Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Labor Day(s)...the final chapter...or is it???

This is the last tale of gore and horror and beautiful child birth, I promise! For now at least....

After working incredibly hard to shed the massive amount of baby weight I gained with Bella, we decided to do it all again! My abdomen hates me. Anyhow, Trey's story should be the shortest, I think....

I'm going to go out on a limb here and give in to an old wives tale. I totally think that women are mostly belly with boys and big all over with girls. Of course, I concede exception to this rule. But, for me it's absolutely true. Really the only part of me that got huge with Trey was the belly. I do have an impressive picture of the belly that maybe someday I'll share. It's not a bare belly picture, so don't panic. I wouldn't do that to you.

I LOVE being pregnant. Sure it has it's aches and pains, but I still love it. I can say that, though, because I've never had a difficult one. (Praise God!) This was finally the pregnancy that I beat the glucose test! Both times before I failed the initial test and had to go back for the awful 5 hour, 4 million vials of blood drawn test. Not this time! You won't get me, Gestational Diabetes! Ha!

Again, great pregnancy! Trey was due May 5th. This time around, though, my doctors were encouraging me to schedule an induction. Their theory was that since Bella came early, this one surely would and who knows? Maybe labor would not last 16 hours, and what would I do if I were stuck with the kids, yada, yada, yada. I guess they kinda hate it when you give birth NOT in a hospital. I declined the offer of Petocin in favor of letting nature take its course. Jay's never too far away, we're surrounded by family and friends...and I didn't want to get my hopes up about a short labor. At my 36 week visit, I asked the doctor about the baby coming early and she said she was absolutely sure that labor would start early...in fact, go home right now, pack your bag, get your babysitter on speed dial and wait for it, 'cause it's coming. Whoa!!! So, I did all that in addition to telling everyone that the baby would be coming any day. I waited, and waited, and waited...oh, is that a contraction? No. Keep waiting. A couple of times, I did have regular contractions, but then I would get serious about tracking them so they went away. Hmph....April ended with no baby. Surely since Bella was a week early, something would happen, right? Nope. I walked a trench through our neighborhood trying to coax this little one out. Nothing. The doctors were kind enough to look sheepish at my 40 week appointment and baffled at why this one wouldn't come out...I was already 5cm dilated for crying out loud (which I may have). May 5th came and went and my midwife scheduled an induction for Mother's Day, May 11th at 11:00 that night.

This time, my midwife was betting her mortgage that once the induction started, it wouldn't be more than 2 hours. Okay, likely story. Off to the hospital we went for the induction. Once again, with Jay's momma in toe. Everything did happen rather quickly as far as hooking up IV's, monitors, drips, etc. Everything except for the labor part. We waited and waited...and I swear it was the hottest room in America. I was so hot and uncomfortable, then I looked over and Jay and his mom were shivering and using golf jackets from Jay's trunk to stay warm. At one point I told them to go ahead and turn up the heat in the room. Five minutes later, I panicked about how hot I was and made them turn it down again. Around 8:00 in the morning, it was time to push...however, the epidural worked so well that I couldn't feel anything! So, we had to wait for the anesthesiologist to come in and turn it off! Oh..and Jay's mom got trapped in the corner and didn't want to make a scene, so she got to witness her 12th grandchild actually enter the world!

This time around, I only had to push for about an hour, but it was really difficult since Trey was holding onto my collar bones. But, here's the best part (aside from the child that was brought into the world)...NO VOMIT! I was sooo excited! After 12 hours of labor, Trey Douglas Mitlo was born on May 12th, 2008.


When it was all said and done, my midwife said "Hey, 12 hours! Not too bad. Shorter than the other ones, right? Next time will be even shorter!" I apologized later for kicking her.

1 comment:

Happy said...

You pushed for "only an hour." Girl, mad props to you. I cannot imagine. I pushed for minutes each time. I'm not bragging...I'm just terribly thankful. Because otherwise I would surely die.

You are obviously stronger than I.

Congrats on the no puking thing. That's awesome! Do you think you puked from the epidural or from labor itself? Hmnnn...

Great job recapping the way your sweet babies came into the world! Now, about this sisterhood thing....