Landon's Birth Story

I've been trying to write this all week (starting at the hospital), not because I think you necessarily want to read all of the fun details about Landon's arrival, but because I am finding that I cannot remember anything anymore and that is a problem. So this is for me. :) 

I mentioned in my last pregnancy post that I was going to be induced on Tuesday, May 31, which was only one day past Landon's due date. Even though I chose that date, I was really second-guessing the decision once it looked like I wasn't actually going to go into labor on my own.

(Back story, I was induced at 41w2d with Avery, and it was not a pleasant experience. I was in labor for 19 hours, pushed for 2, had two epidurals, threw up a lot, was thisclose to having an emergency c-section but my doctor is awesome, had major tearing, and couldn't hold my baby right away because the NICU nurses took her because her heart rate was crazy low. She ended up being just fine, but it definitely wasn't the birth experience we were expecting.)

Back to Landon. My mom came and stayed at our house on Monday night (she was keeping Avery on Tuesday) since we had to leave so early, and we made it out the door to be at the hospital by 6:00 am. They took us back right away, and I filled out paperwork while they got me hooked up to the little contraction monitor thing and set up my IV (eek). I was already contracting quite a bit on my own, but they weren't as regular as they needed to be, and I was already dilated to 4 cm. I asked if, instead of starting the Pitocin right away, Dr. D could just break my water and see if that would help get things going. He was down, so after he broke my water at 8:30 (which, by the way, might be the grossest experience ever), Matt and I started walking laps around the postpartum wing. For the record, we made 14 laps and made friends with the postpartum nurses (which definitely came in handy!). We went back to the room to watch some Big Bang Theory and nap a little bit, but by 11:00 am there wasn't enough progress, so they started Pitocin at 11:15.

I got my epidural at noon. I'm not even ashamed. It was awesome.

I progressed pretty slowly, considering how dilated I was when we got there, so around 2ish Dr. D wanted to see if Landon was in occiput posterior (OP) position (aka "sunny side up") since that can make labor take much longer. (Avery was OP also.) Sure enough, he was. My (amazing) nurses decided to try to move me into different positions to try to get him to move on his own, but somewhere in the process, Landon got moved into a position that he did not like because his heart rate just plummeted. All of a sudden, I had an oxygen mask on, Landon had an internal fetal monitor, and the nurses and Dr. D looked really concerned. I overheard one of the nurses make mention about getting an OR ready just in case. After a scary few minutes that felt more like hours, we heard Landon's heart rate pick back up, and we breathed a sigh of relief. They turned off the Pitocin for awhile and kept me on oxygen to give Landon some time to recover.

I was super nauseous through the second half of labor (pretty sure it was because I was starving) and was finally able to throw up right before it was time to push. Aaahhhh. Lovely, right?

Anyway, after 25 minutes of pushing, I heard Dr. D chuckle as he said, "Well I was a little off; that's a big boy!" Landon was placed on my chest at 7:24 pm, and the scale proved that he was, in fact, a big boy at 10 lb 6 oz (as opposed to the 7.5 lb that Dr. D estimated)!

Landon got cleaned up and I got some food (Sonic burger and fries...mmm).

And Landon finally got to meet his big sister (who is just smitten with this little boy).

Landon's first hours of life were also spent with Grandma and Grandaddy, Uncle Aaron, Aunt Chelsea, and Aunt Allison (Uncle Nick was camping in Minnesota but assures Landon that he'll make it up to him).

We just love this precious baby boy and are so thankful for our family of four.