We Welcome into the World - Thomas Ryan

Thomas Ryan Charlton

1/25/12 - 5:25pm

6 lbs 7 oz, 18.5 inches

Our newest blessing has arrived and he's absolutely perfect!

Yesterday started out like any other day, I had a suspicion that he was going to be making his debut but overall I was feeling great!

I had my regular appointment with Dr. K at 10:45am and Henry decided he would come along. He doesn't always come to my appointments just because it's hard with work and not always needed. We had a babysitter lined up because taking him to these appointments is not fun for either of us and I take advantage and typically run errands after.

We had to wait a little bit at the appointment but that was fine - gave us an excuse to catch up on life :) The nurse called us back to do my vitals - weight: down another lb, BP: 120/76 (not horrible) and baby's HR: 134. All good thus far. Dr. K walked in 10ish minutes later and checked my cervix which was at 3 cm and completely effaced - so he stretched me a little bit to get things going. While talking about my weight loss (3 lbs over the past 3 weeks) he brought up that he was on service tomorrow (1/26/12) and would do an elective induction if that's what I thought was best. The weight loss was a slight red flag to Dr. K and us. Before talking further about this, he decided to hook me up to the Fetal Non Stress Test just to make sure baby was 'happy' in utero. I was having contractions every 5-7 minutes but baby's HR wasn't responding to them and kept a HR of 128 the entire time. The great thing was that the baby's HR wasn't decreasing with the contractions (meaning they were stressed) but the HR wasn't spiking either.

Dr. K decided to send me over to L & D to have them watch me for just a little bit longer. (The office is in the hospital so it's seriously a 5 minute walk to L&D) The very nice nurse hooked me up to the monitor and got my vitals once again. This is where it all began - it was like deja vu. My first BP was 138/101 (YIKES) and they were steadily going up - not by huge increments but still scary. This was when I was advised that we weren't going home. Because of my history the doctor wasn't going to play any games. Luckily my labs came back fine so I wasn't in a critical situation.

By this time it was already 1:30/1:45ish and we moved over to the room I would labor and deliver in. At 2:00 pm the doctor came in, talked a little and at 2:06pm broke my water - it was for real at this point! They started the evil drug called Pitocin at 2:15pm and since I had no intentions of getting an epidural, they started it at the lowest dose. Typically you increase the dose every 20-30 minutes, but I guess my body works well with it and within 20 minutes my contractions were 2 minutes apart. They weren't too painful, just uncomfortable. Once the Pitocin was started, Henry ran home to grab our bags (I was going to put them in the car that morning, but feared it would be a bad omen so they were all ready to go by the door!) Our house is about 25 minutes from the hospital and my contractions were getting stronger and stronger. By the time Henry got back (3:45pm) my contractions were 1 1/2 minutes apart and pretty uncomfortable.

Around 4:30pm my contractions were insane, I was having so much pressure and I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it naturally. I had the doctor check me and I was still 4 cm, which was what I was when she first checked me at 2:06pm. All I kept thinking was that I wasn't making any progress and it was SO painful. I talked to Henry around 4:50ish and we decided that doing an epidural was the best option. I called the nurse and told her, she then called the anesthesiologist. He was putting someone to sleep so he would be up as soon as he could. By this time my contractions were so painful that I was almost in tears, I was super sweaty and I gave Henry carpal tunnel syndrome from squeezing his hands! The nurse checked me, I was still a 4 and couldn't believe it. The longest 22 minutes went by and the pressure was tremendous, I couldn't help but push so I had her check me again. In just 22 minutes I went from 4 cm to 10 cm and told her to forget about the epidural - it was almost over. She called the doctor, he was in the room within 1 minute, I had 1 contraction and pushed, had another contraction and pushed again and that's when we met Thomas Ryan. I seriously only pushed through 2 contractions (1 1/2 minutes) and he was here - AMAZING!!!

He nursed immediately for 45 minutes and then was sent over the warmer because his temp was a little low. They were having a hard time getting him to retain his temp so he spent the night in the NICU :( but were great with coming and getting me to nurse him when needed. By 2 am he was doing a pretty good job maintaining his temp so they were able to bring him to me, but he still had to go back just to be monitored.

The neonatologist just left my room and all is good with him. He's feeding well, and maintaining his temp so I'm just waiting for them to bring him.

Henry also went home to get my parents and the little man so it's going to get busy in here very soon. I'm savoring the quiet but can't wait to see my little guys - together!!

God is good