud of myself when the nurse and anesthesiologist said they could hardly tell when I was having a contraction because I was handling it so well. The only thing that gave me away was that I got a bit quieter. So, the epidrual was placed around 6:30 and it was time to rest.
Around 8, the doctor came in to check on me and said that the epidural had slowed my contractions down and that the labor wasn't progressing. So, she broke my water to see if that would help things along. Then, around 8:30 the nurse came in and gave me some pitocin to speed up the process. I was pretty out of it, but Blake didn't think the pitocin was a good idea. He started asking questions and told the nurse we weren't in a hurry to get the baby here. Basically she just told him that it was doctor's orders as she was injecting it through my IV. Well, the pitocin worked a little too well. I went from 3 cm to 10 cm in 1 hour. There had been a shift change and when the new nurse came to check on me, she said the new doctor had been called in to an emergency c-section, so she was going to take me off the pitocin and then hopefully my labor would slow down enough to wait an hour for the doctor to get there. About 10 minutes later, my room was swarmed with nurses, trying to figure out my blood pressure and Gus's heart rate. My blood pressure runs a little low anyways (The doctor asked me if I was a runner. I told him no. To which he replied, "Oh. Because sometimes athletes have a lower heart rate." I told him he didn't ask me if I was an athlete! :)) but Gus's heart rate plummeted due to the stress from the quick labor. Since the on-call OB was in surgery, the nurses found another OB in the building who came rushing in my room with a vacuum in hand ready to get Gus out. Luckily, one of the nurses stopped him and said, "Wait! This is her third baby. She can probably push him out faster than using that vacuum." So, three pushes and several nervous tears later, at 9:59 am, Gus Philip was born.
After Gus was stable, I got to hold and cuddle my sweet new baby for a minute before the nausea (a side effect from the pitocin) kept me busy for the next two hours.
So Blake and Gus got to spend some quality time together. I love that wherever Gus went, Blake was always right by his side.Gus weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces and was 19 inches long. I already loved him so much before he was born and now I can't even describe how full my heart is. Welcome to our family sweet baby boy. Your mommy loves you so, so, so much.