Birth Day

On February 3, we welcomed Holden Nicholas Manchesky into our family. I want to make sure to record his birth story before I forget the details. I should warn you, that this post is more for me (our family) than anyone else.

We were scheduled to be induced on Wednesday morning, so Tuesday after school I drove Jack to Spring Lake to stay with Grammy Shirl. There was a big snow storm, and I was driving with white knuckles the whole way there. Jay and I both got home about 8:00 p.m., thinking we'd have a relaxed night of just us, when the hospital called. There was some confusion, and they were expecting me Tuesday night instead! They said I had time to take a "brief" shower, but that we would need to be there by 9:00 p.m. so they could start the Cervidal.

We arrive, in a state of disarray to say the least, and they see that my contractions are regular, and I'm dilated to two, so they can't use the Cervidal and instead go right to Pitocin. Which basically means we could have come in the next morning, but I wasn't about to leave the hospital without a baby for the second time! They kept me on a low dose till morning, with basically no progress, just consistent contractions.

The nurse started turning up the drugs every half hour until the Pitocin was at 22, and then Holden's heart rate started to drop during the contractions. A sign he was in distress, so they shut off the Pitocin and monitored his heart rate. They actually put a monitor on his scalp instead of around my stomach to get a more accurate read of his heart and the contractions. Thankfully, he bounced back, and they just lowered the Pitocin to 11 instead. I still wasn't making any progress so around 11:00 a.m. they broke my water. It was then that we heard from Grammy Shirl, that her husband Phil was very sick, and they were taking him to the hospital. We decided it would be best for Jay to go get Jack, while my mom stayed with me at the hospital, and then my mom would be with Jack at our house instead.

By 3:30 p.m. the contractions were getting so painful that I was thinking of getting an epidural. When they checked me I was still only 2 centimeters dilated, so I felt very lame asking for drugs, because with Jack I was at a 5 before the epidural. But these were coming at me so fast and strong that I knew I couldn't go 8 more hours that way! They gave me the minimal amount of epidural because my blood pressure had been so low during labor, that they were afraid to give me the "normal" amount.

I think the pain relief was exactly what my body needed, because in 3 1/2 hours I went from 2 to 10, and was ready to push at 7:00! They said my doc was in with someone else, and I could either start pushing or wait. I was only +2 station, so I wanted to wait for my doctor. Plus, because I wasn't fully numb, I could tell the baby was ready to come out, and I was afraid of starting too early. At 7:45 he came in, said "the baby is right there." Just like Jack, he he was transverse, and as an added bonus he had his hand on his face. I pushed for 10 minutes and baby "H" arrived at 7:55, Wedesday night.

I'm not sure if it was because everything happened so fast at the end, but his birth was much different than Jack's. Neither Jay or I cried when he was born. We were just as thrilled, but sadly, our immediate thoughts were "is he healthy? does he have any birth defects?" that I feel like we missed that sacred moment of initial awe and wonder. Dr. Hickner did say immediately that he looked very healthy, but that he was in fact small like they thought. Six pounds of sweet perfection.