We had a big addition to the Lewis family last week. On 1/1/2015 we welcomed Sasha Linda Lewis to the family. She’s already changed our world quite a bit.
When we had Hunter in 2012 I published a blog post about the birth. It was a play-by-play of the entire day. At the time I thought it’d be a fun little look at the event but over the years Diane and I found ourselves referring to it more than we had thought we would. We found ourselves getting the time and events all wrong and were thankful that it was actually posted somewhere. Also, we heard that others found it useful to hear how things actually go once you’re at the hospital. Because of that, i’m posting again what actually happened at the hospital last week. Enjoy…
7:05 – I woke up. We had the Kesners over for a New Years celebration. Given that Diane could pop at any moment, we didn’t do much boozing at all. In fact we were all in bed by 11pm. Yep, we’re old. Waking up at 7am, i checked the monitor and saw that Hunter was still sleeping, but leaning over to Diane i found out that she had been having contractions from 4-6am but nothing in the past hour. There was a little bleeding so Diane called the doctor and she told her to come on in to the hospital to get it checked out.
7:45 – Luckily Jules, Abbie and Cece were at our house so they could hold down the fort and watch Hunter while Diane and i got going to the hospital.
8:30-9:05 – Got to hospital and get into our room which is lovely. Diane is having more contractions but nothing that feels too major.
9:33 – Diane is now strapped in to some monitors and just plowing through contractions. Things seem to be escalating.
9:45 – The doctor (Dr. Diane Christopher) took a look at Diane and found her to still be at 4cm dilated, which is what she was 3 days ago. Apparently, nothing is really happening. The doctor said she’ll be back in 2 hours to check again. Mike’s got breakfast. Diane tried to nap.
11:45 – Diane is still at 4cm. They are trying to kick us out but we convince them to check again in 2 hours. We’re going to go walk around to try to kick this baby off. Also, Lizzie T. has come up from Castle Rock is now on Hunter duty. We’re super happy to have her on the case.
Side note: we were wondering why they are trying to kick us out. They suggest we go home because they think of the delivery like an ER room and only really want you in it if you are in active labor or having complications. If you’re dilation isn’t moving then you’re not considered in labor and they don’t want you there.
1:45 – The doctor came in to check Diane out again. Nothing had changed. Doh. Even though there are more contractions and they are more intense, we are still at 4cm. They gave us three options: (a) take some petocin which is a hormone that will guarantee to speed up contractions and induce labor; (b) go home or some place else and wait for it to speed up; (c) have them break her water. We choose option (d) – to wait an hour and then re-assess as we don’t want to go but we don’t want to artificially do anything.
3:15 – they are back and… We’re still at 4cm! Crappers. We now have a choice of:
- Leave and wait for action to start
- Get a petocin drip which will accelerate the contractions and induce labor
- Break the water which should induce labor
We don’t really know what to do.
3:45-4:30 – Diane showers and we mull it over. Mike calls Jonas and Emily as she’s a kickass OB in Philly. After a good chat with Jonas about what we should do, we decide to break the water. We’ll see how that goes. If it doesn’t kick start labor then we’ll fall back to petocin. Basically we don’t want to leave as we’re afraid it’ll happen fast and we won’t make it back to the hospital.
5:00 – Drawing blood, signing forms and stuff for epidural.
5:15 – Doctor breaks water. Note: we were at 6cm when broke. We also called for epidural because no matter what we want that in.
6:00 – lots of full body shakes happening. The anxiety and the contractions themselves are making everything intense. Diane is not feeling good. We are in a dark and not happy place. Shit is going down.
6:10 – They put in the epidural in.
6:40 – Things are a bit calmer. Contractions are still happening but much less pain. The nurse checks for dilation and discovers that there is no cervix – i.e. we are fully ready. This could be happening fast. Going to get the doctor
6:45 – Baby is coming…starting to push
7:10 – still pushing
7:25 – still pushing. We discovered that Diane’s belly button has a mind of its own during this whole process
7:37 – Sasha is born!
Congratulations! 🙂