Introducing Knox

In case you hadn't heard I had my baby.  He made his appearance 3 weeks early and that was ok with me...except for the hell on earth that I experienced for 3 days prior to his birth.  In the end it was all good though and now I will proceed to tell the story in detail of his birth.  I put the announcement at the top so you can just get the general details and skip the (lengthy and words like uterus filled) post that is coming. Now that I do blog books I gotta get it all down!

It all started Thursday May 5th.  I woke up feeling a little sick to my stomach and having contractions.  I remembered feeling this same way when I went into labor with Eli. I just knew that I was going to have the baby that day.  Stewart and I went and delivered some thank you cards to neighbors so that we could keep labor going.  Stewart was timing my contractions on the walk and they were like 2 minutes apart.  I figured that it wasn't true labor because they weren't painful enough to be that close together but by the end of the walk I was feeling VERY sick.  I felt achy and feverish and had a crampy pain in my uterus that hurt bad.  They contractions were still going on so we went into labor and delivery.

The nurses checked me in. I was running a fever and was dehydrated so they drew blood to check for infection and then gave me a few bags of IV fluid.  My contractions were irregular and most weren't even registering on the monitor.  After 2 hours of being there the Dr. who was on call for my OB decided that I had the flu and that I could go home.  The instructions were really lame they were things like "your white blood count is elevated so that can be because of the flu or labor" and "an elevated fever can be because of infection or because of labor."  So we left knowing that I was either sick or in labor.

Twenty-four hours later I was still sick and knew that it wasn't the flu.  I just kept saying "this isn't right! This isn't the flu." I still had a fever and felt horrible. That night my fever spiked and didn't go away with Tylenol so I called my OB, who was back in town, and he said that if it didn't go down with my next dose of Tylenol to call him. It did go down so I suffered through another night feeling horrible.

Saturday I woke up feeling a little better. I didn't want to die so that was good. I was supposed to go to a wedding shower but didn't think I should risk getting sick there. By 3:00 I wanted to die again and had terrible pain in my uterus again.  Finally, I told Stewart to call my Dr. and tell him that I was going to instacare or Labor and Delivery but that I was going somewhere.  My Dr. told him to take me into L&D and he'd be there in 40 minutes.  I think we got to L&D about 4:30 and they put me in the outpatient room. My Dr. came in and checked me about 5:00.  He could tell that I had a uterine infection and decided to induce me since a uterine infection can be dangerous to the baby.

They took me over to a good delivery room and got the pitocin and antibiotics started at 5:30. I was hoping for a Mother's day baby but Knox was in a hurry to get here and made his appearance at 9:57 pm.  My mom and Stacy where in the delivery room and Stewart's mom and sister Laurie were on their way but Knox was too fast so they missed the birth.

The funny thing about the labor was that I was really nervous to get the epidural. When I had one with Eli I absolutely HATED the recovery.  I had Eli a little before midnight and the next morning still couldn't walk by myself or feel my legs.  I hated it so much.  So when the anesthesiologist, who went to high school with Stewart, said that he doses the epidurals so that people can move their legs I figured it would be alright.  At first I could move my legs so that was great but I also could feel everything on the left side of my body!  Because of my scoliosis (according to the anesthesiologist) the catheter had probably aimed itself to the right side of my body and so the medicine was all going to the right side of my body.

He had me lie on my left side and he gave me a bolus dose of the epidural medicine.  That worked great for my left side and the pain went away but it also made my right side totally numb. I couldn't move my right leg at all. I just was so annoyed and kept saying "this is what I didn't want to happen!" So I'm thinking that I'm going to be numb until they release me from the hospital.  I asked the anesthesiologist if he'd turn off the epidural drip since I was so numb.  He said that he would but that he didn't recommend it because the bolus dose was stronger medicine but it also didn't last as long.  He said that it would wear off in an hour. I didn't believe him but I let him keep the drip going anyway. That all happened about 8:30 pm.  Guess what happened?  An hour later the bolus dose wore off and I could feel everything on the left side of my body.  The contractions were so painful!  Mostly because it's freaking labor and also the uterine infection was very painful too.  I was fully dilated and was worried because it hurt and I didn't want to feel myself tear but I also didn't want to not be able to move my right leg again.

Finally the pain was so bad that I relented and said that I wanted another bolus dose of epidural medicine. I turned to my left side so he could administer it and had a contraction and felt the baby's head start it's way down.  oh man! It hurt and felt so freaking weird. (But only on the left side.) I yelled, "I feel his head he's coming!" and "I'm not pushing but he's coming anyway." and "I need to push." The nurses started getting everything ready and my Dr. started getting his gear on.  Basically they didn't believe me at all.  They weren't hurrying or anything!  I had another contraction and yelled things like "why would anyone go natural!" and "I need to push!"

By the next contraction the bolus was starting to work and I could feel a little pain and a lot of pressure and that pressure was the baby's head coming out of my hoo-haa.  They finally got me into position and the nurse was like "oh yeah, there's his head." HELLO!  That's what I was saying all along.  By the next contraction the Dr. wasn't quite ready so he held Knox's head in!  That was like a form of torture. Finally Dr. Ward was ready and told me to push on my next contraction. I said that I wasn't having a contraction but that I could push right now.  He said ok and after 2 or 3 pushes Knox was born!

It was a nice birth and it was very fast.  Since I had a fever I never got the chills and shakes that I got with Eli. Of course I had a fever and didn't feel very great either. I felt much better by the next morning though.

We had a little scare with Knox and he had to spend all day Sunday in the nursery.  He wasn't keeping his temperature up and his white blood count was elevated.  He also was having some breathing issues.  We got him Sunday evening but he spent Sunday night in the nursery so he could be watched.  Luckily he didn't contract any infection and his white blood count came down on it's own.

We have been just so happy with this little guy.  He has made life great.