Conrad's Birth Story - Warning! Long Post.

Baby Conrad Cayce made his way into this world on October 7th, 2012 at 7:00pm via unscheduled c-section. He was 10 days earlier than his original due date and 3 days earlier than his sonogram due date so Sean and I were a bit surprised when my water broke at 2am on that Sunday morning! Come to think of it, everything pretty much just happened to fall into place in the weeks prior so it seems Conrad knew that and decided "hey, you're ready, mom's miserable, I'll go ahead and make my entrance". And we are glad he did!

The month prior I was starting to feel pretty bad.Throughout my pregnancy when women complained they were miserable and couldn't wait to deliver, I thought, "what are they talking about, this is fine?!"

And then the swelling started. And then I couldn't wait for Conrad to come. For the most part.

We had just moved into our new house so I wasn't entirely ready in that sense, but physically, oh yeah. Then two weeks before he came we really started to get the house in shape, in large part to my mother unpacking and organizing all our rooms and Sean working non-stop on the nursery painting. Perhaps we were finally ready?

 Working on his baby journal while Sean set up and painted the room.

Well that little boy certainly was ready! At 2am on October 7th I woke up to a funny...wet...feeling. Did I pee the bed? And then it just kept coming and coming so I assumed not.

"Um, Sean?" Shaking him gently. "Sean?" Shake him harder. "SEAN!"

I turned on the light and he sat up in bed.

"My water broke." Wow, I've never seen that man move so fast. He jumped out of bed and began pacing so much I thought he would burn holes in the rug. Luckily, I was overwhelmingly calm and told him to call the doctor while I started gathering our things. We were told that we didn't have to go to the hospital until 4am because I was not having contractions. So I was able to take a shower, make sure all our bags were packed properly, and...

stop to get gas along the way.

Yes, our fuel light was on and while we are only a 20 minute drive to the hospital, who knew if they were going to be having late night road construction that would take extra time and gas - famous in this area.

So we checked in, got into our room, hooked up to monitors, met our amazing nurses, and just waited.

And waited.

Finally around 6am they gave me drugs! Lol, the drugs to start contractions that is. Then the action began pretty quickly and by 10am after a couple hours of back labor (he was facing backwards) I was asking for an epidural.

Now, for those of you who are pro-natural birth and can do it without an epidural: more power to you! But I decided a long time ago that I had nothing to prove to anyone by going at it alone, and all the research I had done told me that having an epidural was perfectly safe. I wanted to enjoy and savor every moment, not be writhing in pain (especially since it turned into almost 18 hours of labor).

However, the little munchkin dropped into the birth canal very early and was putting lots of pressure on my pelvic region so contractions were definitely not pain free!!

My parents, Sean's parents, and my sister all came to visit, we watched the Redskins game (they lost-boo!) and still no baby Conrad. I was about 7 cm dilated and 90% effaced but the rascal's head was not turned properly and "stuck" in my cervix.

Long story short, we remained this way until about 4pm with no progress and I developed a fever. By this time the doctor, myself, and Sean made the executive decision that if by 5pm there was no progression, we'd have to plan for a c-section. Due to my fever and the fact that my water broke over 14 hours before, we had to get Conrad OUT before infection developed.

By 5pm there was no action so we had to go via c-section. To be honest, at that point, I was so exhausted (did I mention we had gone to bed at 1am the night before? Yeah, I was going on only 1 hour of sleep for 24 hours) that I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to push so I was ok with the decision to have a c-section. Plus, I just wanted to be safe for Conrad even though this wasn't part of my "plan" (which, there wasn't really one because they can change - obviously!). 

The biggest issue was that my epidural bag was almost out; but since I was going in for a c-section, it wasn't replaced as the anesthesiologist was *supposed* to be coming to prep me for surgery. But then he had an emergency on another floor and couldn't come right away.

Something to do with someone's bowels. WHAT?!

So I had to wait an hour for him or his back up (who apparently had to come from her house in who knows where) sans meds to arrive to prep me for surgery. It sucked. A lot. Remember when I mentioned above that I had always wanted to have an epidural? Yeah, this was why. It freaking hurt!!

I needed a push present to get my mind off of things stat:

And my sweet husband delivered - a push present that is:
 

So then Sean suited up, I got ready, and in we went for surgery. And they were playing Michael Jackson in the operating room - loved it!

I was so exhausted that I almost fell asleep on the operating table. But luckily Sean was there and kept me informed of what was going on and then I heard the most beautiful sound ever - Conrad crying his first cry! Our little love entered this world at 7pm and then our adventure began.

 Perfect APGAR test.

 

Then he and Sean were whisked away while I was sewn back up and brought into recovery to meet them.

 He's winking at you! Look at the hair!

Proud papa!

And then we got lots of rest (kind of), got lots of tests and monitoring, got to know each other, and he met the grandparents and aunts and uncles...more pictures of that later!