Since this little boy decided he didn't want to come on his own I was scheduled for an induction on Sunday March 24th. Nick and I spent the day cleaning, resting, and overall just being extremely anxious. Here's one last shot of my pregnant belly!
We checked in to the hospital at 8:45 pm and by 9:30 pm we were in our room and they were giving me my IV. They first tried in my right hand but blew the vein so they had to try again in my left hand. I hate needles and getting the IV was probably the worst part of labor.
At 10:15 pm they gave me the pill cyotec to induce labor. I was dilated to a 1 and having some mild contractions. Stan, Camie, Taylor, and Megan came up to the hospital to see us so Taylor could take some pictures and video. While they were in our room I could feel my contractions getting stronger and stronger.
By 1:30 am I was dilated to a 3. I was feeling my contractions pretty well so I got out of bed and would hold underneath my belly and sway back and forth. It was hard to labor at the hospital because I was hooked up to the IV and the monitors so I couldn't move very far past the bed. After awhile I was getting tired of standing so I decided to lay back down in the bed. My contractions were getting more and more painful so the nurse gave me some pain medication through my IV. The medication took the edge off the contractions and let me rest for about 20 minutes before the medication wore off. Finally at 3:00 am I was exhausted and my contractions were coming harder and faster so I threw in the towel and called for an epidural thinking I was maybe dilated to a 5. By the time they administered the epidural at 3:30 am I was dilated to an 8 with a plus 2 station (not quite sure what that means but that is what they told us). And then 20 minutes later I was dilated to a 10 and the contractions were coming harder and faster and it was putting the baby in stress so they gave me a shot to slow them down. I was then able to rest from 4:00 am to 5:00 am.
At 5:20 am the nurse came in and told me it was time to start pushing. They got me set up and I started pushing but my contractions weren't coming very regularly and the monitor wasn't giving them a very good reading so it was hard to tell if I was really having one. To speed up my contractions they hooked me up to pitocin but then that would put the baby in stress so they would take me off and my contractions would go away again. I had pushed for about an hour when Dr. McCulloch showed up a little after 6:00 am. After almost another hour of pushing Dr. McCulloch told me that I was going to have to have a c-section because the baby just wasn't dropping. Soon after she told me this the baby's heart rate dropped so all of the sudden I had people all around hooking me up to monitors, moving me from the bed to another bed and wheeling me down the hall. I was nervous that I was going to feel the incision but one of the doctors assured me that if I felt anything at all he could have me heavily sedated in 10 seconds.
I kept my eyes closed and just continued to breath deeply through the oxygen mask in order to stay calm. I remember feeling a lot of pressure in my stomach like someone was pushing against my organs and then I felt a lot of tugging and seconds later the feeling of my stomach deflating. At 7:24 am Greyson Reed Palmer was born weighing 7 lbs 1 oz and was 19.5 inches long. He had been in so much stress that he came out completely green covered in meconium. He was so green that one of the doctors in the room made a comment about having just seen the movie Oz The Great and Powerful. I didn't hear him cry at first because they had to hurry and clean him off and suction out his mouth. When I did finally hear him cry I had tears running down the side of my face. I couldn't see him but that cry was the most surreal feeling in my life. After what felt like forever Nick brought him over so I could see him.
I wasn't upset about having a c-section but the one thing I didn't like about it was I was unable to see Greyson come in to this world and I didn't get to see them weigh and measure him.
While I was being stitched and stapled up Nick went with Greyson to the nursery where he had some tests done. When we finally got up to our room on the 3rd floor we had a bunch of missed calls and text messages. Everyone wanted to know what was going on, especially my mom and sisters who last heard I was dilated to an 8 at 3:30 in the morning and it was now almost 10:00 am. A nurse came in our room and told us that Greyson's blood sugar level was at a 48 and 45 is the lowest they want to see it so they tested him again and he was down in the 20's so they took him down to the NICU where he had to have an IV in his head because he wasn't eating on his own. They figured because he came out covered in meconium he probably swallowed some of it which was upsetting his stomach.
Nick and I would go down to the NICU as often as we could to be with him and at night we would go down and feed him. After spending the rest of Monday and all day Tuesday he was released Wednesday morning and brought up to our room.
Dr. McCulloch suggested that we stay at the hospital one more day so we had Greyson in our room with us all day Wednesday and overnight to Thursday. As much as I wanted to get out of the hospital, it was nice to stay one more day and know that if anything were to happen we had help right outside our door.
Then on Thursday March 28th we were released and it was time to go home!
And life with Greyson began...
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