Baby!

Birth Story - Tuesday night - afterwards

Cat said, 'He's a little limp, sweetheart!' I looked back and saw his little foot just hanging there, all blue. I said, kind of sobbing, 'Oh, my baby!' and I reached for him. I just wanted to touch him, but the damn IV cord wasn't long enough. It made me angry.

Terri yelled for Respiratory, who is always waiting right outside the door when the baby is born, and Cat cut the cord so they could take the baby over to the warming station to check him out. I was shaking and trying to see what was going on, and I wanted to sit down, but the cord was still hanging out of me, and Cat was trying to help me move onto the bed. Eventually I made it. Terri yelled over that he was pinking right up, and that he looked good, so I had hardly had time to worry before I knew he was looking better.

Travis was still with me, and Delia was recording everything they were doing over there. I don't remember if Travis asked her to or if she did it spontaneously, but I was very happy she was doing it, because I couldn't see anything and was very frustrated. Travis also has said that if she weren't doing that, he would have had to leave me to see what they were doing, and he wasn't willing to do that.

Finally they brought me my son and put him on my chest. I offered him my nipple, and though it confused him at first, within a few minutes he was sucking away happily. Wow, he sucked hard! I was amazed, and very impressed.

He scored 8/10 on his Apgar tests. The first number is for the 1 minute test, at which time he lost a point for his limpness and a point for his color. The second number is for his 5 minute test, when he had recovered from the immediate stress of birth, and got a perfect score!

I'm worn out from writing all of this, so I may finish it some other time. From here on out, everything is on videotape, so I can refresh my memory and do it later.

The entire day was amazing and beautiful and fascinating! After the birth, I was so high that I couldn't stop talking about how amazing the birth was, and how easy it was. I had thought, several times, that it was easy, but it wasn't until he was actually out that I let myself believe it. After all, I never knew what was coming next! What an amazing experience.

A lot of the reason that it was so good was because of my midwife, Cat, and the nurses that took care of me, Mary Ellen and Terri. Cat always knew just what to say to keep me focussed, and Mary Ellen and Terri took good care of me the entire time I was there, and managed to make the medical intervention less of a distraction. Oh, one of the best minor things that Cat did was get the blood pressure cuff off of me! She took my blood pressure manually, and that really helped me! The automatic cuff was driving me crazy. Thank you to everyone that helped us bring Alexander John into the world in the best way possible!