Tyler and I are so excited to have Luke here. He's so sweet and he's trying so hard to make the nurses happy so we can go home and be a happy healthy family. Luke was born March 14th at 11:09 pm. He was 7 lbs 2 oz when they weighed him and 21 inches long. So here's the story.
Sunday (the 14th) morning I woke up at 3:00 am to take my nightly potty break and noticed some signs that I was getting closer to going into labor. At 3:30 I woke Tyler up to tell him I didn't want to go to church because I was afraid my water would break there and I didn't want to do that. That is when my contractions started. My contractions were only 5 to 10 minutes apart from 3:30 am until maybe 4:30 pm. I tried to stay relaxed and keep myself under control during the contractions but by 4:30 Tyler and I were already worn out. We tried some eflorage in the bath to help stimulate the labor and it worked. The contractions got even stronger and were only a few minutes apart after the bath, so we called my CNM (certified nurse midwife) to see if we should start heading for the hospital. She wasn't on call, but the CNM who was gave us the go ahead so we finally went over. We got to the hospital around 5:30 (I think, I really don't know because I wasn't paying attention, these are numbers I think Tyler said) and I was progressing really well. The CNM said I was dilated to a 5+ and the next time she checked my water broke and they noticed he'd had a bowl movement so she told me when he was out I wouldn't get to hold him right away like I wanted because they'd have to get all the stuff out of his system so he could breath and everything. I was disappointed but knew it was for the best. After my water broke things started to progress quickly.... until they didn't. Once I was dilated to a 7 things stayed the way they were for a long time. The CNM was worried because I wasn't progressing and she couldn't get a good feel for how Luke was facing. She thought he might be posterior so we worked on trying to get him to turn. When he started to turn I started progressing again, which was good because they said Luke was having some stress so they put me on oxygen and said if I didn't start progressing they were going to have to give me an epidural because if he got more stressed they might have to do something more drastic and if they had to do a c-section and hadn't given me an epidural, they'd have to put me under and Tyler wouldn't be allowed to come with me. This was not happy news and Tyler and I were really discouraged to hear it. I we asked if we could try more positions to try to get Luke to turn, and luckily, a short while later he started to turn and I started to progress again. It took a long time until I was complete but I got there and the CNM told me I was going to need to push really hard with her counting and not just do the hypnotbirth breathing I had hoped to do because Luke really needed to get out fast. Well even though I did as I was told, Luke was still a little crooked so he wasn't moving very fast and kept getting stuck. After 2 hours of pushing, the CNM called in her attending OB to talk about what they should do. They were talking about using forceps or the vacuums to pull him out... again not happy news. The CNM told me we could try for another half an hour but if he wasn't out by then she felt like that would be the longest she should let me keep pushing for both our sakes. I was determined to make every push count and when the contraction wasn't done and they told me to rest I kept pushing until it was done in case he might just pop out. A short while later as I was pushing the CNM suddenly snipped away a bit of tissue without warning me. Looking back that was smart because I would have tensed up in anticipation to be cut, but Tyler was so mad when she did it and I was shocked. It didn't take a lot longer after she gave me the episiotomy before he came out and the cut the cord and rushed him over to the nursery team that had been waiting in the room for him. They got the stuff out and said he was breathing too rapidly and they were going to have to hurry him to the special care nursery to have positive pressure to help him breath. They wheeled him over so I could see him and touch him for a second and I couldn't believe how handsome he was. He is such a handsome baby and I was so happy to see him. He looked me right in the eyes and I just felt comforted. I just love this baby!
Tyler went to the nursery with Luke, and my parents came in from the waiting room to be with me while Tyler left with Luke. I felt very comforted and relieved and calm. My body wouldn't stop shaking which was a little uncomfortable but I was just so happy to have my baby out.
I got to go see Luke in the special care nursery before I went to my new room and it was neat to see his breathing stabilize a little as I talked to him. He still just looked me right in the eyes and listened to me. Such a sweet spirit! They wheeled me to our new room and a little while later they brought Luke to our room and said he was stabilized could be in our room with us. The nurse then tried to help me breastfeed him... and although he would latch on really well, he was tired and just fell right to sleep. I don't blame him for being tired, but apparently it wasn't just that he was tuckered out from the hours of labor, they took him for his bath and checked his blood sugar. His blood sugar was at 28 and shouldn't go lower than 50. I guess when they checked it right after he was born it was at 200 because of the stress of delivery, so for it to go clear down to 28 they were worried about him and wouldn't let him come back to our room. They put him on a sugar solution through his IV to help keep his blood sugar up, and we've been trying to get him to eat. The problem is he doesn't have enough energy to want to eat, so trying to ween him of the sugar solution is slow going because until he will eat regularly to show that he can keep his blood sugar at a good level, he has to have the IV help. It is confusing and frustrating because he ate really well a couple of times and then not so well then ate a couple of times and now he's struggling again. We have tried a lot of things and so as a desperate effort to get him to have the energy he needs to stay awake to eat, he had formula through a tube the put down his nose. The hope is that having that will help his blood sugar be high enough so that getting a good amount of sleep, and having a healthy blood sugar level will give him the energy he needs to have a good breastfeeding and lead to a good routine. He's doing really well with everything else. He was on antibiotics because I tested positive for Group B strep and they wanted to make sure he wasn't going to get an infection from it. He's off the antibiotics and all he needs to be able to go home is good blood sugar without the IV. Thanks for all your love and prayers, he is such a sweet boy, and very patient for how much they bug him in the SCN. We can't wait to take him home and hold him with out wires and IVs. Thanks for all the love and advice people have offered who have had to watch their babies go through hard times too.
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PS I love the name Luke. He's beautiful.