Okay so it's been a long while - labor and delivery.

So we had Keegan almost exactly 5 weeks ago. I'll do a quick description of the labor/delivery process. My water broke at 4am on Feb 6th. Needless to say it broke all over the bed and was quit a surprise. Supposedly, only 15% of women have their water break before labor and I guess I got to be in that minority.

We went into the hospital right away and they asked me if I wanted to go onto Pitocin (sp) or wait to see if I went into labor. I wanted to wait a couple hours. So we walked around the labor and delivery floor (me, Lyle, and mom). And walked some more and some more. They checked me at 9am and I was around 3cm dilated so if looked like I was starting to get somewhere. So we waited a couple more hours and the contractions got a lot worse.

They checked me again and I was around 5cm dilated but starting to have some trouble with the pain. The nurse recommended that now would be a good time for an epidural if I wanted one. I wanted one! The contractions were almost on top of each other and, having breathed through them okay up to this point, I was started to have trouble. So the anesthesiologist came in to do the epidural around noonish. He wanted to know if I had any concerns about the epidural. I told him I was worried that it was going to hurt to get it. He laughed saying that I was in a lot more pain now than the epidural would give me. So I got the epidural. All was good a few minutes later; I thanked the anesthesiologist and the nurse and was all around happy and sleepy. I slept for something like 3 hrs and then the nurse (3rd nurse we'd had) told me I was dilated to 10cm and they were going to let me "labor down" for a few hours before we started pushing. So a few hours later we started pushing. By we I mean Lyle had one leg and mom had the other leg. Pushing was hard work for everyone, but two hours later Keegan finally popped out at 8:35pm.

I remember initially just being relieved that he had come out and then being concerned when I didn't hear him cry. They took him over to suction mucus out of his mouth and weight him, etc. He was a very healthy 8lbs 5.6 oz and 21.25" long. I would like to start singing praises here about what a miracle the birth was, etc, etc. But that wouldn't be very honest. All I remember thinking after he was born is that I was exhausted and hungry. It seemed like it took an awfully long time for them to stitch me up. They had not performed an episiotomy and I had a 2nd degree tear. The next morning I found out that my uterus hadn't been contracting like it should and I was bleeding a lot more than I should have. All I knew at the time was that the doctor seemed kind of concerned and had the nurse up my Pitocin dosage. Oh yeah and I wanted to hold my baby *now*.

After the stitches were done they started something that I hadn't heard about. They "massaged" my abdomen to help my uterus contract. Basically they pushed on my stomach really d*** hard to get fluid out; and it hurt like a...well it really really hurt. I remember actually yelling at the nurse at one point. Then they finally let me hold Keegan. I don't really remember much after that. I know that we sat in labor/delivery for an hour or so and that Lyle's dad, Rick, came to visit. After that it was time to transfer to our postpartum room. I actually had to get up and walk to a wheel chair. Then they let me hold Keegan again as they wheeled me to postpartum. Once again this is all a bit foggy for me so Lyle could probably give a better account of all that happened. I do remember the first thing I asked for was something to eat. I was really really hungry; not having eaten since 4am. They brought me a sandwich with cheese and some juice. It was the best thing I have ever eaten in my life. Then they wanted me to breastfeed Keegan; well Keegan didn't want to breastfeed and I was darn tired. So eventually we had them send Keegan to the nursery. At this point it was 2am; he was in the nursery for about 4 hours and then they brought him back in to nurse again. Keegan did not want to latch on. Then about 7am the procession of nurses and doctors began. We had my doctor, Keegan's doctor, my nurse, Keegan's nurse, and the nurse that made rounds checking blood pressure. As if this wasn't enough they came to deliver breakfast, then someone to came to take my order for lunch, we had to go to discharge class at 9am and then the lady came by wanting to take Keegan newborn pictures. It was just totally exhausting. And throughout the whole ordeal Keegan would still not breastfeed.

Lyle's parents visited that night and the nurses made me start to pump out my colostrum to ensure that I would start to produce milk; this was bottle fed to Keegan. We had to start supplementing with formula because Keegan still hadn't latched on to breastfeed. And this ended day one.

Well Keegan is calling to me; so I will talk about postpartum day 2 and bringing Keegan home in the next blog.