Birth Day

Exactly a week ago Logan Ryan Bowerbank was born. It is strange to think that I was to be induced tomorrow. I am so glad now that he is here. The week has gone by pretty fast, and am amazed at how much I love the little guy.

So here is what happened a week ago today.

Saturday night we hung out with friends, and played games. We went over to their place, it was nice to get out of the house. We ended up getting home past midnight. Like the past months I was still having contractions every now and then. We went to bed a little after 1 am. I woke up around 4 am with some more contractions, but the pain level was the same as the ones before. I didn't think much of it. Got up and went to the loo. There was a very small bit of blood when I wiped. Didn't think much of it but told Mike. He asked if I wanted to phone the midwife and let her know, but I didn't think it was a big deal. About 20 min later I got up again, the contractions were coming about every 10 min. but that was nothing new. It had happened many times before. I walked to the bathroom and felt a little trickle down my leg, by little I mean little, but it was a little bloody. At that point I thought there might be something wrong with the baby, so I told Mike to phone Labour and Delivery. They told us to come in to check and see if everything was okay. I looked at Mike and said, "Maybe its time!" He looked at me and said,"I will believe it when they tell me its happening." We called a cab and headed to the JR Hospital. We brought our bags just in case, but didn't think I was in Labour. I mean I hadn't even had the chance to write down my labour plan!

We were check in to the hospital at 6 am and taken to a delivery room. We waited about 3o min before the midwife came to check up on us. The pain was bearable for a while, then I buzzed here to let her know it was more intense than I had ever had. She asked if I wanted gas and air. (Its like the stuff they give you when you go to the dentist. It is a very common method of pain relief in England.) Once I got on that, it was good. 10 min later she came in to check down under, and see if I was in actual labour and why I had some bleeding. She looked surprised and told me that I was at 4 cm. and we would be having this baby today.

Mike and I looked at each other in disbelief. We seriously did not think we were in actual labour. I mean, I had just turned 37 weeks at midnight. Yikes. I got really scared. I thought I had a week to mentally prepare for the birth of our child, and here we were a week earlier than planned.

Everything started to happen very quickly. I kept on with the gas and air, but my contractions were coming on top of each other and wouldn't give me a break to recover, or for the baby to recover. I kept walking around the room sucking the gas and air. That stuff works very well. The midwife couldn't leave my side since from the look at things I was progressing fast. At around 8:30 am the midwife checked to see how far I had progressed, because at this point I was yelling for more drugs since the contractions were not stopping. She checked twice and couldn't believe I was 9 cm. Just as she was done, there was a shift change, and a new midwife came in. They call the doctor because at this point I started to grunt, a sign I was really ready to push, to see if I could still get the epidural. Thankfully they allowed it! After a while the stress in the room disappeared. And I as well as everyone else in the room was more comfortable.

The midwife said that she thought it was great I had opted to get the epidural. It would slow things down a bit, and hopefully the baby would turn so that he could be delivered. He was back to back, and if he didn't turn then I would have to go to theater (surgery). With things much better I laid in bed for a while, and when the Doctor came to check me the baby had in fact positioned himself for a normal delivery, and that when the next contraction came I should push. With that she left me and Mike with the midwife. The midwife asked me if I wanted to feel his head, it was getting ready to come out. I looked at here like she was crazy. I couldn't think of that, I had to focus all my energy in getting him out first. There would be plenty of time to feel him later. We started pushing at 1115am and by 1250 he was born. They had to cut me because baby Logan was holding on for dear life to the umbilical cord and would not come out. His heartbeat had dropped a couple of times, and I needed to get him out. He was not breathing, (since he had cut off his own air supply by grasping on to the embilical cord) but thankfully it wasnt for long. They had pressed the panic button, but as they started to rush to our room he started to cry. What a relief that was. He was fine!

Mike cut the cord, and I held him right away. I was surprised and in shock for the next couple of days. And by shock I mean shock. I think I only shed a couple of tears, but that was it. I couldn't believe it. After all that I had been through the last two months, he was here. I couldn't wrap my head around that fact. We were wheeled aways to the maternity ward where we stayed for 4 days. Since Logan was born early he was starting to develop jaundice and they wanted to monitor him more. We were able to go home since his levels never hit 300, although they were pretty high. They told us to wake him up every 3 hrs, and put him in sunlight whenever possible.

Poor Mike saw more than he wanted to, but was a great coach. I couldn't have done it without him. Literally. He told me he was so happy when I got the epidural, he couldn't stand seeing me in that much pain. It took us more than 36 hours to figure out what we would name him, but we finally decided.

Was it worth it? Heck yes it was.