Rowan Grace Dupre

SHE’S HERE!!!!!

Our beautiful, sweet little angel pie cutie face snuggle bug, is officially here HURRAY!!!!

It’s so hard to believe that less than a week ago, my gorgeous little girl was squirming around in my tummy… and now she’s sitting here with me, cuddled up in her brown and pink polka dot PJ’s, all snuggly and sweet smelling and painfully adorable.

Here was the last belly shot that i took, only a few days before her arrival.

So… i guess it’s time to blog all about her arrival HERE WE GO!

Labor…

Thursday morning, on the 28th of January, i was lying in bed, just minding my own business, when my water went ahead and broke.

That’s right, the thing they say only happens less than 15% of the time, happened. I knew pretty much immediately, although it wasn’t the dramatic miniature flood that seems to be so popular in the movies. I did make it to the bathroom without a significant mess. The fact that it DID break will be the source of the majority of my frustration during the remainder of the labor, but i’ll get to that.

how did my water break first, you ask? GOOD QUESTION!… alright, i know most people will laugh at me, and call me crazy,…. but ladies and gentlemen…. i give you…

Exhibit A:

CHECK OUT THOSE CLAWS!! Especially the incredibly impressive thumbnail. It’s unbelievably long, and irrationally sharpened to a fine point on the end. I think little miss Rowan decided she was ready to make her debut, and poked herself a nice little exit hole to her prison. Again, a crazy theory by some people’s standards, but i’m convinced, nevertheless.

So, water broke, contractions started pretty immediately. Bearable, but definitely contractions!

i woke nick up to let him know, and excitedly tell him that we should just stay in bed and try to get more sleep so we’re as rested as we can be for the labor.

I couldn’t really get back to sleep, once the contractions started. I could lie down through them, but not really sleep, so i got up to time them… 5 minutes apart, and about 1 minute long.

WOOHOO! i was excited i knew it would be a long time still but at least i had some decent contractions going!

Nick had 2 hearings that morning, and i figured there would be PLENTY of time for him to go to them… so he left, and i stayed home and nick called my mom, sister, and midwife on his way to work. I went back to bed to work on practicing pain management through the contractions while they weren’t unbearable.

Nick came home about 10:30, and it was just the two of us for awhile. He started filling up my tub, and i was almost giddy with excitement about the prospect of getting to use it. Self heating… jacuzzi jets… oooh soooo good.

One of the greatest tragedies about this whole thing, was that i never got to use my tub Can i just tell you, this was my white whale. I wanted it so bad i could TASTE IT! we called my midwife, and since my water had broken (DAMNIT!) i couldn’t get in the tub until i was far enough along to be SURE to deliver within a few hours. So, the entire time i labored at home, that tub taunted me. Every now and then it would fire up to keep maintaining the heat of the water, and each time it was like a little voice saying “aaaaadryan….. look at me!….. i’m sooooo warm, and comfortable…. i’ll make your contractions sooooo much better….. come swim in me!…..”

you get the idea.

but sadly, it was not meant to be i needed to get to around 7 or 8 cm before i could get in.

My mom and sister joined us around 1:00, and my favorite sister in the whole world had officially taken over record keeping duties lots of pictures, and facebook updates, and text updates for friends and family. Here is one of the ONLY pictures of the labor time at home where i don’t look both miserable, and enormous.

My midwife came to join us later that afternoon, and about 12 hours after my water broke, after contractions had DEFINITELY gotten longer, harder, and closer together (about every 3-4 minutes, 1 1/2 minutes, and painful!) i got an exam…. 4-5 centimeters

ooooh the disappointment. after 12 hours, and contractions that STARTED at 5 minutes apart, only 4-5 centimeters?! i was almost 100% effaced, and she was definitely moving down very well into position, but she was still posterior. This, and the fact that it was my first labor and baby, is what we have attributed to my slow progress.

Okay, so, it’s now around 5:30 in the evening on Thursday. Time to settle in and just keep working.

fast forward, more of the same, to about 3:00 pm the next day. Still can’t get in the tub, but i’m getting another exam to see how far i am, and i am SO CERTAIN that my midwife is going to say i’m AT LEAST 7 or 8 centimeters, and NOW i can get into the heavenly swirly water of wonderfulness.

Sooo… how far along am i?…..

5 CENTIMETERS!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

At this point, we’re at 34 hours of labor. *sob*. It isn’t that i didn’t think i could keep going, i really think i could have! Here’s where we ran into a problem.

Since my water had broken, and my first exam had been at 5:30 the night before, we were approaching the point where we needed to start thinking about the risk of infection. UGH!

Delivery…

So, we talked about it, and made the decision to go to my backup physician. Not my first choice, obviously, but at this point i had 3 things working against me: 1. my first baby, therefore typically longer and more likely to stall… 2. broken water, risk of infection if labor takes too long… 3. posterior positioning of the baby, means ANOTHER cause of prolonged or stalled labor.

Pitocin it is. Yikes.

here i am, ready to head out. there’s the jacuzzi in the background… *sniffle*

So we leisurely made our way to the hospital, where we were checked in and hooked up to pitocin within the next hour.

HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP!!!!

34 hours of labor at home with no drugs was nothing compared to the couple hours of pitocin contractions at the hospital. NOTHING i tell you! At this point, things moved VERY quickly. No problems or emergencies, babies heart rate never showed any signs of problems, i never got a fever or problems with blood pressure, or temperature, or anything…. However, as is strictly the nature of the hospital setting i’ve decided, these situations are going to feel incredibly RUSHED no matter what the circumstances.

I got dilated to 10 pretty darn quickly, and was pushing by 7:00…. Hard. Took 25 minutes or so, plus an episiotomy (OUCH OUCH OUCH!) and pretty little girl was out beautiful, and perfect, if i do say so myself! **Warning: slightly graphic image to follow…

So, to sum up this part of the hospital experience… i am sooo grateful for my backup physician, without whom i probably would have gotten a doctor who was too concerned with the length of time my water had been broken to allow me to try working towards a vaginal delivery. I’m grateful for the pitocin that helped me get things moving that last bit to the finish line. We had an amazing labor and delivery nurse, and an amazing doctor.

That said… i HATE that we ended up needing to be there. I’m disappointed we couldn’t make it work at home, although to be honest, if that had been the last of it, and both i and my healthy little girl had been able to head home within a few hours at that point, it would have been a lot better.

As it is, the time AFTER the delivery while we were still in the hospital was the worst. It only cemented all the reasons we had been trying to avoid the hospital in the first place.

3 nurses in the room with us at delivery, and one of them decided that Rowan was having respiratory distress and needed to be rushed off to the nursery. The other two looked at each other, and my midwife, and all three of them essentially shook their heads to me and told me there was nothing wrong with her, and they weren’t sure why this nurse had taken it upon herself to make a “case” out of my baby girl…. and so it begins.

We signed a no separation policy form, meaning that wherever the baby went, one of us went with her, so nick followed the nurse (much to her nuisance and dismay) into the nursery to make sure that nothing was done that we didn’t want to have done, and to keep up with anything that was done to her or needed. The nursery nurse was NOT happy about his presence. We were happy he went though, because if he hadn’t she would have had the automatic vit K and hep B vaccine which we didn’t want, but they never ask you about apparently.

We were told she’d be back in half an hour… 2 hours later, i was calling the nursery to bug them asking WHEN we would be able to feed her, since even the literature that THEY HAND OUT talks about how important it is to nurse within 30 minutes of delivery in order to ensure healthy nursing habits from the beginning. But, i guess once they go to the nursery, they assume that all moms don’t care about nursing, because just about all the babies in there had a formula bottle popped in their mouths. And so would Rowan if Nick hadn’t been there to assure them that we wanted to breast feed, and in as much needed her to be back in the room with me for that to happen.

she was FINALLY brought back in, over 2 hours after she left. Had to have the eye goop that we didn’t want, but has been made mandatory by law in the hospital unfortunately. Not that big of a deal, just one more thing about the experience that reminded me yet again why we had wanted to avoid going.

Another thing that was INCREDIBLY annoying, was that they had a 2 person maximum for visitors in the hospital rooms at any time…. TWO!!!!! The reason for this they said, was the SWINE FLU! yes, the swine flu people. They are concerned that more than 2 people in the room at one time means that you have a higher risk of getting swine flu… thanks to our President labeling it a federal national outbreak situation, this became mandatory in all hospitals, at least that’s what was communicated to me. So, tell me this,… does it make sense that having 2 people in the room as a limit reduce the risk, but you are allowed to switch people out, as long as it’s no more than 2 at a time?????… insanity people.

That meant, at the birth, only Nick and my midwife were there for the labor part, and my mom and sister, who had been supporting me and taking care of me for the previous 34 hours were not allowed in the room. When i got to the pushing stage, my midwife left so that my mom could come in, so it was nick and my mom. My sister didn’t get to join and to top it all off, they BAN any video cameras due to liability issues. So, you can only have 2 people at one time, and if you want to record the experience for the REST of your family that isn’t allowed in the room at all during delivery,… sorry. You’re out of luck…. Gotta just LOVE the hospital.

So, once we finally got to our second room and finally got our baby back, we began the visitor shuffle with family to come in and visit and see the baby. That was fun, let me tell you.

It would have been fine if we could have just passed our tests, and gone home. But that was not meant to be.

First we had to stay a full 24 hours. Policy.

That means we were waiting patiently i feel like, for the next day to leave at around 6:00.

But first, they had to do a PKU test on the baby. not something we had wanted to do immediately, since all the studies show it’s much more accurate to wait a week or two, AFTER the baby has had a chance to nurse for awhile and build up their immune system. But, if we left without this, it would be against medical advice, which then introduces complications with insurance coverage.

So, results are back,… Rowan’s bilirubin is slightly elevated…. This means another 12 – 24 more hours at the hospital. Another night, for no reason.

When we asked what we should do, they said make sure she keeps eating and pooping… which she had been doing like a champ ever since we had gotten her back from the nursery. So i ask you,… how is this not something we could have done from home??? what special hospital equipment did they have that was going to make it easier to feed her and make her poop? *sigh*

So, we had to wait until the following morning, and everything always takes longer than they say, just the nature of the game. We got home around 10:00, FINALLY, and baby girl slept just about the rest of the day, her first time to sleep so well.

So that’s my story!! Nick is going to post his experience from his perspective, and then i’ll give a more up beat update from the time since we’ve been home. It’s been WONDERFUL for the most part and i have TONS of pictures!!! so, stay tuned! …

Here’s my gorgeous little girl…

adryan