Sam's Birth Story

Baby's Name: Samuel George (Sam)...named after DH's father :-)
Due Date: April 15
Birth Date: April 5
Gestational Age: 38 weeks 4 days
Weight: 6 pounds, 11 ounces
Length: 20 inches
Story: I went in for my regular doctor's appointment that afternoon at 1:00 expecting nothing spectacular. We were scheduled to be induced the following Monday. Everything looked good and was normal, but I mentioned that Sam hadn't been moving very much that day. Just to be safe, my doctor decided to hook us up to the monitor just to check on him. Everything looked good, he was just being quiet. During the monitoring, though, my doctor noticed that I was contracting every few minutes which I had just thought I was having some BH since they weren't painful or even uncomfortable, just my stomach getting hard! She asked if I was ready to have the baby today and sent me down the hall to L&D! I called DH at work and let him know, but told him to take his time because it wasn't a huge rush.

I was taken back to my room and given my gown to change into. L&D was really busy that day (the day before the full moon) and my trip was so unexpected, so it took a while to get fully admitted. I got a temporary bracelet and the nurse put in my IV and hooked me up to the monitors. Since I was positive for group b, I had to get penicillin. They started the penicillin around 3:30 and was finished around 4, so they said they weren't going to do anything until after 8 since ideally the meds need to be in the system for 4 hours. At this point, I was still completely unaware that I was in "labor".

DH came along with DD around 6:30 after getting a few things in order to check on me, but left again not soon after because DD was hungry (go figure, lol). I was starting to get a little uncomfortable...period like cramps so I opted to get my epidural so I wouldn't have to feel any hard contractions if I didn't have to :-) DH and DD came back around 8, and my water was broken around 8:30. We all just hung around and watched TV and joked with my nurse. My dr called around 10 to see how far along I was and I was almost fully dilated so she left her house to come in :-)

When she got there, she checked me and I was ready! She had me do a test push before suiting up but had me stop. Once she was ready, she let me know when to push (couldn't feel any contractions thanks to the epi) and he was out with that one contraction!! Little Sam arrived at 10:32 pm! He started crying right away and I got to hold him on my chest before they took him to clean up.

Sam was a bit cold, so we enjoyed some skin-to-skin time which was wonderful!! Unfortunately, I pushed him out so fast that I bruised his face and burst some blood vessels in his eyes :-( Poor thing looked like he had gotten in a fight but he was still absolutely perfect in every way!

We got to come home Saturday afternoon/evening after Sam got a few last tests to make sure he was good to go. We had to get special permission for him to discharge early since he wasn't 48 hours old yet but we got the thumbs up and got to leave a little after 5!

Things have been pretty wonderful since we got home. He's a great baby. He was a lazy nurser/eater in the beginning, but is now doing really well and has finally started gaining weight. I'm so in love with my little man!!