My Anthony

As I sit here gazing at my sweet baby boy, I realized that he is one week old. ... ... How that first week has flown by! I already knew from Jenny that time goes much to quickly, but somehow this first week seems extra short...perhaps because I spent half of it in the hospital?

I had promised a birth story and more pictures by the weekend, which has obviously passed, so I thought I should at least post something!! I'm waiting for my sister-in-law to be able to send me the pictures I took on her camera...no small task, as I took over 100 I think. :) However, now that "my girlies" are home, I'm hoping to do a photo shoot with my sister and then I'll have lots to share!

As for the birth story, I have decided that it will just be short and basic... Birth is obviously a very personal thing, and much of this one feels to raw to share on a blog along with any recipe or day-to-day event. However, I will share some of it!

We went into the hospital Monday evening to start the induction. I was thrilled to be in my favorite room (I got to see most of them with the weekly non-stress tests). It was big and open, with a sky light and a beautiful picture of a mother nursing her baby. We settled in with "So You Think You Can Dance" and HGTV....since we don't have TV at home, it was fun to just "veg". They started the pitocen around 7:00 the next morning. The night before stuff had started contractions and they were about 2-3 minutes apart, but they weren't very noticeable/strong. At about 8:30 they broke my water (the single most unpleasant part of child birth, IMO) and the contractions started to pick up. Since I was on the pitocen I had to stay on the monitors to make sure Anthony was doing alright. I would have done much better if I had been able to move around more (shower, or labor in my favorite position -on the toilet! lol). All in all I did pretty well. The contractions picked up to about 1.5-2 minutes apart (I had my back to the clock on purpose!) and kept getting stronger. They were pretty much just "nice, normal" contractions, not the back labor I had with Jenny...however with a baby that big there had to be some back labor, and when that started to pick up I freaked out that I was in for another Jenny-labor (18 hours of pitocen-induced back labor...dreadful to say the least!), so I asked for the same pain killer that got me through the worst of Jenny's labor...some lovely thing called nubain (guessing on the spelling!). I'm rather proud that I've gotten through both labors without an epidural! :) It took me forever to get through the early stages of labor...but once I finally got past 4 cm things went fairly quickly...

The nursed checked me and said I was at 6cm. While she was there anyway, I asked to be "unplugged" so I could use the bathroom. As I mentioned before, that's my favorite place to labor...it relieves a great deal of the pain, and really seems to speed things up. I stayed there for two contractions and had a third on the way back to the bed. My OB was in there at that point and wanted to check me to see where I was by her measure...she said that often someone else's "6" will be her 4 so she wanted to see. Sure, why not? The nurse told her she had just checked me and I was 6...the doctor checked me and declared me at 8cm. (I told you the toilet works!) I think that it was about 6:00 at that point and way past time for her to go home...she'd been on call for four days and had stayed an extra hour and a half to see if she could "catch me"...duty to friends and family finally called however, and as soon as the next doctor arrived, she wished me well and went home. All through the last 6 or so hours of labor, something very interesting happened. I could only hear Joseph. The nurses/doctor had to put there hand on my arm and lean over me to get my attention. This led to some confusion on my part, when Joe would relay things they had said to me. Things like "the contractions are great, you're in really active labor now" (I asked him how he would know, and told him he didn't have to just say things to encourage me...I was going to have the baby anyway...*ahem*) and most puzzling to me, he told me I could start pushing if I wanted to... how could he tell me that? did the nurses know? would they care? I didn't really want to push...I was almost resisting it, but he said to push, so I did...unsure as to whether or not I was supposed to "hide it" from the nurses (ah the dark corners of a laboring mother's mind!). I quickly decided that I didn't care if they knew and had Joe push on my back when I pushed. Due to the *large* head of Mr. Anthony, he stayed pretty high up until it was "time"...no gradual decent (thankfully!!) I was just pushing through a contraction and suddenly I realized his head had moved down and it was time for him to be born. The nurse asked me what I was feeling, wanting a number for their 1-10 scale...the only word I could think, let alone get out was "Head!" She quickly went to get the doctor. ;-) That was about 6:30...when his head came down I knew right away that he was very big...I would have thought breach, but they had done two quick ultrasounds so I knew he was head down. I was laying on my side and I was stuck. I didn't want to be on my side. Tanya (the dr who delivered Anthony) said I could deliver on my side, I said no I couldn't...she wanted to check me to see "where I was" (I told her something about a head, lol) she offered to do that while I stayed on my side, and I tried to explain that my hips were full of baby and I couldn't lift my leg! I'm sure it wasn't nearly so clear as that...probably more like an urgently grunted "No!"...but I did my best. With the help of Joe, Tanya and the nurse (she was fantastic, but I can't remember her name right now), I finally managed to go from my side to my back. I honestly didn't think I could do it. My mom said that it was from his big-ol head pushing on nerves and numbing them...which I guess is a good thing, right? Everything else happened pretty quickly. I have to say that when I had my *1* prenatal check up with Tanya, I really didn't like her. However, I'm really grateful that I had her deliver this baby...she was very competent and handled things exactly as I would have asked, had it been a conversation sort of time. As soon as she realized how big his head was she massaged it with baby shampoo to make it slide out easier (sounds odd, but I'll take that over an episiotomy any day!!). His left shoulder got stuck, but she was able to loop his right arm out to make him slide right out... it was all very strange...he was born before I knew that his head was out! Everyone in the room was very impressed by him..and me!-including me. ;-) I am very proud to say that I gave birth to such a big, handsome boy in after about 20 minutes of real pushing, without needing a single stitch. I will never be annoyed with my "to big" hips again!!

Anthony is doing beautifully...nursing on my lap as we "speak". He has even more hair now then he did a week ago, and even got is first shampoo tonight! Even Jenny kept coming over to smell him! He is wearing size 0-3 months, with not a newborn sized item in the stack. Nurses like a pro, which is wonderful after how hard it was with Jenny. And te very best part...is actually two things...First, he already knows me and starts to calm down as soon as I pick him up...the second isthat last night he gave me his first three real baby smiles!! Happy Mama to say the least!

I don't have time to proof read this, so I'm sorry about any typos...typing and nursing isn't as simple as it may sound!!