Aidan Update

Aidan's three weeks old!

For the last week or so, Aidan has been a little fussy lately. Renee took him to the pediatritian today to see if he would okay the use of some gas drops. Although, while the doctor wouldn't actually commit to using the term, Aidan has pretty much been diagnosed as "colicky."

Aidan Update

Aidan's first tub bath.

Aidan Update

Aidan seems to have blocked tear ducts (both eyes) and they've become infected. We took him to the pediatrician and she prescribed some eye ointment. He was also weighed at this visit and he is now 9 lbs! His next regularly scheduled doctor's appointment is this Thursday (April 18).

Aidan Update

Aidan's umbilical stump falls off.

Aidan Update

Today was Aidan's first visit to the pediatrician. Most babies lose up to 10% of their birth weight soon after they're born, and do pretty good just to get back up to their birth weight within the first week of life. Aidan actually gained two ounces (8 lbs 2 oz) in less than a week! However, he did shrink a little, to 19 3/4 inches

Aidan Alexander's Birth Story

Renee woke me up at 12:15 a.m. on April 2 (eight days after our due date) with the words, "You need to change the sheets." Her water had broke, and, as she forewarned, she would awaken me to clean it up. As I gathered up the sheets I noticed that there really wasn't that much "water" on the bed; I was expecting much, much more.

"Are you sure your water broke," I asked? Based on what I've heard, some women accidentally urinate (baby kicked them in the bladder or what-have-you) and they mistake that for the amniotic fluid. This is what is going through my mind....

"Yes," she answered back. "I am certain." But I wasn't so sure. Why wasn't there more water on the bed?

Renee finished changing her clothes and then called her doctor, Dr. Love (yes, that's his name — he really couldn't go into anything besides obstetrics, could he?). He wanted us to head to the hospital, but after finding out from Renee that, other than the "fact" that her water broke (I was still hesitant to accept this), there were no other signs of labor and there didn't seem to be anything else to be concerned about. Renee asked if we could stay at home a bit longer, especially since we had a standing 8:15 a.m. appointment with Dr. Love that very morning, so it would only be a few hours between the breaking of the water until we met with him. Dr. Love was pretty comfortable with the idea....

At this point, as I was reconfiguring some pillows on the bed, I realized how much "water" had broke. The pillow was soaked. This was for real.

We tried to go back to bed, but the excitement was a little too overwhelming. We stayed up talking about the arrival of the baby and whether it was a boy or a girl, etc. Soon, I had drifted off to sleep. Renee, on the other hand, had a much more difficult time sleeping. Every time she moved around, a little more amniotic fluid would leak out. It was terribly uncomfortable and constantly reminded her of what was about to happen. I slept fairly well that night, even if it was a relatively short sleep, but Renee did not even get that.

Later that morning, around 8:30 a.m., we met up with Dr. Love at his office. He told us that since her water broke (which he confirmed) and she was only about 2 cm dilated, he recommended that we go immediately to the hospital to start a Pitocin drip. We weren't sure if we wanted to do that, especially Renee, because she has heard some stories of others who had their labor started with Pitocin and weren't able to avoid an epidural later during pregnancy, perhaps because of tectonic contractions due to the Pitocin; we were quite confident that we wanted to try for a natural childbirth.

After some discussion, Dr. Love thought that it was OK for us to head home first, which we did. He made sure that we understood that since her water broke, there was an increased chance of infection and at eighteen hours, the risk rises exponentially. We figured that if we headed to the hospital around Noon, we would have a chance to try to induce labor on our own, and if not, the risk of infection would be relatively limited, since the eighteen hour mark wouldn't come until about 6:30 p.m.

We called our doula, Karina, and arranged for her to meet us at the hospital around Noon. Then, we headed home and made ourselves some last minute food (it was about 10:30 a.m. at this time), went for a walk around the neighborhood, and then headed out to the hospital. During the drive home from the doctor's office and back to the hospital, Renee was trying some other means to induce labor, namely, sucking on hard candy (or her thumb) and massaging a pressure point about four inches above her ankle. Needless to say, none of this worked.

Once we arrived at the hospital, the nurses set us up in a room and prepped Renee for the Pitocin. Apparently Dr. Love forgot to call in to the hospital, so they weren't prepared for us. By the time they were able to start the Pitocin, it was about 2:15 p.m.

Good strong contractions started about an hour later. Renee dealt with them beautifully. And our first nurse, Shannon, was incredibly helpful and supportive. Shannon told us exactly what she was doing and why she was doing it. She laid out the general plan (that the Pitocin would start out at a particular dosage and that it would increase by a certain amount and then we would then adjust as necessary). Additionally, Shannon encouraged Renee to try out different positions. Renee tried several different laboring positions (e.g., on the bed, on a labor ball) and then settled into a rocking chair. This was by far her favorite place and despite her strongest contractions in this position, she never looked any more disturbed than someone meditating (with some heavy breathing).

However, Renee in the bed was nothing but bad news. She tried a contraction or two there and she was obviously in pain and, despite her best efforts, just couldn't cope. Thus, we expected Renee to ride out the wave of contractions on the rocking chair.

Around 6 p.m., Dr. Love came into our room to check on Renee. She was about 4 cm dilated. He didn't think that things would progress too quickly and informed us that Dr. Pollan would be on call if anything did; however, in the mean time, Dr. Love was going to go home to visit his family (whom he hadn't seen in the last few days — probably because he was busy delivering babies)....

But of course, nothing goes according to plan. Almost immediately, Renee's blood pressure started to rise. Shannon wasn't overly concerned, but encouraged us to try to keep the blood pressure down. This wasn't completely unexpected, as Renee has had blood pressure issues in the past, although they were at very good levels during the pregnancy. But it seemed, at least from Shannon, that our efforts were working pretty well with the blood pressure, and after a time, that this wasn't really an issue any more.

And then another change: Around the seven hour mark since the introduction of Pitocin (around 9 p.m.), Karina, who is also seven months pregnant, was starting to get physically exhausted; she called her back up doula, Jennifer, and made arrangements for Jennifer to take over for her. There was also a shift change, and Shannon was no longer our nurse. We now had to work with Jeanne. And I had to get used to working with another doula.

A bit about doulas here: Renee and I had chosen Karina because we both got along with her. Renee felt a connection and had a certain amount of trust with her and I felt as though both Karina and I were on the same page together — during our interviews and even during labor, I really felt that Karina and I made a good coaching team.

But now I had to deal with Jennifer. I didn't know her at all and had no idea what she would be like. Not exactly the ideal situation to try and bring a new team member into a highly stressed situation. And to be honest I was not too comfortable with Jennifer. She was much to extroverted for me. But Renee found Jennifer incredibly helpful. And, in fact, I probably would have been lost without the aid of a doula, regardless how well I got along with her. If you are going to have a baby, especially if it's your first, I wholeheartedly recommend getting a doula.....

But, despite our mixed feelings for Jennifer, Jeanne wasn't very good. She wouldn't tell us what she was doing or why. At one point she told Renee that she had one more try in the rocking chair to bring her blood pressure down, and if it didn't go down she had to go back to the bed. Jeanne never told us this was still an issue. She just told us this out of the blue. And then, after the next reading came back lower than the last, which met Jeanne's criteria, she said that it didn't come down far enough and that Renee had to go back to the dreaded bed. Why? Because her blood pressure was too high. That's all we knew. Jeanne did another cervical check; Renee was about 5 cm dilated. It was now about 10 p.m.

Once Renee got into the bed, the same pattern occurred. Contractions came with serious pain. She was no longer the meditative queen of pain relief. She squirmed; she yelled. She was in pain. And Jeanne wouldn't let her out of the bed. Even when Renee had to use the bathroom, she was told to go quickly and then was soon fetched by a nurse for being out of bed too long.

This was incredibly frustrating for me. They moved my wife to the bed, a place she wasn't able to deal with the contractions, so they could try to lower her blood pressure. But her blood pressure wasn't going down and the pain was obviously becoming unbearable for her. It was time for something to change. (It was only after the fact, during one of Dr. Love's postpartum visits, that we found out that they were worried about pre-eclampsia and seizures; had Renee been anywhere besides the bed, they were worried that she could have a seizure and drop to the floor, perhaps cracking her skull.)

Renee was writhing in pain and Jeanne wanted to get Renee's blood pressure down (her blood pressure reached a high of about 150+/80+). To do this, Jeanne suggested that we use a narcotic followed by magnesium sulfide. Once Jennifer heard this, she demanded to know our other options. It turns out that we could also do an epidural. I tried to get the pros and cons from Jeanne and whether we needed to one of the drugs listed or if we could do none. She made it seem as though we needed to do something, and quick. We decided on the epidural, mostly because we knew that the side effects of the epidural was significantly less than the narcotic and the mag sulfide.

I was completely overwhelmed at this point and was glad that we had a doula, regardless of our working relation. Once we decided on the epidural, we had to wait for it to be administered because Dr. Love wasn't on the floor and neither was the on-call doctor. Meanwhile, Renee was in still in pain and her blood pressure was still elevated.

Finally, and after what seemed like an eternity (but was probably about 30 minutes), Dr. Love arrived (about 10:30 p.m.) and they administered the epidural. But the timing was a little strange; after what seemed an eternity of watching Renee deal with huge amounts of pain, she only had the epidural for what seemed like about five more contractions. Then it was time to push.

Because the medical team was trying to get the pain medication to Renee as soon as possible, they gave her one big dose; it helped Renee deal with those last few contractions, but it also hindered her ability to push because she couldn't feel (or move) her lower extremities.

It was about 11:00 p.m. and time for another shift change. We lost Jeanne and gained Luann, who was absolutely fabulous. Luann came onto the scene just as Renee was starting her pushing phase. Renee tried pushing for a little while and Luann encouraged Renee to try different positions. However, it soon became evident that the epidural was the reason that Renee was having difficulty pushing. Around 11:30, Luann had Renee chill out for about 30 minutes to have the epidural wear off, once the doctor turned off (or reduced) the amount of pain killers the epidural was delivering.

After some suggestions from Luann (such as tilting her tail bone towards the ceiling), and once Renee was got some feeling back, all it took was a few pushes before the baby started to crown. Dr. Love and his crew came in and set up shop. At about 12:15 a.m. on April 3, I took up my camera and started to take some pictures. As Renee continued to push, Dr. Love became increasingly concerned (later, I learned it was because the fetal heartbeat had gone as low as the 60s or 70s — a range that would have made most doctor's panic and order an emergency c-section).

But I was oblivious to most of the medical concerns, as I was in a state of bewilderment. Soon, after some serious pushing from Renee and liberal dosages of olive oil by Dr. Love, the baby's head popped out, but it wasn't alone; the hand was with it too! Also, the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck (the probable culprit to the low heartbeats). Dr. Love worked his magic and eventually out popped a little baby (12:44 a.m. on April 3 — about 24 hours after the bag of waters broke), with only the slightest of internal tearing to Renee (called "skid marks").

Dr. Love placed the baby on Renee's abdomen and I began searching to find out what the baby's name was.... Was it a boy or a girl? Eventually, and ever so slowly, the legs came apart, and I happily announce to everyone: "It's Aidan!"

Welcome Home, Baby Aidan

Mom, Aidan, and Dad all come home from the hospital. Lara greeted us with plenty of meows....

Happy Birthday!

Welcome to the world, Aidan Alexander! He was born at 12:44 a.m. and shares his birthday with his Gammy (Renee's mom). He was 8 lbs 0 oz and 20 1/4 inches long.

Is the Baby Coming?

Renee's bag of waters broke? She's pretty sure, but I was expecting more "water." Renee called the baby doctor and he's cool with us hanging out at home and seeing how things develop (since Renee's really not feeling anything else right now). We'll see him at 8:15 this morning regardless.