Birth story

Name: Gabriel Edward
DOB: January 19, 2012
Due Date: January 21, 2012
Weeks Preg.: 39 weeks 5 days
Weight/Length: 8 lbs 5 oz. / 20.5 inches

After a long and difficult pregnancy with hyperemesis gravidarum, gestational diabetes, and gestational hypertension, labor and delivery was not too bad. I woke up at 4am with contractions that were 5-6 mins apart. I called off of work at 5am when I was pretty certain I was in fact experiencing contractions(first time I called off, it was a legitimate call off, don't you think?!). I called the doctor around 7am and he told me to come into the office in the morning to be checked. Doc checked and I was 2cm dilated. He said to wait and see if the contractions continued so we went to breakfast and did a little shopping. Then we went home and I tried to take a nap. By then the contractions were coming 1-3 minutes apart and pain was getting pretty intense so we decided to head in to L & D. Checked in at the hospital at 2:30pm and was 3cm dilated. They decided that I was going to stay! I had to wait for 2.5 hours until the anesthesiologist was available to administer the epidural. That was a long, extremely painful 2.5 hours with contractions every 1-3 minutes. After I got the epidural they checked and I was 6cm dilated. We were pretty excited about that and notified the family that little Gabriel was on his way. Then labor stalled out for awhile so pitocin was started. After several hours of pain free labor thanks to the epidural it was finally time to push! Pushed for about an hour and my little guy was born at 1:43am! He came out screaming and no breathing problems despite having meconium in the fluid. Johnny got to cut the cord and we were able to do skin-to-skin immediately after delivery helping his blood sugars to remain stable. He got a perfect bill of health from the docs and we had an uneventful stay in the hospital. We actually left a day early because of an ice storm that hit the area Saturday morning. We wanted to be safely at home by that point.