Birthday!

Around 8:30 Tuesday night while Chad was getting ready for bed, and I was sitting on the couch watching tv, my stomach started feeling a little crampy, like when you've eaten something that's not agreeing with your stomach.  I blamed it on the huge bowl of caramel cheesecake ice cream I had just downed and ignored it.  Between 9 and 10 pm Chad went to bed and I, still on the couch, had two more crampy pains.  Again I blamed it on the ice cream.  I went to bed just after 10 and kept having these pains.  I started watching the clock and realized that my ice cream blamed pains were happening every 10 minutes on the dot.  I had no clue if I was starting labor pains or not.  After an hour of dealing with it I finally got up and went in the other room to call the hospital.  I explained to a nurse in labor and delivery what I was experiencing, that it was every 10 minutes, and that I was clueless if it was labor pains or really just bad ice cream.  She told me it sounded like I might be having contractions and to keep timing them.  If they got to be every 5 minutes then I should head to the hospital to get checked out as a precaution.  I went back to bed and tried to sleep. Every time I would doze off another wave of pain would hit, and it was starting to get  more frequent and more painful.

Around 1 a.m. I woke Chad up to inform him he wasn't going to work, that I think we might be having a baby instead.  We watched the clock together and just before 3 a.m. I told him I couldn't take the pain anymore and that we needed to head north.  My contractions weren't quite 5 minutes apart but I had had all I could take and didn't want to be 20 minutes away from the hospital when things really got going.

We made good time getting to the hospital.  Between home and there I had 16 contractions!  We were getting worried we would have a baby on the freeway because they had gotten so frequent and strong.  Boy were we wrong!  We checked in through the emergency room and headed up to labor and delivery.  We had to make several stops along the way so I could hunch over and breath through the pain.  The nurses asked us a lot of questions and then took us to a delivery room.  I was sure we were going to have a baby soon but the nurse checked me and informed me I was only dilated to a 1 and that the doctor would most likely send me home.  I was in tears from the pain and that news and told her there was no way I could make the ride home, just to most likely come back, in this kind of pain.  She suggested we walk the hallways to see if that would help me dilate more.  So we did.

We took 3 laps around the labor and delivery floor, stopping a lot so I could hunch over and get through the contractions. They were now happening every 3 to 4 minutes and were really strong.  After our 3rd lap I told Chad I couldn't go anymore so we headed back to our room.  The nurse came in to check me again and wahoo I was dilated to a 2!  Which meant we were staying until baby Long was born!

I got hooked up to the monitors and an IV.  After 1 liter of fluid the anesthesiologist showed up with my epidural.  He came in and told us something like "don't worry, we'll get you out of pain and get that little tike here."  Chad and I looked at each other and almost laughed because we knew that if we had a boy we were 99% sure we were naming him Tyke.  I was really nervous about getting the epidural and had even considered not doing it but after getting hooked up to it and going numb I was in heaven!  The anesthesiologist did so good I never felt a thing, just pure numbness.  All pain was gone and I was able to relax and get some rest.  I was then started on pitocin to speed things up.  I was in and out of sleep for hours, feeling totally drugged up.  I kept trying to move my legs just to see if I could but I couldn't.  I had to keep having Chad move them to a more comfortable position for me.

Chad and I kept an eye on the machine measuring the baby's heartbeat and my contractions.  Every time I had a contraction baby Long's heart rate would drop.  The nurses said as long as things stayed in the blue area on the graph we were fine but every once in a while baby Long's heart rate would drop making the nurses and us a little nervous.  They finally put me on oxygen for the rest of the day to see if that would help.  It did and it didn't.  At one point baby Long's heart rate really dropped and scared Chad & I enough that he rushed out of the room to get the nurse.  She came running in along with 2 others and threw me on my side so fast it freaked me out.  They moved the monitor around and around trying to find the heart beat.  I'm sure it was only seconds, but it felt like it took FOREVER for them to find it.  They were freaking out, I was trying not to freak out, and Chad looked super nervous.  One of the nurses suggested they call Dr. Nance and get permission to break my water without him there.  The pitocin was stopped and we waited things out.  Dr. Nance showed up around 3 p.m. and broke my water.  He and the nurses then put a monitor on the baby to more accurately watch the contractions.  An IV was also put in to help cushion baby Long.  Dr. Nance went home and told us he'd be back in a while.

Around 5 p.m. I was checked and was dilated to a 7.  Around 6ish I started to feel the epidural wearing off a little and pressure building up.  This was normal, the epidural wearing off, so that I would be able to push when the time came.  Around 7 p.m. I was dilated to an 8.  Around 8 pm the nurse came in to check me again and I was finally at a 10.  I told her that I really felt the need to push and wasn't sure I could wait for the doctor to come.  She turned around to leave the room to go call Dr. Nance and thank goodness, before she made it to the door he came walking in!  He got me in to position and told me what needed to be done: to take a deep breath, count to 10 and push during contractions.

I ditched the oxygen mask and we got down to business.  I was supposed to hold my breath/push to the count of 10, which Dr. Nance did the counting for me.  At about 6 I deflated and he got after me.  I couldn't help it!  I did a set of 3 pushes, each time only making it to the count of 6 or 7 no matter how hard I tried.  Dr. Nance got after me each time and I informed him that I was going to pass out if I went any longer.  He informed me that no one has ever passed out, get ready for round 2.  After every round of pushing Chad would put my oxygen mask back on me.  With only about 10 minutes of pushing our baby BOY finally made it into this world!

The umbilical cord was wrapped around our baby boy's little neck twice.  Dr. Nance told Chad that he usually lets the daddy cut the cord but he needed to work fast so Chad didn't get to.  Dr. Nance had the nurses call respiratory to come and help out.  Chad told me we had had a boy but I was so out of it that I didn't hear him.  He headed over to the table with Tyke.  I kept asking everyone "what is it? what is it?"  And finally Dr. Nance heard me and said, "oh yeah, you didn't know what your were having!  It's a boy!"

After cleaning him off and weighing him, I watched as the respiratory nurses handed our little boy to Chad.  It was pretty awesome!  He brought him over to me so I could get a look at him.  He was the cutest thing I had ever seen and we knew instantly that he was definitely Tyke.  I didn't dare hold him for a few minutes because I was shaking so bad.  I looked like I was freezing but really it was just all the adrenaline working its course.

Tyke Terry Long weighed in at a whopping 6 pounds 9 ounces and was 20 inches long.  Long and skinny.  He was a lot smaller than I thought he would be considering he was 3 days overdue.

Chad and I and Tyke had a few minutes to ourselves before our first visitors showed up.  My parents, Ashlee and her kids were first to arrive.  My dad was pretty excited to hear that our little guy was going to be named after him: Tyke Terry Long.  Soon after, Chad's mom, sister Jenny and niece Darian showed up.

We all had a good visit while Chad and little Tyke went to the nursery for bath time and a check up from Dr. Fullmer.

After our company left, and after getting cleaned up, the nurses came in to help me get moved to our new room.  It was torture getting up and then sitting in a wheel chair.  Every bump along the way was pretty painful.  I was glad to get in my new bed and stay there!  It was well after midnight before we finally called it a day.  I was so exhausted I slept great that night!  The nursery nurses brought Tyke in a couple of times for feedings and then took him back for me so we could sleep.

It was such an amazing, long, painful, rewarding day!  I'm so glad that it's over and that our baby boy is here with us safe and healthy and oh so loved!