Our birth story

I suppose this blog should start with Connor's birth story!

First, the stats: Connor Phoenix Allen Randles was born on Father's Day, June 15th, 2008 at 8:32am in Bakersfield, California. He was 9lbs even and 21.3 inches long. He had a full head of blonde hair, fair skin, and long monkey toes just like his Daddy.

I got to the hospital for induction on Saturday, the 15th of June (7 days past my due date) and they started the pitocin drip at about 10:30am. At about 11:30 the doctor came in and broke my water. The contractions slowly started coming as the hours wore on. At first they were really small, but they slowly got stronger and stronger.

By 9:00pm or so the contractions were one on top of the other with no break and I was stuck at 2 cm. The way the Dr. explained it was because of the surgery I had years ago, there was scar tissue on my cervix acting as a rubber band of sorts, keeping me closed up. He said that eventually his head would break it and then I would progress quickly. The constant contractions without a break and the picture in my head of a rubber band snapping was enough to convince me that an epidural was a good idea.

The anesthesiologist came in at about 9:30 and gave me the epidural. It was not fun, and took about 15 minutes to do. Once he was done I started feeling better instantly, but inserting the needle was really painful.

Once I got the epidural things slowed down a bit, but by about 4am I had gone to 5cm and I was ready to push by 6am. But, the epidural made it really hard for me to push because I couldn't feel anything. When I first got the epidural the nurse put a pillow under my right hip to stop the medicine from pooling in my back, which would make it stop working. Well, instead it pooled on my left side so I was feeling everything on my right, but I couldn't even lift my left leg. We got almost to the point of crowning when the nurse decided that we should let me labor a bit longer and just wait for the doctor. (He was the only one on call and he was pulled in to an emergency, so it was me and two nurses) The anesthisiologist came in and bumped up my epidural at about 6:30am and I went to sleep.

The doctor came in at about 8:00 and started me pushing again. Even though the epidural was stronger this time, (and actually working on both sides) he was able to get me in a better position and Connor was out in 3 pushes. He had a big bulb on his head from sitting so low for those hours, but it was gone within an hour or so. I ended up with 3 stitches but he isn't even bruised.

We got off to a great start with breastfeeding, but ran into some latch problems early the morning and the nurse encouraged me to give him a bottle because I was getting frustrated. By the next feeding the lactation consultant had come in and she got us back on track.

My dreams of a natural birth were out the window from the get-go, but I don't care at all. I don't think I could care less about anything now that he's here and healthy.