Liam's Birth Day

Our sweet L&D nurse, Jamie, came in to wake Hubby and I up around 5 a.m. She did a quick check on my progress, and sadly, I had barely changed over night. Oh well, on to the pitocin. She told us she would be back to start it around 6 a.m., so we could take a quick shower and get "ready". I was so glad to take a shower. It was just what I need to calm my nerves, although I think the Ambien was still mellowing me out. :) At 6 a.m., Jamie came back, started the pitocin, and handed us off to our day L&D nurse, Dora. Within an hour, I could feel my contractions increasing in strength. I knew that longer I could wait for my epidural, the better, but also knew that Dr. Reich wanted me to have it to help keep me relaxed and to keep my heart from racing. Dr. Reich came in at 7:45 a.m. to check on me, and decided it was time to break my water. Yowzers! I don't really remember this with J, b/c I was in such hard labor when they did it, but this time. Let's just say it was NOT pleasant. It did help those contractions to ramp up even more though. By 9 a.m. the pain was getting to be enough that I figured I better play it safe and get my epidural. Here is the WONDERFUL anesthiologist that administered "Mr. Epidural" as I lovinginly refer to it:

Kinda ironic that a fellow preggo was helping to take the pain away. I loved her! She was super nice too. The relief was pretty much immediate, and from that point until about 1 p.m., I just slept off and on and enjoyed not feeling much of anything. Here is a picture to prove that I was feeling pretty darn good at this point!

Well, the joy of not feeling anything wore off around 1 p.m. when I started to feel the pressure. The nurse let me take little "hits" of more epi medicine but it didn't seem to do much at this point. I think it ended up being a blessing in disguise - at 2:30 p.m. I was 10 cm and ready to push. The nurse predicted it would take me 15 minutes to get L out. Ummm, wrong. Apparently, L was stuck behind my pelvic bone (playing hide-n-seek already, little toot) and so it took me almost 45 minutes to get him out. I hear I had a great L&D nurse at this time, Charlotte, even though I don't remember much about her (I think I had a total of 5 or 6 nurses by the time I left L&D!) Even though this part really hurt (sorry to those of you who have yet to experience this...just no way to sugar-coat it) it was over before I knew it and out popped this PERFECT, BEAUTIFUL baby boy!!!! It was everything my L&D with J wasn't - they couldn't put J on my tummy b/c he had a bowel movement in utero prior to birth so they had to whisk him away to check/clear his lungs. With L, they put him right on me, goo and all. Also, Hubby was able to cut L's cord - again, not possible with J. It was just a much calmer, less anxious situation. Here is the end result:

No, I'm not totally in the buff here...my gown was off my shoulders due to L's first nursing session. It does look a little National Geographic, but these are the very first pictures of J with his baby brother. The look on his face when he saw L for the first time was priceless. I know I had tears in my eyes and I'm sure Hubby did too.

LJM
Born July 2nd at 3:13 p.m.
6lbs 15ozs, 20 1/4 inches long