Thursday, June 30, 2016

Introducing: Andrew Christian Berry


Albeit a little late.... The newborn haze has gotten the better of me and I've kept forgetting to write his birth story before the details fade.  I started having contractions on Saturday, May 28th, in around 9 or so in the morning.  I had a ton of pretty meaningless contractions the day before that had stopped in the evening, so I wasn't sure if this was the real deal or not.  Closer to noon I had a few that stopped me in my tracks and they were getting more regular so we decided it was time to head to the hospital.  We packed the kids up and took them to a friend's house (the real reason they were excited for me to be going and having a baby.)

We arrived at the hospital around noon and went to triage to make sure I was really in labor.  Turns out, even though I was having contractions every 3-5 minutes, I was only dilated to three centimeters.  We met the midwife on call, a lovely woman named Elizabeth, who was new to the practice and so I hadn't met her before.  We chatted and then I was told to walk the halls for an hour and see how I had progressed.  And since I was Group B Strep positive and needed a course of antibiotics during labor, if my water broke I'd be admitted anyway.  So we roamed, and roamed and roamed.  And I started feeling a little, um, leaky.

So we checked back in with the nurse and she did a test to see if my water had indeed broken.  Yes!  Hallelujah!  I didn't have to go home.  I was admitted and we went to our room, got settled in, hooked up to an IV of antibiotics, monitored for a few minutes to make sure Andrew was doing okay and met my labor and delivery nurse.

And then I was finally able to get into their labor tub.  A large, wonderful, hot bath tub just for laboring mothers.  Having labored in a tub with Jack, I knew that's what I wanted this time, too.  It was so soothing and really helped ease contraction pains, because I wanted to do this delivery naturally like my others.  After being in the tub for a very uncomfortable hour, Elizabeth came in to check on me.  She chatted with Bobby and I for awhile and she laughed about how a mother had given birth in the tub a few weeks earlier, but as a rule the hospital didn't like it.  She told me to let her know when I thought I might be ready to push and we'd go back to my room to deliver.

A few minutes later I told her I was feeling a little pushy and she called in my nurse and they were getting ready to get me out when Andrew decided he was coming NOW!  He descended so quickly, she felt to see what was going on, my nurse asked if we were going to make it back to my room and Elizabeth said, "Nope!"

I've always wondered what water births were like and now I was about to have one!  Nurses came rushing in, moving all the equipment they could from my room to the spa room.  I began pushing, and a nurse jumped right in the tub with me to support me, and Bobby got in on the other side.  Just a couple minutes later Andrew was crowning and popped right out at 4:12 was brought right onto my chest and wailed.  It was an amazing delivery experience and the water made the entire process so easy and soothing.  It was by far my easiest delivery.  And, unfortunately, since we didn't think we'd actually have a baby right then, we have no pictures of it. But it was remarkable how alert and aware Andrew was immediately.  He quietly gazed at me, around the room and desperately tried to suck his thumb.

After checking his Apgars, which were great, we were bundled up and taken back to our room.  Andrew was weighed (6 pounds 9 ounces) and measured (20 1/2 inches).  I felt great.  The recovery was by far the easiest of my three.  Bobby enjoyed a couple hours with us and then went to go get Ruby and Jack and take them back home for bed.  

 
They came back on Sunday to meet Andrew for the first time and enjoy some room service.


 And then we came home on Monday.  And we've enjoyed our boy ever since.