Special Delivery!

It was only 12 Days after our shower that our little guy came into this world.

Chronologically, these pics are backwards. The top one is right before I went in to get CUT!!!

The due date was originally March 8th 2009. Then when they saw that I was loosing fluid, they said, if I didn't go into labor before March 2nd they were going to induce me because Jasper looked kind of on the small side. From their measurements they thought he would weigh around 5 lbs, 2oz. Which is pretty small for a baby that was at the 36 gestational week. That's considered full-term not preemie. Well, so they moved the date up to the 2nd and they wanted me to go for these IUGRs... I'm still not sure what that means. They called them biophysical profiles. Well, i went to one in an office not far from the delivery room at the hospital, then I had 2 more at my regular OB's office.

It was at teh 2nd of those 2 visits that they decided I needed to be induced right away. My doctor assured me that there was nothing wrong with the baby that I was just losing too much fluid and the environment that the baby was in might not be the best. She said there would be no benefit of keeping him in the belly until the 2nd so I should go home and get my stuff together and come back in about and hour or so to start getting induced. That was Thursday the 26th at around 12:45pm. I immediately called Donald, who was at the grocery store getting ready to buy lunch. I said to drop everything and come home because it was time to go to the hospital. I called our parents and pops and granny and a few others. I cancelled all my lessons for that evening and the next few days and the recital i was supposed to have sunday... i was really cutting it close I guess.

We arrived on the scene at 3:00pm where I promptly checked myself in for induction. By 4:00pm they had begun to induce me. I was having strong contractions regularly in no time! They came in and broke my water with a little thing that looked like a knitting needle. After a while, when the contractions started getting more intense, they were having a hard time monitoring the baby's heart beat. They would read it fine until the contraction and then the reception would get fuzzy. Because that's the most important time to monitor the baby's heartbeat, they wanted to put this little screw-thing in the baby's scalp to monitor what was going on. Well, they tried putting that thing in and it hurt like NOTHING i have ever felt before. i don't know if it was the screw thing or that fact that the lady had her entire arm in me trying to position it. That hurt worse than any of the contractions that i had experienced thus far... and I really really really mean that. So, they suggested that I go ahead and get the epidural and then have them try again. i was trying to hold off on the epidural because I have read that in a lot (not all) of cases that tends to slow down your contractions and throw the birthing process off. Since they were already giving me potocin, I was having stronger contractions than if I would have naturally gone into labor. I was okay with making it through the contractions but... I was NOT letting that lady do that again.

I went ahead and got the epidural. I was absolutely TERRIFIED of getting it, too. I didn't want to be paralyzed. That's all that was running through my mind as they were prepping me for it. I imagined myself on one of those Oprah episodes of how something went terribly wrong while I was in the hospital and now although my outlook on life is optimistic, my life was ruined forever. The anesthesia guy came in... he called himself "Uncle Dougie". That didn't make my mind think any more relaxed thoughts... he was a little strange but generally nice, I guess. He numbed my back a bit.... I had to hold still for that... but I jumped. Then when he put the real deal in i did better. i didn't flinch. After that they were able to get the screw thing in with no problem.

About 6 or 7 more hours went by after that. The nurses would occasionally come in and see if I had continued to dilate anymore, and to see if the contractions were any closer together, although at this point I couldn't even feel the light ones and the intense ones were like small short cramps. At around 2 o'clock one of the nurses came in to check on me and said that I was still only 4 cms dilated. I figured that was pretty close to getting into active labor.... but the thing is ... when I came in I was already at about 2 cms. So, in nearly 12 hours I had not progressed like I should have. She let me know that Dr. Laura Erdman was going to come down at around 3am and would be taking a look. When she came down at 3 she said that she was going to give me until 5 am to dilate to AT LEAST 6 or 7 cms. If I hadn't gotten any closer by that time, I would need to get a C-section. :( So, I was starting to worry a bit but still hopeful that this could happen.

5 am rolls around and she comes back and i haven't really made any progress. She tells me that they are going to have to do a C-section. It was not deemed an emergency C-section, they were just doing it because i had failed to progress with my dilation. By 5:26 am they rolled me into the operating room. Shaved up, iodine covered, and drugged to the max. Then, by 5:44 am Jasper Louis Ely was born! :)

I could feel them tugging and pulling me around. Donald said that I was out of it MAJORLY. He said I was talking about the show Lost and how the O.R. looked like Dharma and maybe they were going to steal my baby like on the show. Apparently the Anesthesiologist watches the show because he said, "So, you're feeling a little LOST are ya?". I felt them take the baby out, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest and belly... even though my sweet baby didn't weigh much. Then i heard him cry for the first time I started crying and then, was out like a light.

Next thing I know... I am in the recovery room talking a mile a minute and not knowing at all what I was saying. The few things I remember and other people told me I was saying was:

- asking what time he was born... then replying by saying, if my grandad Poppy was still alive he would go and play that number... HE was a GANGSTER!

- apparently i told my mom she didn't care about me anymore because she went over to the baby and didn't talk to me right away, "You don't care about me anymore... all you care about is the baby"

- I asked for Chapstick- Bert's Bees of course! :)

- Also, Donald says I told amy to "whip out her left boob if Jasper got hungry".

There were a bunch of other things that I said that I know I will never live down. So, anyway, I was in recovery for about an hour, then they moved me to my post partum room. I don't remember being moved but I was.

The pic of me with the oxygen in is the first time I got to hold Jasper. Donald, Amy and my mom all held him before I did... no fair! >:(