Our little boy, Kai Riley, arrived on December 10. DH and I are so in love with the little guy! Love doesn’t even begin to describe the depth of feeling I have for “outside gummy”, as DH has nicknamed him. I tear up when I look at him, he’s a bundle of perfection to me. And I teared up a lot in the initial days, when I thought about how he was bewildered by his transition from the safe and warm womb to the scary and cold outside world.
I’m so sorry for the long delay, and for being unable to reply personally to well wishers. It has been an incredibly exhausting (but so amazingly rewarding) ride. This is the first time I’ve been able to do something unrelated to taking care of gummy or eating. I have barely slept since I was initially induced on Friday the 8th! I think the most sleep I got was last night, about 2 hours total.
I labored for almost 2 days, and the pushing stage was 3.5 hours! Gummy and me had to be monitored throughout. I’m amazed that I didn’t have to have a c-section, especially given that I broke my pelvis last year in a bicycle crash. They started with a pill to dilate my cervix, as it was at 0 cm when we started. It got to 2cm after 4 hours. I was hoping to avoid the insertion of the Foley bulb, but then gummy’s heart rate had a couple of decelerations, so they stopped the pill and inserted the bulb. The insertion itself was not painful, but the first contraction I had after that was so sudden and excruciating, I actually jumped off the bed! The first hour was really tough, but it settled down. They started Pitocin after my cervix was ready enough.
It worked to dilate my cervix further, but things were proceeding a little slowly, so they broke my water bag. This is when the contractions became so bad that I asked for an epidural. For some reason, the epidural didn’t work too well on my lower belly. So I felt very uncomfortable contractions there. Needless to say I didn’t really get sleep during my entire induction period. They were ramping up the Pitocin all night, but then gummy’s heart rate showed decelerations again, so they dropped the dose. This stalled my labor for a bit. By then, it was Sunday morning. They finally increased the dose slowly again, and I was feeling some very bad pain. Since the contractions were still only 5min apart, same as the night before, I was thought to be still only in the start of active labor. I was starting to feel a bit delirious and unable to keep my eyes open, and the pain was pretty unbearable. I couldn’t imagine it getting worse! When they checked my cervix, I was almost fully dilated. Somehow, I had entered transition with contractions spaced far apart. This made pushing very difficult, as a lot the energy I put into pushing was “lost”. But I made it through, thanks to DH and the doula, and the incredible team at the hospital. The hospital believes in giving women a chance to labor for as long as it takes to have a vaginal birth, and it worked in my case.
Tough though it was, I loved my birth experience. DH did too, and he actually was cheering me on while watching for gummy to emerge, and he cut the cord as well. And now we are parents to adorable Kai/gummy! It’s a surreal experience, changing gears from going to the hospital for constant monitoring for my high risk pregnancy to going to the hospital almost daily for Kai’s checkups, lactation consultant appointments, and for his mild jaundice.
My folks are here, and my mom has been pretty atrocious, but that’s a gripe for another day. Examples include: telling me and the staff that I should really get a c-section the moment she walked into the hospital room, telling me that I didn’t need to tell people that Kai is the product of donor egg conception and that I should not affect her and my dad (i.e. don’t embarrass them by letting their friends know), etc. I’m now extremely hormonal and fiercely protective of Kai, so I actually told her off rather harshly.
Oh, here are some photos of Kai. He was really bloated at birth due to the IV fluids, and he weighed 7 pounds 9 oz, which shocked me since he was born at the 37 week mark. He has since slimmed down and no longer has a giant face
is your tube going to be ok? Do they think the cyst was harming your fertility? Is the surgery sort of minor like removing a polyp or something? Hopefully you sort some things out and get a hh 9 months soon.
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