The Hazen Family: September 2009

I thought that today was an appropriate day to share the labor/delivery story of Peter's birth. I really can't believe how fast the time has gone by. Although so many people talk about the "terrible twos", I really think that this is a great age! Peter is SO MUCH FUN right now! He can finally really communicate (although sometimes his favorite sentence is "No, mommy!") and he is getting to be so independent. We are able to go do so many fun things. We had his birthday party on Saturday, so I'll post pics as soon as I can go through them all. We had a great time with lots of family and friends.

Soooooo, here's how it all started...this might be a little TMI for a few of you, so consider yourself warned. :)

I went to a math workshop on Thursday (9/27/07) all day. I got home and decided to clean out my pantry and a cabinet in the kitchen. Apparently I should have seen that as a sign of labor being close, but I didn't. Andrew's friend Vinny helped me finish up the pantry because I think he was nervous about me standing up on the chair trying to reach the top shelf of the pantry by myself. We were supposed to have dinner with some friends (the Keerans) that night and Chris was going to grill steaks. I was really looking forward to it. Andrew was late getting home from work, though, so we were late getting to their house. It's a good thing we were running late because if we had been on time, my water would have broken at their house and it would have caused quite a mess in their brand new home!

I went to the bathroom right before we were about to leave, and my water broke while I was in there at 7pm. It was the weirdest thing I have ever felt. It just kept coming, and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it. We called the Keerans, and Kristen (she's an ob/gyn nurse) told me to call the dr because I most likely needed to get to the hospital. The nurse on call at my drs office did indeed tell us to head to the hospital, so we called the Pet Hotel and dropped the dogs (we had two at the time) off on our way. We had never even thought about what we would do with the dogs when we actually got to this point, so luckily they had an opening.

We got to the hospital about 8:30 on Thursday evening. The nurse told me to change into a gown and they would check to see if my water really did break. Well, they didn't need to check very hard because it got ALL over the bathroom when I was changing. Then once I was in bed, it just kept coming. I'm telling you -- the weirdest thing I have ever experienced.

At that point, I was 2 cm, 70% effaced, and a -3. They let me labor on my own until about 2am, but I didn't really progress. I wasn't feeling any contractions when my water broke, and I really only felt mild ones once we got to the hospital. I think this should have clued me in that there might be some complications. Most people feel contractions first before their water breaks (or the doctor has to break it). My water broke, but I really felt nothing. They started pitocin at 2am, and then the pain began. I was able to handle it for a while, but then it got pretty bad. They gave me some kind of meds to help me until I was able to get the epidural. I'm not sure if they really helped at all or not, but Mom, my aunt, and Andrew said the meds made me really loopy. I was also on penicillin because of GBS +, so they said they had to finish the round of penicillin before giving me the epidural. I finally got the epidural at 5am, and it helped for a while. I was able to sleep for an hour or so, but then I started feeling pain on the right side.

Another anesthesiologist came in and moved the epidural around to try to help. It worked, so I was ok for a little longer. I don't know how people go completely natural -- that is the worst pain I have EVER felt! I told the anesthesiologist that he was my very best friend after he came in and took the pain away. I'm so thankful that someone is willing to go through all that schooling to do that job!!

My dad showed up sometime after this with my stepmom, and I was so out of it that I actually let him in the delivery room. I had been very adamant that he wasn't coming in until after the baby was born, but by that point, I really didn't care what was going on. I just wanted to be done with the whole situation. I started pushing around 10ish in the morning, and I pushed for an hour and a half. The funny thing is that before I started pushing, I was very concerned with my hair and I made my aunt brush it before I would start pushing. I don't do so well on meds apparently -- everyone kept laughing at everything I would say or do. At one point, I even made Andrew check to make sure the head wasn't starting to come out. I really felt something (or at least I thought I did), and I was convinced that the baby was coming and no one was around to catch it.

As I pushed, the baby would move down a little, but then he went back up. His heart-rate was going up with each contraction as well. On top of that, I was running a fever by this time. They also discovered that he was face-up instead of face-down, which is why he wasn't wanting to come out. After pushing for an hour and a half, the doctor came in and said we needed to do a c-section. I was in hysterics because I never in my wildest dreams imagined having to go that direction.

After I calmed down and they started prepping for the c-section, I really don't remember anything else until 9ish that night. I fell asleep and wasn't able to wake up except for a few seconds at a time. One of the doctors kept trying to keep me awake during the c-section, but I just couldn't do it. I was soooooo tired and probably reacting to meds as well that I just slept through everything. The entire time I was pregnant, I was really waiting for that moment in the delivery room where the doctor would say, "It's a boy!". Instead, I slept through the entire thing and really didn't know that I even had a baby until hours later.

After Peter was born, they put him next to my head, but I was still out of it. Mom tried to wake me up so I could nurse him once I was in recovery, but again, no luck. Peter was born at 12:37pm on Friday, and I had been in labor almost 18 hours. They kept Peter in the regular nursery for a little while (and Andrew got some pictures), but then they moved him to the NICU. Because of the length of time between when my water broke and when he was born and my fever, they gave him several rounds of IV antibiotics in the NICU. His blood sugar also wouldn't stabilize, so that kept him in the NICU for 2 days. They kept having to test his blood sugar before every feeding.

(I have no idea why this is underlined - it won't let me fix it!)

I woke up enough to see him Friday night (the day he was born), but I really don't remember that much. Andrew took me into the NICU in a wheelchair, but I had no recollection of it the next day. It wasn't until the next morning that I was actually able to hold him and see him and really remember it. I guess the medicine was wearing off by then. By that time, he was being bottle-fed exclusively. That was hard, because I really wanted to nurse him. We ended up seeing a lactation consultant after getting home from the hospital, and he got the hang of it pretty quickly. In fact, he's still nursing at 2-years-old. :)

Peter was in the NICU until Sunday night, and then we got to have him in the room. My doctor let us stay through Tuesday because I still was having quite a time trying to walk around and really do anything. It also gave us a full day with him in the room with us before taking him home. C-section recovery was way harder that I thought. I didn't even change a diaper until right before we left the hospital because I couldn't stand up long enough to do it. Andrew, however, became a great diaper changer and swaddler because he spent a lot of time with Peter in the NICU and then I couldn't really do much once Peter was actually in the room.

Baby #2 is due in just a few short months, and I'm really hoping for a much easier and calmer story for this one. We will schedule a repeat c-section for the end of December. If I go into labor earlier, we will try a VBAC. If not, Baby #2 will definitely make an appearance by the end of 2009!!! This time, I can't wait to hear, "It's a ..."!!!!!

We've had some major sleeping problems in the Hazen house lately, so I was up this morning at 3am with Peter. After trying to get him back to sleep for A LONG TIME with no success, I brought him downstairs to play before trying the sleep thing again. We played for a while, and then I needed to go to the bathroom. This happens quite often these days because I'm at that point in the pregnancy, so Peter usually just hangs out in the bathroom and blows his nose while waiting so he can flush the toilet. He gets some toilet paper for his nose first, then he tells me to get some. It's pretty funny.

So we had to use a new roll of toilet paper this morning, which means I had to get it started for him to pull some off. This made him VERY angry because I touched the toilet paper first. Usually he would just get over it, but a lack of sleep makes him quite grumpy.

He has a routine where he will usually hug me when he's hurt or upset that someone else told him no or did something he wasn't happy with. He just runs up to me, leans is head against my leg for a second, and then goes on his merry way.

Early this morning, though, I was the one doing something he wasn't happy with. So what did he do? He ran to Homer! He left the bathroom to go let Homer out of his crate. Being as it was the middle of the night, I didn't bother letting Homer out when we came downstairs. Well, Peter let him out and chased him around the living room until Homer stood still long enough to let Peter hug him. Then Peter was "all better" and ready to go back upstairs to try to go to sleep tonight. Too funny!

SeaWorld was a blast last weekend - pictures coming soon!!