Xander Week 1 – It’s A Boy!
September 28, 2006
First, I would like to apologize for my lack of posts in the past few weeks. As you may have guessed, I finally had my baby. So, for the squeemish, let me warn you that the rest of this post will have some details regarding the labor and delivery. The next post will be more warm and fuzzy about the joys of new parenthood.
I started having contractions on September 19th at 4:30 in the morning. They woke me up, and did indeed feel like I was going to have a very strong bowel movement. I spent the next hour examining this new discomfort, and realizing that I could feel it about every 7 minutes. Around 5:30 I woke Zach up and told him I didn’t think he’d be going to work that day. He and I timed the contractions for another few hours, and I eventually called the hospital to let them know I would likely be in to see them sometime that morning. Around 9:30 am Zach and I went to the hospital. They checked me and said that my cervix had thinned, but I was only about 1 centimeter dilated, so I should go home and make myself comfortable and come back when the contractions were closer together. (On a side note, when we had timed the contractions at home, they were about 3 minutes apart. When we got to the hospital, they had slowed to 6 minutes apart – very strange…) So, I spent the rest of Tuesday hanging out with my sister and having contractions. Zach went to work for a while, and came home around 4:00 pm. About 7:30 pm we went back to the hospital. They checked me again – I was at about 3 cm dilated. They gave me some Ambien to sleep and sent me home. I slept until about 4:00 am on Wednesday, the 20th, and then went back to the hospital – to stay this time.
So, on Wednesday, after laboring for about 24 hours, I was admitted to the hospital. Some time that morning the pain got strong enough for me to ask for an IV drug (Nubane – it came highly recommended from other mothers, and it worked quite well for me). As the labor progressed (slowly), I received more IV drugs, and eventually those wore off, and the contractions were getting worse, so I asked for an epidural. The epidural they gave me also worked wonderfully, and was supposed to last about 2 hours. Just as the 2 hours was running out, my doctor decided that I was not progressing along fast enough, and had been at about the same dilation (8-9 cm) for the past several hours. So, they decided to give me Pictocin to help speed up the contractions, which also makes them more intense. After about an hour of excruciating contractions (since the epidural had worn off and the Pictocin kicked in), I still had not made any progress, so we decided to go ahead with a ceserian section. The doctor was willing to wait another hour or so to see if I progressed at all, but I was too exhausted (we were at hour 35 of the labor by then) and didn’t want to wait any longer.
So, they called together the surgical team, unhooked me from the monitors, and wheeled me downstairs to the operating room. I received my second epidural – this one made me entirely numb from the waist down) and then Zach and I sat behind a curtain while they cut me open and removed the baby – a boy 
We named him Alexander Grady, and are calling him Xander. Apparently Xander had been facing the wrong way – “sunny side up” and had refused to move into the birth canal, hence the c-section. At 6:39 pm on Wednesday September 20th Xander was born, after approximately 38 hours of labor. It was a very long few days, and an emotional rollercoaster for both Zach and myself, but as every day passes, and the discomfort from the c-section gets less, I am more and more pleased with the results, and I have no doubt that in the next few years Xander will have a sibling.
To answer the question that everyone has been asking me, yes, I’m still pregnant. The baby is apparently still not ready to come out. I have finally been having some Braxton Hicks contractions. My sister-in-law was able to give me a good description of them – I don’t know what a tightening uterus feels like, but I can feel the muscles in my stomach tighten occasionally. As my sister-in-law would say, it feels like your stomach gets hard, like a basketball in your stomach. It is actually interesting to feel the outside of your belly when this happens, because it really is hard. For me, I start to feel these contractions in my lower abdomen, which then moves up to the rest of my belly. I’m not sure when these contractions started, since I wasn’t really certain what I was feeling. They don’t really hurt, though they can be a little uncomfortable at times.
Well, the little one is now technically considered “full term.” From what I understand, most of the development is done, and the baby is pretty much just adding weight from here on out – which, from my point of view, is a rather scary thought. My sister-in-law, who has 3 children of her own, told me a few months ago that I would eventually hit a point where I just did not want to move because it would take so much effort. A few weeks ago I thought I had hit that point. I was wrong. I have definitely hit it now – whether I’m sitting at home or at my desk at work, if I need to get up to do something, I hesitate now. I find myself actually saving up tasks so that I’ll only have to get up once (use the bathroom, print something, photocopy something and get the mail all in one trip, etc.). When I’m at home I find myself asking others to get things for me more frequently. Everyone has been great about that, but I still feel like a lazy slob sitting on the couch having people wait on me. Even walking up stairs or lifting my legs to put on pants requires so much effort these days. The pressure from the baby dropping makes my whole lower section ache every time I move. I have a suspicion this baby is pretty comfy and isn’t coming out early or on time, which means I’ve got even more weeks of this discomfort to look forward to. While I can tell myself that labor will be a temporary state, and that I will survive, at this point it feels like pregnancy is going to last forever – that I’ve got a permanent condition of “basketball belly.” So, please send me happy thoughts of a 6.5 pound baby, and a delivery that happens sooner rather than later 
So, my nursery is finally complete. It’s been mostly ready to go for about a month now, but we hadn’t put up the wallpaper boarder. Of course, I was silly and only ordered one role, so when my very kind mother-in-law came up to put on the boarder while I was at work, she wasn’t able to finish the room, as she ran out of wallpaper… So, I ordered more, and then we finished the project this past weekend. I am quite pleased with the way the room turned out. As you can see from the picture, we’ve got the crib all set and ready to go whenever the little one is big enough to sleep in there. We’ve got a single bed in the room so whatever parent is on night duty can catch some Z’s or cuddle with the baby, there are two bureaus stocked with clothes, blankets, etc. There is a shelf in the closet that is the start of what will hopefully be an extensive child’s library. The glider is just waiting to rock a baby, and we ended up with diapers galore (yay!) I’ve put some in the nursery, some in our room, and some downstairs with the bathing supplies, so we should be all set there as well. Hopefully the little one will like the theme that I’ve picked out for them. Even if I had known the sex of the baby, I still think I would have gone with this theme because I like it so much, and it’s not overwhelmingly pink or blue, or any one color. I’m sure at some point our kid will want to re-do the room. Hopefully by then our bedroom plans will have been completed, and we can move the baby (then a much larger child) into our old room, and redecorate in some way that they like (and something that I can stand…) But for now, I’m just happy to have this room, which feels very calm and peaceful right now, done.
I know I’ve said before that I’m ready to be done being pregnant. I really mean it this time. My bag for the hospital is packed and in the car, along with the car seat and my brand new breast pump. My belly button has popped out, so I feel like my “turkey timer” has popped – the baby must be done cooking by now. The nursery is ready, the bassinette is set up in our bedroom, along with a changing station. All of the bath supplies are in a basket just waiting to be used – I’m not kidding you when I tell you I’m ready. Of course I’m definitely not looking forward to the pain that comes along with labor, but I can’t wait to meet the kid!