davejenbarnes
Awesome picture of Korben taken by my brother.
I don’t know when to say that labor actually started… I was 4 cm for weeks and his little (well, huge, actually) head was very low for the same amount of time. In hindsight, I’m very thankful that labor didn’t produce a baby until David was off for Christmas break.
We went to see a movie and our car would not start after the movie (at 11:30 pm!) due some issues with old keys in an old ignition and I was having non-talk-throughable contractions every 6 min apart at that point. We eventually made it home and I called AABC at 12:40 pm because they were about 3 min apart. When we got there at 1:15 am, I was only at 5 cm but Jenny gave me a tincture of some herb and immediately the contractions came wave after wave. Soon after, she checked me and I was at 8 cm. BUT, I couldn’t sit straight on my bottom. I felt I had to lean to the left. Hmm… This becomes a problem later on.
I don’t want to remember a lot of the details. When it came time when I was 10 cm dilated, Jenny still felt the lip of my cervix caught on his head and had me push against her fingers to pry the cervix up and over. I never really had the urge to push but pushed in 3 different positions (on my back, squatting, David behind me with me leaning against him) before that urge became pretty strong, finally, pushing in an on-all-fours position. I just couldn’t handle the weight in my right hip pushing with my legs up. I’m going to skip over (but still mention) all the negative things I was saying… I’m convinced that’s what took me so long to get him out… but I finally stuffed a pillow in my mouth, clamped down and pushed him out at 4:49 am. He came out screaming!
I was glad that the midwife did not announce what we’d had but instead let me see first. THREE BOYS! Woo-hoo!
BUT, WAIT. There’s more…
The placenta never came out, well, never as in an hour and a half later after a shot of pitocin, a pain killer (ha, NOT), and and IV with some other stuff in it to supplement contractions again. Nope, no afterbirth. It was STUCK and I was hemorrhaging! So Jenny calls in Roswitha and I think, great, they’re going to assess the situation. NO. Roswitha speaks with Jenny around the corner and comes around the bed and Jenny and her assistant pin me down and Roswitha goes in and digs out the placenta. Not only once, but twice. I cannot describe the pain of having just given birth without drugs to having a human hand scraping your insides out TWO TIMES with very ineffective pain meds. I felt woozy but it did NOT kill any pain sensations! It turns out that the placenta was very low in my uterus and half of it never came loose and it folded over and got caught on the lip of the cervix (I’m telling you, my stupid cervix is fired. Never gonna have a baby near it ever again.) so she had do what she had to do. Golly-Bob-Howdy.
Korben got weighed a few hours after birth and tipped the scales an ounce shy of 9 pounds. I just don’t know where all that weight came from. I know he’s the reason I had those stretch marks, though. He is an amazing nurser and so far, at one day old, pretty happy, too. He has at least one dimple though I’m suspecting two, one in each cheek and a widow’s peak hairline. I think his eyes are incredibly asian (I am part Japanese) but he definitely has David’s nose. David pointed out that his ears are totally Jennifer ears. He’s just so chubby and rolly-polly already. I can’t wait to watch him chub up even more!
David just called me from his first pediatrician appointment (I stayed home since I cannot walk, let alone climb into a minivan) and reported that he weighs 8 pounds 7 ounces right now. I think he’ll be gaining soon since my milk has already started coming in. In fact, I had a little milk yesterday a few hours before he was born!
Pictures will be awhile in coming as I will not be in front of the big computer (I’m on a laptop) anytime soon. We didn’t take very many with all the issues there were following the birth. David is getting some right now, in fact, of the boys (probably just James) holding the baby.
UPDATE – we lost all of our pictures except one somewhere between coming home and Christmas. The memory card got erased before I had a chance to import them onto the computer.
