Blake's Birth Story

So Blake's first birthday was October 11. We did quite a bit of reflecting on the past year during the week leading up to his big day. I thought I would post his birth story for all to enjoy...I wrote it a few weeks after he was born. Enjoy :)

Blake Nolan
10/11/07 (40 weeks 3 days) at 10:54 am
Original Due Date: 10/8/07
Height & Weight: 8 lbs, 9ozs and 20.5" long

Woke up on Wednesday October 10th with cramps that were irritating. They weren't too painful but I asked Kevin to stay home from work with me in case this was the real deal. Spent most of the day timing the contractions using contractionmaster.com - and they were about 5-7 minutes apart lasting at most a minute. I had a Dr's appointment Wednesday afternoon and we were hoping things were looking like we would need to go to the hospital after the appointment. Got checked and everything was the same as my previous appointment the week before (2-3 cm dialated and about 60% effaced). Dr. told me to go to the hospital when the contractions got to be unbearable.

Got home and went for a few walks, ate dinner and got ready for bed (all the while having contractions about 5-7 minutes apart). Got about 30-45 minutes of sleep and woke up at 12:30 am feeling horrible. I woke up Kevin at 1 am and told him that I couldn't handle it anymore! So we decided to head on down to the hospital.

Got checked in - was now 3-4 cm dialated - nurses called my Dr. and she told them too keep me (It was a really slow night at L&D - I think if it would have been busy they would have sent us home). Got to my room -needed to get an IV - only it took them 5 tries to get it in me! (my forearms are nice and bruised)

At 7 am there was a shift change for the nurses - the new one came in and checked me (the previous nurse never checked me). She thought I was at a 4. They called the dr. to let her know my progress and she said if I wanted, they could start pitocin. I said sure and was started on pitocin around 8 am. Dr. came to check on me around 8:30 - she broke what was left of my water (turns out I had a small leak) and inserted an internal contraction monitor. She guessimated that we would have our little bundle of joy sometime that afternoon.

After this all happened I decided to get my epidural...was scared of how bad the contractions would get with the pitocin. The anesthesiologist (sp?) got to my room around 9 am and everything was done around 9:20 am. The nurse said to try to rest and sleep so Kevin and I got as comfortable as we could. Nurse comes in around 9:50 to check me and was astonished to find out that I was now 8-9 cm!! She starts getting everything set up. Calls Dr. who arrives around 10:15. Start pushing then and by 10:54 am our little Blake Nolan made his arrival!!!