Lucky

We are home from the hospital and so in love.  Despite the lack of sleep over the past few days, I have a sense of energy that is fed by my excitement for Ryder's arrival.  More than excitement, my gratitude and in-awe-ness.  There is nothing more precious than a newborn.  I know that more than ever now that I've experienced how quickly Teryn's newness came and left.  I don't want to miss a single second of this stage and I find myself watching every facial expression, feeling every inch of beyond-this-world soft skin, savoring every innocent cry, and smelling every whiff of sweet newborn goodness- - -part of me wishing he will never change.  He really is a little piece of heaven.

As with Teryn's birth, Tyson took notes throughout my labor and Ryder's delivery.  It's fun to see things from his perspective, so here's the story in his words.  I'll add my two bits in parenthesis as we go along.

Thursday, February 23, 2012
6:30 am: Left the house.  G-man called as we were leaving.  Met G-man here because he had 7:00 meeting w/ hospital board.  Got checked in.
7:05 am: In room 5.  Nurse questions about Rubella work, whether was done or not.  Dani changed into gown and belly tube.  Urine sample.
7:25 am: Jennifer the nurse.  Started IV first try.  Skin around it is very tender.  Lots of questions and paperwork.
7:40 am: Contractions 10 minutes apart.  Can't feel them.
8:00 am: Started watching ESPN and Angels & Demons.
8:30 am:  Dr. Williams broke water.  Meconium tinged water - pea soup green. 3 cm dilated. (The presence of meconium in my amniotic fluid was alarming, but it wasn't severe enough to take immediate action.  Medical staff just needed to take extra precautions to ensure nothing would harm the baby.)
9:00 am: Went for a walk until 10:00.
9:30 am: Beginning to feel a little nauseous.
10:20 am:  Contractions 6-7 minutes apart.  Napping.
11:00 am.:  Begin walking again.
11:10 am:  Dani leaked everywhere!
12:00 pm:  Quit walking - feet hurt.  Dilated to a 4.
12:15 pm:  Contractions starting to hurt.  Too much GAC.  (As in Great American Country.  The songs "All Your Life" by The Band Perry and "I Got Nothin" by Darius Rucker will always take me back to that day in the hospital =0)
1:00 pm:  Pitocin.  Really painful contractions.  4-5 minutes apart.  (They gave me the option to continue walking to keep things progressing but I was ready to get the show on the road so I asked for Pitocin.  It got things rollin' real quick- -really painful contractions is right!)
1:30 pm:  "3 kids is fine with me!"  - Dani's own words.  (He wants 3, I want 5.  In that moment, the pain definitely had me convinced that 3 was enough!)
1:40 pm:  Doubled Pitocin to 6 ml/hr.
2:00 pm:  Dilated to a 5.  Epidural Doc came.  (Hallelujah!!  I made it to 9 cm with Teryn before asking for an epidural but I was begging for one before I even reached 5 cm this time.  I swear it's because the pain was that bad, but Tyson thinks it's because I went into Teryn's birth convinced I would make it without one but I went into Ryder's birth knowing I'd get one.  There's probably validity in that.  After experiencing 9 cm of dilation with Teryn and then receiving such relief from the epidural I was 100% converted and I will never go without one again.  Anesthesiologists are the angels of the hospital in my book.)
2:15 pm:  Dilated to a 6.  100% effaced.  Has contractions about every 2 minutes.  Almost no pain.  Numb.  Gave Ephedrin to bring up blood pressure from 83/64.
3:10 pm:  Ellen Degeneres Show. 
3:45 pm:  Dani is feeling a lot of pressure during contractions, like Ryder is huge.  Feels like he is going to explode out of her sides.  Has a desire to push during contractions.  (Seriously, every time my uterus contracted it felt like he would just rip right out of it.  More than his size, I think it's because he was sprawled out and I could feel him on every side.  I really wanted to push which was a new experience.  I never felt that way with Teryn.  When it came time to push him it was more of an artificial constipation push but I could feel the real need to push Ryder.)
3:50 pm:  Ryder is down.  Jennifer is calling Dr. Williams to come deliver soon.  (Dr. Williams has clinic hours in Duchesne on Thursdays so once I reached a 6 the nurses had no reason to check me until they knew he was on his way back.  When they checked me at this point Jennifer could feel Ryder's head and immediately called for Dr. Williams to come.)
4:00 pm:  Delivered - pushed 3 times in 3 minutes.  Had a true knot in the U-cord.  Dr. Williams said we should call him "Lucky."  Had a birthing party.  5 students, 3 nurses, 1 doctor, Dani, Tyson, Ryder.  Ryder latched on well to the breast.  (Two labor nurses and the nursery nurse showed up with Dr. Williams.  They walked in and I announced, "it's a party!"  One of the nurses told me, "it can be if you want it to be.  We have 5 nursing students out there that would love to join!"  so we told them to come on in!  I pushed for 2-3 minutes, twice during one contraction then once again during the next contraction and he was here!)

Born at 3:53 pm, weighing 8 lbs 1 oz and 19 inches long.

So what's a "True Knot" in the umbilical cord?  It looks like this:

Our little man had twisted himself in and out of his cord while he was still small enough to do so.  Fortunately, his cord was long enough to allow him slack until he was delivered.  Had it been shorter he could have tugged it to the point of (obvious) problems.  Just the thought of that makes me really, really sick to my stomach.  I read more about true knots when we got home and found out that they occur in only 1 in 2,000 pregnancies.  I don't know how many of those turn out to be fatal but I'm beyond grateful that we weren't one of those statistics. 

Considering that, in addition to the meconium in the amniotic fluid, Dr. Williams said we couldn't have had more perfect timing getting him out.  "Lucky" will be a great nickname for years to come.