Monday, January 26, 2009

Anson's birth day story

A bunch of folks have asked about how our labor went, so I thought I'd give a thumbnail sketch of our evening.  If you're squeamish about bodily fluids and anatomy, suffice it to say that "we now have a son and we're both very happy."  For those who want the blow-by-blow, read on.

Jennifer's had some "bowel discomfort" for the last week.  Yesterday about 2:00 she had some pains, but she just thought it was intestinal junk.  So she kept doing her thing.  Last night about 9:45 we sat down to play a board game with Janine, her sister.  Jennifer was grumbly.  Around 10:30 she left the table to go take a bath and go to bed.  She was pretty sure she was having contractions at that point.  I went up to check on her at 11:30, at which point she was lying on her side, curled up on the bed.  She yelled something at me like "EVERY 5 MINUTES, 20 SECONDS"  I timed her next contraction and it was 1:06.  She got back in the bathtub while Janine and I packed and I called our birth partner and the hospital.

We hopped in the car and drove to OHSU with Jennifer going through transition.  For most of the trip her contractions were 3 minutes apart, so when we arrived the hospital staff whisked her past triage, straight into a delivery room.  About 5 minutes after we arrived, Jennifer's water broke, and maybe 3 minutes after that, the Nurse Midwife walked in.  "Yep, 10 cm.  Do what feels natural."  So Jennifer pushed, Janine and I caught, and a little less than an hour later I had a son.

All in all it was a pretty straightforward delivery.  Jennifer did experience some tearing that required stitches.  She also ended up with a good-sized hematoma, and passed a 300+ gram blood clot this morning.  She's since stabilized some more, has gotten some sleep, and is in generally good spirits.

As for Anson, he's been pretty cheery, all things considered.  He's successfully nursed a few times, but is generally more interested in breast-as-pillow than breast-as-dinner.  He does turn a delightful shade of red when he's mad.  His Apgar scores were 9s (fine), and somehow the pediatricians managed to come around during an uncharacteristically alert period and were complimentary.