Aidan's birth story

Well, I've finally rested enough to write about Aidan's birth story, so here goes....

I worked a full day on Wednesday, went home, ate dinner and then Dan and I watched Invincible (a great movie by the way). At about 9:30 Dan left to give a friend a ride home from work. I went to the bathroom and that's when my water broke. I couldn't believe it, but there was no doubt it was my water breaking. I immediately called Dan to come home. Then I called my mom and told her what was going on. So Dan came home and was kind of freaking out, running around the house asking what needed to be done. I had previously packed Aidan's bag, but I hadn't yet packed my bag, so that was a disaster. I knew we needed to get to the hospital. We ended up hauling three bags of stuff to the hospital. I called Labor and Delivery to tell them we were on our way. Dan was so flustered that he ended up taking the VERY long way to the hospital. Eventually we got there, went up to triage were they tested the fluid to ensure it was my water that had broken. Once it was confirmed, they immediately took us to a birthing room where they hooked me up with an IV. Though my water had broken, I wasn't having very strong contractions at that point, so they began putting potocin into my IV every half hour to speed things along. And it sure worked. I was about 3 centimeters dialated, 50% effaced at that point, about 11:30. A couple hours later, the contractions were becoming really strong and frequent. My blood pressure became dangerously high, so they gave me some sort of pain meds through my IV. It made me really loopy. It took the edge of the contractions, but by no means took away the pain. My blood pressure did go back down to safer levels though, which was good. That didn't last very long, because the pain became really overwhelming.

At around 3 a.m., I finally had enough and told them to bring on the epidural. They came in at about 3:30 to put it in. Things felt like heaven neary instantly. They asked me how the contractions were feeling. My response? What contractions. Highy recommend the epi. Anyway...Two hours later, after a little nap, they came back to check on me. I was 5 centimeters, 90% effaced then. My regular doctor was scheduled to come in at 7 a.m., so they told me he would be coming in to check me at that time. So around 7:15 he came in and said I was ready to go, but Aidan was still a little far up the birth canal, so we were going to wait about an hour to start pushing.

At 8:20, the nurse came in and said we were ready to begin. Ten minutes into some mild pushing, I asked how long she thought it would take. She said at east an hour. Well, I wasn't up for that. I really just wanted things to be over, so I gave it everything I had. Obviously his head was the most difficult part. Because I hadn't slept at all, I was soo exhausted. Everytime I pushed I saw stars and little spots. I thought I was going to pass out. They gave me some oxygen, Dan fed me some more ice chips and rubbed my head. It only took a half an hour after that, and little Aidan John Welch was born at 9:03 a.m. I had to have stitches because of some tearing.

He weighed just 6 pounds, 13 ounces and was 21 1/4 inches. He's very long and lanky. Crazy long legs, cute round face and chubby cheeks. He has a large mark on the back of his head. They weren't sure if it was a birth mark, or a bruise from the birth, but it seems to be going away - so they think it's a bruise. He is the most perfect baby, and he looks like a little angel. Don't you think? I'll post more soon.