Matthew's Birth Story

So for those of you who want the details and play by play of Matthew's birth, READ ON. those that don't....don't.=)

Wednesday March 25th: Induction day.

We woke up at my mom came to our home early, kids still sleeping. We're at the hospital by their requested 6 AM time. We check in, get things going....Dr. Jacoby comes in about 7:15. He's on his way to do another procedure and hopes to be done before his regularly scheduled appointments with enough time to come and break my water. See, I go pretty quick once that happens (Lindz was a 3 1/2 hour labor total) and my ideal was to have this baby by lunch. But the best laid plans.....

Turns out Dr. Jacoby didn't have time to come and break my water and was worried he'd have a hard time getting back to the hospital to deliver if he had ruptured me so...he came back at lunch.

In the meantime while waiting for his return, my I.V. and Pitocin were going and I was feeling my contractions pretty good. I was in a very good rhythm with them and wasn't concerned with them stalling out, I knew I would want an epidural before my water broke and they got really uncomfortable so I got one around 9:00 I think. In hindsight, since he didn't return until lunch to break my water I could have held out, but then in even more hindsight I'm glad I DID get one when I did and had a few hours of "restful" labor before the pain began.
The epidural was great and was working well, I wasn't progressing very quickly (dilated or effacing) but knew that things would go quickly once I was ruptured. But then the epidural started working too well. I was numb in my forearms and more than 1/2 way up my chest and it was uncomfortable. I was concerned that I'd be too numb to be productive when it came time to push. So I did what is rarely done and I asked to adjust it down.

The Anesthesiologist was down in a surgery and so a colleague came to adjust it, I didn't know it until later that he cut me back by 50%!!! I did feel better shortly and rested for the remainder of the morning.

Lunchtime came (and yes, Baylor Frisco fed my husband, Turkey with wild rice and asparagus, a roll, fruit and chocolate cake!!--gotta love a hospital with a 4 star chef that feeds 2 people at every meal the entire stay at the hospital) and Dr. Jacoby ruptured me.

By about 1:30 I was starting to feel the contractions and I was hanging with it, but asked if we could pump up the epidural. It was then that the original anesthesiologist realized I'd been adjusted so far back. Then things kind of became a race to catch me up....a race that we didn't win.

I was still numb on my left side but my right was not very numb, I was feeling HIS head bear down every contraction and they were coming every 2 minutes and lasting almost a minute. They tried a couple things to catch me up with my epidural, it took a bit of the edge off the pain but it mostly numbed my left side more. I went from a 7 to a 10 in about 25 minutes. (glad at least that the pain wasn't just for pain's sake--it was progressive pain) Which was good because by about 2:30 or so I realized that the quickest way to relieve the pain was going to be to get the baby out.
Dr. Jacoby was in another delivery room with another mom but she was going to be pushing awhile and he knew I'd go quickly so he came in. I pushed through 3 contractions and at 3:02 pm out popped little Matthew Lewis! 8 pounds 3 ounces, 19 1/2 inches long and a 15 inch head. I actually heard the nurse say something like, "I must be measuring this wrong, there is no way this head is THAT big, but I've done it 3 times and sure enough it IS 15 inches!!" I told her "I'd believe it, I was feeling that head bear down in every contraction!!"
Dr. Jacoby is a super cool doc that has allowed Stephen to deliver Sam, Lindsey and now Matthew. He'll get the head out and then let Stephen get the rest of them out. He plopped him on my lap and announced, "It's a boy!!" (see he already knew, he'd known since the sonogram but had kept that secret to himself and didn't tell a soul!! Isn't that amazing?!?!)
I was so happy to have him out and to have the pain over with!! He was beautiful and I was able to watch most of his care right there at my bedside! Then they left us alone for about an hour and a half to let me nurse and stuff.

He was a great little eater from the start, I think his first feeding was like 45 minutes long and as he ate I did too--I was STARVING and had really expended a lot of energy in labor so I was grateful for the food.

So that's the story!!