Sunday, March 30, 2008

Little Seth's Birth Story


If you have been reading my blog at all, you know that we have spent 8 or so months preparing the kids and the nursery and ourselves for having a baby Maggie. Well, we are very excited (after much crying on Natalie's part...I think she's over it now) to welcome little Seth Isaiah into our family. Here's the story... I went to the doctor on Tuesday and decided to be induced on Thursday. I was tired of being pregnant and having so much false labor that I decided "she" was ready to come (with a little help). The doctor estimated 8-8.5 pounds.

Thursday morning, my mom came to be with the kids and we headed off. We got there and requested the whirlpool room. It was being cleaned so they said we could walk the halls until it was ready. We walked for 40 minutes or so. Some good contractions, but nothing was sticking. We got into the room around 9am and the nurse said I couldn't use the whirlpool because I was scheduled to have Pitocin (isn't that how all inductions work? Why didn't they tell us that before?) and needed to have the monitor on the baby all the time. So sad, no whirlpool for me.

They started Pitocin around 9:15 and I was at a generous 4 cm. She started the Pit really slow hoping I was far enough a long that I would just need a little jump start. Well, "Maggie" did not want to come:) Finally, at about 1pm, I was having regular but wimpy contractions, so when my OB came in, she broke my water. Her words were, "In about a half-hour, you should start feeling some good contractions." I don't think she was out the door before I had 2 right in a row that HURT!

I tried to just breathe through them and George asked me if I wanted my MP3 player. This is how I made it through! I blasted the music on the MP3 player (so loud I couldn't hear George talking right next to me). As each contraction came, I just thought, "This contraction will be over before this song is over." This was my focal point and it worked. The only bad times were if the song ended during a contraction and when George switched sides of the bed (I was supposed to be turning over as well but the contraction happened too soon). George's hand had to be on the bed rail, under mine but not squeezing mine or on top of mine in any way. As he is reading over my shoulder, he says he wishes I had told him that instead of the indiscernible grunting that he endured as he moved his hand around to try and please me.

After 1.5 hours of hard labor, I started feeling pushy... you know, the contractions where you finally get to DO something. They called the doctor right away and about 5 contractions later, I was pushing out baby "Maggie". "She" was really quiet after birth and I kept asking, "Is the baby ok?" They had to detangle the cord from baby's neck and finally I got to push the rest of the baby out (the baby comes in 2 pushes... head first, then body). About a minute later, the doctor looks down and said, "This is a BOY!" We were sooo surprised, along with all of our nurses and the doctor who had been talking about Maggie all day. So we had no name for our big, 10 pound baby boy. But he was healthy and scored really high on his Apgar:) He had low blood sugar, but we gave him a Snickers bar and it came right up... just kidding, but he did get to nurse right away and that helped and he didn't have anymore problems (unlike Sam who had to spend the night in the NICU).

The name game was rough, he just couldn't be a Maggie, but we couldn't figure out what else fit. George and I are very planned when it comes to these things. We have never come to the hospital without a full name chosen. So, we pretty much just decided to steal all of Becca's ideas for boy names for her future children and we decided that he was a Seth Isaiah.

It was a wonderful experience, and it was done without any pain meds at all!!!! Yippee!! Just the way we wanted it. The rest of the hospital stay was uneventful and sooo nice! I mean, where else do people wait on you hand and foot, take the baby so you can get some sleep and bring you room service 24 hours a day? It was great:)

Life at home with 4 is quite the adjustment. Let's just say I am SO glad that I will have help for 2 solid weeks. Hopefully, we'll all get used to Seth and get a bit more sleep than we did last night (1.5 hours). He's a sweet boy and we love him! Yea for new babies!!!

13 comments:

Pat & Amber said...

He is SO CUTE! We were very shocked to hear you had a boy, but we were a little excited to know that Griffin will have a playmate. (That is if Griffin really is a boy lol) Thanks for sharing the picture; we were so anxious to see him! Glad things went well for you and you made it through without pain meds. I have no intentions of trying that for my first baby. :) Love the name too!

Carrie said...

Congratulations! Seth is the cutest name. I can't believe you now have 3 boys. Natalie just might be the only girl! Who knew? I must say, I'm partial to boys (mostly because the idea of a girl scares me to death). Welcome Baby Seth!

Pat & Amber said...

P.S. You need to change your blog to "You get to stay home with your 4 loving and energetic kids." When you have the time, that is. lol

Ange said...

Congratulations! He looks so perfect, and what a fun surprise. Anna still refers to your kids as her "new cousins" so I'll have to try and explain that she has a new new cousin. Yay!!!

Jennifer said...

Okay, now I can say welcome to the world little Seth. I love the name. And so cute! I'm glad that you will have help for a while. I look forward to seeing you when you are feeling up to it. Congratulations again!

Sariah said...

He is SOOOOOO beautiful! So perfect!! Oh, I love new babies. I miss that little cuddly sleepy stage. Your hospital takes the baby so you can sleep? I'm coming there for my next birth!! The nurses here were mean when I had Parker. I'm still bitter.

Congratulations! Welcome, little Seth! I can NOT wait to see more pics!!! Now... get some sleep, crazy girl.

emily said...

OOOOOOH congratulations!!!!! So funny that you were telling me on tuesday how much you love little baby boys! I'm so happy for you, so glad the birth went well--you are amazing! Can't wait to see the cute guy in person!!!!

Abbey said...

Congrats, Anna! Let's talk about the important stuff: you did it with no drugs! I'm totally impressed. You're my inspiration.

Deb said...

He is so cute. I love the name Seth. Welcome to him. I hope you can get use to him too...of course after three others it should be a cake walk right...oh wait I forgot all kids are different...like mine. I hope to see more pictures soon. Condrats Jones family.

HO IV and crew said...

We are so excited for you! I showed the kids your picture of Seth this morning, and they all agree that he is a very sweet and cute baby. Congratulations!

joanna said...

What a cute baby! I can't believe you got him out naturally at 10 pounds. Or maybe that's normal to be able to do . . . I have to stop comparing everyone else's fantasy-labor experiences to my 31-hour hell.

(Can you tell I'm still traumatized?)

Andrea said...

He is so darling. Congratulations on the adorable baby boy and having a successful, no-pain-meds-with-being-induced birth! That's a real accomplishment!

dietmom said...

AWW! So fun! Your family has the same ratio of boys/girls that ours did growing up. It isn't so bad!! What a story--so sad about the whirlpool--it is AMAZING! Next time-right!!??? Baby Seth is so sweet--hope he sleeps soon!