Ryland Joseph Taylor
Born 2/6/13
10:11 am
7lbs and 10oz
Proud Daddy, 1st night in the hospital
Cuddled up
Sleepy Daddy, Night 2 in the hospital
Mommy giving Ryland lots of love
Big Sister Sophia loving on her brother
Birth Story:
We
were scheduled for an induction for Tuesday morning. I was told to call the Labor and Delivery floor at 630am. I got up early (after a restless and anxious night) and called right away. We were told all beds were full, and
to call back later, closer to 11am. Finding it hard to rest, I double checked the hospital bag, made sure that Sophia's overnight bag was packed for the night with Grandma and Grandpa. And tried to busy myself to pass the time. We called at 11am and were told the same thing. That all the beds were full and to try again at 4:30pm. At this point, my nerves were going crazy. Matthew was getting anxious and frustrated and wanted to know if we were ever going to get into the hospital. So we decided to rest as much as possible, not knowing what kind of evening or night lay ahead of us. Called back at 4:30 and were told that they would call us when the next bed opened. And if we hadn't heard from them by 7pm, call again. So we waited. And we called again at 7. By this point, the nurse at the desk knew me by name and was probably getting quite irritated. So again, we tried to pass some time. Grandma Sue came and picked up Sophia and Matthew and I decided to grab some dinner. I think my phone was glued to my hand in the event that we got a call at any second. At this point, Matthew and I were both worried that we'd be facing another night at home and then going through the same thing on Wednesday, and we didn't want Matthew exhausting all of his sick leave before Ryland even arrived. So I called the nurse. Again. :) This time I explained that we were trying to plan the next day and I asked if my husband should plan on going to work, or not? The nurse explained that 3 beds had opened up and that they were waiting on their one housekeeper to come clean them. She assured me I would be the next phone call. And we were! At 12:45AM (Wednesday morning) the hospital called and said they were ready for us! Finally!!!
Once we got settled into our room,
and began answering all the health questions for our nurse, my OB came
by and started my pitocin drip (the medicine used via IV to jump-start contractions). By this time it was about 2:30am...(since
he'd been delivering babies). So once the pitocin started I immediately
started having regular contractions every 3 mins. The weird part was
they were measuring SO big on the monitors and I was hardly feeling
much. But I wasn't going to complain. Matthew and I were able to rest most
of the early morning.
By 630am, there was a nurse shift change, so my midnight nurse came in to do the last of her charts and I noticed that my
contractions were almost gone...like they just stopped. So I mentioned
it to her before she left. She just looked at me and was like "oh
honey, that's because you are not in labor." And left. I was pretty confused, as I had been having regular contractions from 2:30 to 6:30. I felt frustrated that we'd been sitting there for nearly 6 hours and for her to tell me that the contractions on the monitor meant nothing. (It IS possible for a woman to have contractions and not feel them, and if I know this, then the nurse should know this too...)
At this point, though there was NOTHING going on, we decided to call our moms and my sister and tell them to head on down. If we were just going to sit around, we might as well all wait together. They all arrived about the same time, and we were all anxious to see if things might pick up after breaking my water.
Not long after that my new nurse, Cathy came in and introduced
herself. She said she'd just been up at the desk reviewing my action from the night and she's
noticed that my contractions have almost stopped. (Thankfully, someone who was attentive to what was going on!) She had already
called Dr. Nordeen and he was on his way over to break my water. Around 8:20am Dr. Nordeen arrived and he broke my water. He did an internal check and tells me I've progressed from 3cm (when I was admitted) the night before to 5.5cm. (Again, proving that my painless contractions were indeed labor, thank you very much!) Immediately the contractions picked up and became very painful.
Though looking at them on the monitor looked otherwise. They were about 1/2 the size but 5x the pain. After about an hour I asked for some pain meds, but didnt feel ready
enough for the epidural. Cathy gave me fentenol and it helped to take
the edge off, but not really take away the pain. I endured through more
contractions for about an hour more, just trying to relax my body through each one. The pain was so intense it flowed all the way down my thighs and took my breath away each time. After about an hour of this, I decided it was epidural time. The
contractions kept coming as we waited for the anesthesiologist. (And here's where things get crazy!)
The anesthesiologist finally came, and asked mom, Carly, Sue and Matthew to leave the room. I looked at him
and told him I needed Matthew to stay. So they had him move across the room from me, but facing me. My nurse got me my pillow and asked
me to sit up as the anthestisiologist set up his sanitized area on my
bed. The SECOND I sat up my contractions multiplied by 100, stopping
only for a second in between each one, and I felt a huge amount of pressure "
fall." I looked at Matthew with panic and pain and didn't know what to do... I started crying so hard and looked at Matthew,
shaking and said, "I need to push NOW". (Which is a totally weird sensation, I had never experienced this with Sophia's birth bc I had gotten the epidural early and my body was numbed.)
At this point, the
anthestisiologist, got all huffy with me telling me that he had already
set up his sterile area and if I touched it, he'd have to start all
over...blah, blah, blah...my nurse runs to the end of the bed pulls my
legs up and runs back to the door, all the while I am shaking and
screaming at Matthew that I am scared, and that I don't want to do it this
way, and I can't stop my body from pushing. I push two times and try
to stop (even though you CAN'T really stop it...). as I'm trying to
stop my pushing because I dont really know what I'm supposed to be doing, I
can hear a group of nurses run in and one says, "Oh! Call the Dr, but
he's not going to make it." The nurses surround my bed, I let my body
do what it needs. I push once, and Ryland's head comes out, I push
again and his body comes out! It was amazing and shocking and
unbelievable all at once. Matthew was amazing letting me grab his arm and
squeeze him so hard all the while telling me I could do it. And
that's how Ryland arrived, Dr. free...!
Even writing this all out, I am in shock at how it all happened. Our shocking little guy has our hearts already!
