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First Night

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Well we’ve gotten the first night behind us and all is well. It’s an amazing process being a parent, it’s a little “trial by fire” with a “get in and do it” attitude.

Heather is progressing nicely, she up on her feet and doing very well.

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Birth Details

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In an effort to explain what happened last night, I’ll try and give a short account of the events between my post at 3pm and 4am when the baby popped out.

Heather was on misoprostol and we had just upped the dose when the baby’s heart rate declined to unsafe levels. We aren’t sure if it was corollary, the misoprostol with the heart rate drop or if it was just a sign of distress. Regardless, Heather was taken off the misoprostol. At this time the doctors also checked her cervix and it had not changed, still 3cm. It was a little deflating, that we gotten through a round of Pitocin and Miso with no change in her cervix.
The next idea was to put Heather back on the Pitocin and see if we could shake things loose. In the process of raising the dose the baby went through another heart rate deceleration. A clear sign that things inside the uterus were not great. Again we measured the cervix around midnight and with no change we began the discussion of more Pitocin or a C-section. One other factor in this decision was that Heather’s water had broken about 24 hours prior and we were working against the clock and the threat of infection.

In the end we felt it was important to have a C-section done on our time and not while the baby was under stress. The other big benefit is that Heather could be awake during the procedure, a big plus for Heather.

And so at 4 am the c-section was started and about 4:30 out came our very healthy baby. He scored an APGAR of 9. I’m told that’s good, but no bearing on a future ivy league education.

Within the next 40 minutes he was breast feeding and moving his eyes all around the room.

I can’t say enough about the staff at Kaiser, everyone was great and very supportive. It wasn’t the kind of birth we planned but, we had a great birth of our first born.

Love to all of you that followed along and make our life rich great. I can’t wait to introduce our new addition. Eventually he’ll have a name, we promise.

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It’s a Boy

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The last 24 hours have been really tough and I promise to give everyone the full details.

But right now the baby is doing great. He’s already taken a meal from mom and a nap.

Mom is doing great.

Nap Time

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Heather is taking a good little afternoon nap. It appears that the Pitocin has worn off and her contractions have stopped. All good things. We are now waiting for the misoprostol to start working and hopefully soften her cervix. We needed to get her off the Pitocin because the side of effect of miso is uterine over stimulation, but that doesn’t appear like it is going to be a problem as she’s been contraction free for about an hour.

Meanwhile this blog is the only thing keeping me sane and I’m not sure if this is the first test of fatherhood or my child’s first prank on his future father.

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Tough Going

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Well the Pitocin didn’t do the trick as hasn’t gotten the cervix dilated or softened. Heather is going off the Pitocin and we are going to try a pill of mesoprostol. Mesoprostol is a drug that is suppose to soften and dilate the cervix, so we’ll see how it goes.

We are also up against a wall as the clock started when the bag of water reptured. They like to have a baby out of the womb within 24 hours of that happening, depending on the health of the baby. (which by the way looks great and has looked great since we got here.)

More later.