Darby Harris Jamison

Induction Day!

11 days after my due date I was scheduled for an induction to get this baby out of me. We went into the hospital at 6:30am on 10/10/12 and the induction started at 7am with a Cytotec pill placed right near my cervix in hopes that it would dissolve and help to dilate me. At that point I was only dilated 2cm, so they were going to come back in and check me after 4 hours. 4 hours later they came in and I was still a 2, so they decided the next course of action was to insert two Foley balloons, one inserted directly into my uterus and one into my vagina. Both were then inflated to 5cm with water. The balloons are supposed to "mechanically"open the cervix to at least 5cm and when the cervix hits that point, the balloons are supposed to fall out. Holy hell..."mechanically" opening your cervix is not pleasant. What also wasn't pleasant was that the doctor started a pitocin drip at the same time to get things moving even quicker. So, that is when the pain really started and didn't stop. My contractions were every 2 minutes for 1 minute at a time and then got closer together giving me no time to recover from the first one. What amazed me were the noises I used to get me through...I moo'd like a cow, screamed like a baby and grunted like a pig for about 6 hours until the doctor came back to try to get the balloons out and check my progress. After tugging a bunch of times and deciding that the balloons weren't going to come out on their own, the doctor drained the water out of them and tugged them out. After the balloons came out, I was dilated to a 6, but after 14 hours of labor, I called it quits with the pain and screamed for an epidural. I had hoped to be able to deliver naturally, but after all of the interventions that had already happened, I just wanted some relief and hopefully save some energy for pushing. After my epidural, Doug and I were able to take a "nap" for a few hours and my mom escaped to a hotel for a few hours to rest. I couldn't believe the relief I got from the epidural. I was watching my contractions on the monitor and could only feel a tiny bit of pressure. People are onto something with that magical drug! The doc came in around 4am to check me and I was at 9.5cm! She told me to call my mom and have her come in and that we were going to start pushing in about an hour. A little before 5am, I was starting to feel the urge to push, so we started the process a little early. Luckily, my mom snuck in just as we started pushing, so she was able to be there for the birth. It was so surreal just jumping right in and starting to push. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, but it didn't take long to get the hang of it and push like hell every couple of minutes. In what felt like the greatest athletic feat of my life (my lungs were still sore 6 days later from pushing so hard) a little over an hour later I was handed a perfect little GIRL!!

Little Darby is so perfect...I've seen better days

We were pretty convinced I was having a boy, so when they said girl, we were so surprised. There was meconium coming out of me before the baby came out, so they handed her to me for a quick second and then they took her away to drain her lungs out. I was so delirious and exhausted that I could barely keep my eyes open while nurses rushed around with tubes to suction the gunk out of her lungs. It didn't take them too long to finish all of that and then they handed her back to me so we could check her out. I was in total disbelief that this little thing with eyelashes and fingernails had just come out of me...crazy!!

Proud papa:)

 After hanging out for a few hours in the delivery room, we were escorted up to our "recovery room" a few floors up. The recovery room was about 6 ft x 6 ft. and my section was cordoned off with a shower curtain to separate me from my roommate. Ughh...downside of delivering in NYC, no space. We didn't have a window and we had no room to move around the room. There wasn't even space for Doug to stay the night, so he got a hotel room around the corner while I hung out in the depressing hospital with my little peanut. I kept her with me in the room that night and we got about an hour of sleep between all of the nurses coming in and out and with my loud roommate, her husband and their baby that had taken up residence next door (err, next shower curtain over) and talked on their cell phones non-stop. The next morning I found the first nurse I saw and asked if we could leave that day. After getting approval from my doctor and the pediatrician, they allowed us to be discharged since everyone was healthy...I guess it didn't hurt that 8 other babies had been born overnight and now needed a place to go...baby factory I tell you.

Grandma Stacey, aka Gracie, got to see the whole thing go down!

Aunt Whit was there too (obviously she will be the one to teach Darbs about fashion)!

Now we're settled into our little house in the Pocono Mountains where we're surrounded by trees, quiet streets and wildlife (including the squirrel currently stuck in our fireplace and the skunk that just sprayed the dog). I'll be better about updating more frequently - it turns out I kind of like holding this little bambino a lot, so it takes up a lot of my time!

Waiting...

I guess Mr. Petty said it best - "The waiting is the hardest part." It's October 5th and there is still no Gnar baby. My due date has long past come and gone and there are no signs of this baby coming on it's own. As my stomach gets lower and more stretched out by the day, my irritability goes up infinitely.

On Wednesday morning I woke up at 3am with contractions 4 min. apart that lasted for 1 min...just what they tell you they should be when you're going into labor. So, we waited it out at home, walked around the neighborhood and then around 9am we headed into my doctor's office to get checked out before heading to the hospital. When we got to the office, my doctor hooked me up to some monitors and then checked me...I was 1cm dilated, the same that I have been for the past 3 weeks. She told me that it could be the start of labor, but that it could be 8 hours, 12 hours or another week before anything happened. Walking out of that office felt like the ultimate walk of shame.

So, since nothing is happening naturally, we have set October 10th as the date I'll be induced. Yes, there's a chance that this baby could come on it's own before then - and "statistically speaking, it should," but I'm not holding my breath. In fact, I will be pleasantly surprised if it does because now I've got it in my head that on 10/11/12 we will have a baby, but not before that.

It's been great having wise friends to keep this all in perspective and I know that in a few months I won't even remember this waiting period, but since I'm already on maternity leave and don't have a ton going on, it's on my mind all the time. Luckily for the dogs, it means lots of long walks in the park during the day!

Hopefully the next time I post, it will have a picture of the smushy-faced Gnar baby...which hopefully is still the size of a normal baby and not a Jessica Simpson sized toddler by then:)