Liam's Grand Entrance

Here it is - the birth story. You are hereby forewarned. ;)

About a month ago, we set a date for an induction, never expecting to use it. At the time I was having lots of contractions and back pain on a daily basis, and wasn't sure I would even make it to full term. (I was 35 weeks - full term is 37 weeks.) At 36 weeks, contractions completely stopped. I was not even dilated to a 1. The same at 37. At 37 weeks I furiously went to work prepping anything and everything I could, in hopes that high activity would bring on labor. At 38 weeks I had progressed from an almost 1 to a 1. On Tuesday I had my membranes stripped, and got my hospital bag ready expecting to go into labor that night. Not a single contraction. So at 39 weeks I went for the induction date I was sure I wasn't going to need.
And guess what? - still no change. (I was a 2, but that because the Dr stripping my membranes on Tuesday manually made things larger.) At 7am, I was checked in, checked on, hooked up to the IV and monitors, and waited for the Dr to get there and ok the pitocin. Started the drip around 8 and it didn't take long for things to get started. At 9am my nurse let me know that anesthesia was in the area but had a c-section from 10-11 and wanted to know if I wanted drugs now or wanted to wait. I opted for now since 3 hours or so til my next chance seemed too far. Epidural administered around 9:30. Not a great experience this time. Pretty painful compared to my other ones (first one was completely painless!) but it seemed to be working ok. Actually, it wasn't as strong as I expected - my legs were kinda tingly and the contractions didn't hurt, but I could still feel tons of pressure, and I'm pretty sure I could have gotten up and walked around the room if I had wanted to. A little after 10 my contractions started picking up and I was really glad I didn't have to wait an hour for an epidural! I was mostly effaced and dilated to a 5 (I think) and the nurse told me to look over the lunch menu cuz she was betting the baby would be here by then. Around 11 the contractions decided to slow down and became less intense. Guess my body knew what it was doing because the baby's heart rate would tank during each contraction and then come back up when they were over. I also noticed my legs were gaining more feeling. So the nurse came in, assured me that as long as baby's heart rate was coming back up each time, that I wasn't going to need a c-section or anything, plus I was completely effaced and dilated to an 8, so it would all happen to fast for the baby to be in any danger. But she rolled me onto my side to see if it made a difference in my problems - baby's heart rate, contractions and epidural. It worked! Mostly. Contractions picked back up, baby's heart rate didn't dip anymore, but my epidural did not get any better. I told the nurse and she handed me the boost button, said I would use it every 20 min if I needed it. She said give it 10 min to kick in, and if it didn't help, she'd get anesthesia back in to adjust things. That was about noon. Contractions were strong and regular, but I wasn't feeling pressure or the need to push yet, just lots of pain with each contraction. Nurse said she'd check on me again in 30 min unless I paged her. 10 min later, I paged her! Lots of pressure! Gripping the railing and forcing myself to breathe through the contractions because the drug boost did nothing and there was hardly any tingle left in my legs. (when the doc stitched me up afterward, I could feel it and it hurt!) The nurse paged the doc and started getting things ready. "Where is he coming from? He'd better get here fast!" I said a couple of times. "He is coming!" Dr H showed up and got everything prepped, but by the time everything was ready for me to push, the contraction was ending, so all I really got was a practice push so I knew what I was doing the next time. The next contraction and I pushed - once to get him going, twice to get his head out and three times to get his shoulders clear and the contraction was over and he was out! He did have his cord wrapped loosely around his neck, which probably explains the heart rate drops, but it was so loose, the nurse said it looked like he was wearing his umbilical cord like a scarf. :)  It took a grand total of 4.5 hours from the time I started the pitocin to the time he was born into the world! It was my best birthing experience of the three! And the fastest!
Let me say how completely fabulous my nurse Paula was! She was sooo amazing! It felt like she was my friend, not my nurse. I never felt stupid or neglected or bothered - she was attentive without being overbearing, informative without being condescending, and friendly without being annoying. No other words but amazing!!! Dr H was great - very positive, very calming, a great personality for the situation.
Liam was definitely smaller than I anticipated. I figured he'd be over 8 lbs, like his siblings were. When I finally got to see his face (he kept snuggling under my chin), I could tell this was the Liam we had been waiting for. (more on his name another post) He was so quiet! didn't want to cry - obliged the staff for his apgar score and then went back to being quiet. He's much louder now, though still fairly quiet and definitely snuggly! Love it!
I think that's all the gory details. If not, I'll fix it later. I need to get some more sleep now.