Baby Grady arrives!!

Posted on Nov. 27, 2006 at 7:03 PM - Post Comment

My water broke (very unexpectedly!) on the morning of Sunday, November 26 at 7:15AM. I just never expected it to start that way. I had no contractions or discomfort, but we headed to the hospital. Once there, they saw I was still only 1cm dilated and 50% effaced. Since the baby needed to be born within about 24 hours, they strongly suggested using pitocin to get contractions to kick in. I had always heard pitocin made labor come very fast and hard, so I wanted to avoid it, but I basically had no choice. The medication was started around 9AM and by 11AM I could feel contractions. They were manageable for a while, but soon I could barely even breathe through them and they were about 110 seconds long and basically on top of each other (technically 1 minute apart, but they never died down totally between peaks). I was checked and was still 1cm! So now I freaked and asked for an epidural, which I was given, since it looked like labor would be long. It was no big deal getting it (except staying still through contractions). It worked so well - I could feel my legs and even move them, but was not in pain. I was checked again immediately and had gone from 1 to 5 cm in about 2 hours! No wonder the pain was bad! I quickly progressed from there - they actually had to turn the pitocin off. It seemed that I was at 10 cm so fast! At 9:45 PM I began pushing. I was nauseous and throwing up, so it made it hard to push right, but once I was given something for that, things started to happen. After 2 hours of pushing, I asked how long they would let me push. They said that after 3 hours, they would probably decide the baby was too big for me and do an emergency C-section. I really did not want to have a C-section, especially at that point, so I said to the nurse "I know I can do this - I will try harder. Once I really resolved to get him out in an hour, things moved better. I started having the urge to push, which helped. At 12:39, I brought Grady into the world, which was the most amazing feeling ever. It was the proudest moment of my life, and I get so emotional even thinking about it. Everything was somewhat of a blur - he cried and was placed on my chest. His dad cut his cord, and he was officially separate from me - his own person. I cried, and could not believe this tiny person was mine! But I have to say, I had INSTANT overwhelming love for him. It is beyond anything I could have imagined and is actually quite overwhelming. My ability to love has surpassed anything I thought possible. My husband has been wonderful. He immediately told me how proud he was of me. It has also been incredible to see his love for this baby. As he said a few hours later "I think we all became different people today". It is so true - I will never look at anything the same way again. I feel like I finally understand what is important in life and what isn't.

Momma and Baby meet:

Brand New Baby

Eric checks on Grady in the warmer

Grady at the hospital

Rose-Anne, Eric, and Grady, getting ready to go home!