He's Here!!

After a bit of a slow start to the day, when the hospital was too busy and postponed us coming to the hospital first thing in the morning as planned, we headed to the hospital a little before noon.

When we got here, we saw the doctor right away. Since she knew I wanted an epidural, she suggested I get that first, then they would start the pitocin and after a short time, break my water. The plan was that all of that would happen by around 2:00, so we figured we would have a baby by mid-afternoon.

So I got the epidural and I got the pitocin around 1:30... and then the doctor disappeared. Well, I supposed that's not really accurate. We knew where she was - it's just that she wasn't in to see me. First she got called into a c-section, but she was going to come break my water as soon as she was done. Then she had to go straight in to another mom who was pushing, but she was going to come break my water as soon as she was done. That mom had a retained placenta and took quite a long time. So by the time she was done there, she had to go to another mom who was pushing, but she was going to come break my water as soon as she was done. That mom ALSO had a retained placenta. So it was after 6:00 by the time the doctor actually made it in to see me and break my water.

There was a lot of talk about how tough the bag was. Even with the hook, she barely managed to break it. It was apparently never going to break on its own at home as I'd been hoping for the last couple of weeks! When she finally did break the bag, it was a flood! They had to change the bed almost completely - and the doctor had to go change her scrubs.

It was time to push before too long... which is when we discovered that in keeping with his policy of causing trouble in utero, this baby was coming sunny-side up. Or looking at the ceiling instead of the floor as babies are supposed to do. We started pushing and he started turning with the pushes. And then got stuck halfway around - looking sideways. We pushed for about 20 minutes (the longest I've ever had to push, actually). Because he was looking sideways, he was just not moving down with the pushes. Finally, the doc decided to have me sit up again and see if gravity and contractions would move him down for a while. So we did that for about 40 minutes. That was a long 40 minutes. The epidural wasn't helping a lot at that point. Though I'm sure it would have been worse without the epidural, so I'm glad I had it!

After the 40 minutes, the nurse came in to do a test push and see how gravity had worked. She didn't bring in the doctor, she didn't break down the bed... after last time, we should have anticipated how that would work out! Sure enough, gave the test push and suddenly the nurse is telling me "Don't push!" and Aaron says, "There's his head." So there are buttons pushed to call in the birthing team, the doctor is rushing to get gowned and gloved, the nurse is trying to hurry and break down the bed again... and I'm chanting under my breath, "Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

Baby was delivered pretty easily once all that was accomplished. Gravity had done it's work and he had managed to turn the right way. Poor kiddo has a bruise across the top of his nose and cheeks and a big bruise all along one arm from being stuck for a while.

He was born at 9:01 p.m., making this my longest labor at 7 1/2 hours. Though I think it would have been considerably shorter if the doc hadn't had so many other things going that kept postponing me! Oh well.

We named him Rylen Clay. Rylen just because we heard it somewhere and liked it. :) Clay for my grandfather (Clayton).

He was 9 lbs. 2 oz! He is a big boy with adorably chubby cheeks. (And a big round head!) He's doing great, and mom and dad are pretty good too. Hopefully grandma and grandpa and the rest of the kids are doing as well at home! (We haven't talked to them yet since last night.)

Pictures...