Labor was fairly uneventful as childbirth goes. My water broke at midnight. I woke Robbin up about half an hour later and he was thoroughly excited that our son's birthday would be all prime numbers. (3, 7, 11) When I got to the hospital, the nurses estimated that he was in position 0, but I was not dilated at all. I'll get into the whole birth story in a later post but it involves ignoring pitocin orders, loving epidurals yet hating IVs, and falling blood pressures (to as low as 60 over 40).
The first week has been exhausting and amazing. Gerald had a high bilirubin count so we had to go back for additional testing on Thursday after discharge on Wednesday. And then we did the same on Friday and Saturday. His levels were increasing and he lost 14 oz on Friday. But on Saturday he had gained 2 oz back, my milk came in and even though his level went up my .2, the doc decided he had probably peaked. We have a follow up on Wednesday and here's hoping for a confirmation of that.
At first he only had 2 mood, mellow and enraged. Now he also can be disgruntled, satisfied, confused, suspicious, and gleeful. (Gleeful being limited to right after a correct latch on.) My mom came yesterday and he was showing off for her how well he can sleep....4 hours during the middle of the day. This is something he has never done before, a 4 hour stretch. Why did it have to be during the day? Mom was impressed until she saw that I was up from 9pm-6am with him. He'd eat, he'd burp, he would fall asleep for about 30 minutes and then cry because he had a poopy diaper. So, I'd change the diaper and calm him down and put him to sleep and then he would want to eat in 30 minutes. Nights like this need to change soon so I don't die of exhaustion. But I'm really happy he is eating so much and getting all those brs of his body with each dirty diaper.
On other notes to come later: how different it is talking to people who have given birth vs those who haven't, who Gerald looks like, and red raspberry tea.
3 comments:
So when he was born did they still think they had the correct due date? He was just going for 11 pounds? :o) My BP dropped insanely low in every birth and I was like are you SURE this is ok? Very weird. But that sounds great that they're able to treat the bilirubin on an outpatient basis. My neighbor's son came home with a glowpack he had to wear for a few weeks. Go Gerald, eating so good to get that out of your system!!
I can't wait for more posts about who Gerald looks like and PICTURES!! :o)
Well, after the last ultrasound my doc did say that it was possible the due date was wrong. We didn't really talk about it since then but she had said she was willing to induce me if I wanted and wouldn't stop labor at 36 weeks. All in all I'm happy with how that was handled.
At 60/40 they gave me 2 shots of ephedrine (?). And it went back up to 90 over 60 and occasionally it would flair to 120 over something.
We're not great at taking photos but we'll get better and post more. :-)
Rae
I got ephedrine after my epidural with Grace, too- it was about midnight. it did not help me sleep. for whatever reason, my bp didn't drop much this time when I got the epi (which is weird, they almost always cause hypotension), and I was vaguely annoyed at the time, because it was 5:30 in the evening and I would not have cared about not being able to sleep after that.
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