Bennett Nicholas LaVine - 12/18/09

Now that I have gotten home and have gotten somewhat settled in, I wanted to get down in words the story of Bennett's birth.

As you have read previously, Bennett didn't seem to want to leave the comfort of my belly. Everytime I went into the Dr. he wasn't making any progress, so we made an appt. for the day before my due date to go in that evening and begin the inducement process. Being this is my first baby, I had no idea what to expect the entire way through. I can tell you it was quite an 'adventure' and I am completely and utterly pleased with the end result: our baby boy, Bennett.

I decided to take off 12/16, the Wednesday I was going to be induced (in the evening) from work in case I was up all night or something like that. It was nice to be able to try to relax... and I mean try to relax during the day leading up to the evening trip to the hospital. I tried to sleep in but when Patrick got up to get ready for work, I also woke up and for some reason could not return back to sleep again. I was so anxious! I turned to my best friend during my pregnancy - Bejeweled, on my phone. I can only imagine that the noises of this game could soothe Bennett into a deep sleep. ;-) At about 720 I receive a phone call from the hospital, I recognized the phone #. I figured it would be them confirming my appt. for that evening but wondered why they would choose to call so early in the morning. Can't a pregnant woman get some sleep? Ha. It turns out they had my scheduled for 7AM that morning. I was completely confused and a little annoyed as I was 99.9% positive my Dr. had said 7PM, not AM. They said they would call the Dr to verify and get back to me. They finally called me back and said they were able to switch some things around and were able to take me as I had planned, at 7PM that night. Otherwise I would have had to go in right then. Wow, that was kind of exciting and scary at the same time!

The day dragged on and on. I didn't do much at all. I wandered around the house aimlessly, I tried desperately to get some more sleep and only managed to catch an hour and a half or two hour nap on the couch. I dropped Lexxi off at my parents' house and soon enough Patrick was home. Once he got home and we started to pack up final things into the hospital bag, that's when time started to fly. We couldn't figure out what to get or make for dinner, and honestly we weren't really organized like we should have been with that. We decided we would just stop by Applebee's in Buffalo before the appt. I was worried we wouldn't have enough time, but we made it to the hospital with time to spare.

It was strange to be going to the clinic/hospital at night instead of the morning. We parked in the first spot on the side and meandered inside. Most of the desks were empty and we went to the ER/Urgent Care desk and got checked in. The lady then walked us down to the Birth Center. It was pretty crazy feeling walking into that place. The last time we had been there was for our Baby class. I remember walking in there and seeing a baby in the nursery and getting so excited. Now I was walking in and feeling a little unsure of what was to come for me and Baby B.

We were brought to room 6 and told this would be our room. It was quite small. Yeah, very small. Smaller than I remembered during the Baby class tour. The Buffalo Hospital is currently in the process of building a new Birth Center... too bad they couldn't have done that sooner!!! The entire induce/birth is sort of becoming blurrier and blurrier as the days pass by... but I remember getting checked and being told I was 1 cm dilated. Woohoo I thought!!!! Progress !!! But obviously not what we needed to have for little Bennett to come anytime soon. I have heard of women being dilated to 1cm for months before they deliver. I was not going to be waiting another month, that's for sure! Yes, I am impatient. :-P And yeah, being 'checked' to see how far along you are... NOT FUN. Then they did the Cervadil (sp?) and I had to stay in bed for a few hours. Not the most pleasant little experience, but not bad in the realm of things. 

Patrick was with me from the minute we stepped into the hospital until the moment we left it, minus the short period of time just before and after my C-Section. I am so thankful to him for that. For being there for me during this entire thing is so huge I can't even begin to thank him enough. I could not have done it without him, that is for sure!

The next morning arrived quickly and it all began. They moved me into a birthing room (you give birth in one room (much larger room!) and stay in another for the remainder of the time) and began the IV. I was terrified of the IV simply because my friend from work, Lena, told me that it was the very worst part of the entire thing. It was not for me... and surprisingly so because I can't really see the veins in my hands that well at all. They got that in and started the Pitocin at 9AM. I was starting to feel real contractions now and that was exciting for me!!! During the month leading up to my due date, I would feel things but I wasn't totally sure if they were contractions or not. Now I knew they were, there was no doubting it. I was so hungry but not able to eat anything. All I could have was ice chips and a little juice. Patrick was very accomodating in that area. They would check me from time to time (again...totally NOT FUN!) and the Dr. came in to see how things were moving along. She said if I were at a certain point in the morning she would break my water and things would progress much more quickly. Unfortunately, I wasn't to any point where that could happen... but I think that was okay with me b/c the nurse said that would have been pretty painful. I'm not so much into pain, especially where I can avoid it. A little into the afternoon I got up to go to the bathroom and I started dripping stuff down my legs. I thought I was peeing down my leg but then realized it wasn't pee. My water broke! It was not a huge gush or anything, so it was a small tear or something but it was definitely my water and not pee. Nothing really changed after that due to the water breaking, we just didn't have to have it broken by the Dr. They continued to up my Pitocin and the contractions were starting to get more painful and longer. Around 230PM I decided I was ready for the epidural. My parents had come by just before that and I know I wasn't a very pleasant person to visit. It's hard to keep a game face on when you're having waves of pain come through your body. Oh, and I was starving to death and they brought Patrick Culvers. How unfair! Haha. He took it to eat in our Room 6. Eventually the anesthesiologist came in and had a cart full of goodies with him. I tried no to look for the needle. I hate needles, especially huge ones that are going to go into my spine. I bent over and he put it in my back. It didn't hurt that much, was more uncomfortable. After that was done, the relief was awesome! I had a smile back on my face and all was well... ready to have a baby! Some time went by and I was starting to sort of feel my legs again. I asked the nurse if it was normal and she said "normal" is different for every patient. I figured she was right. And then the pain returned. I had a button to hit to give me a boost of pain medicine but that didn't seem to be working at all. She called the anesthesiologist back and he came to check it out. He upped my continual dosage and gave me a couple extra boosts during the hour. I know I was hitting that button to the max but I was feeling no relief whatsoever. If anything, the pain was getting worse. He left and it continued on and got worse and worse. I was breaking Patrick's hand and didn't know how much more I could take. They finally noticed that the bottle the pain medicine was dripping from didn't seem to have changed at all for a while now. They called the anesthesiologist back again. He figured it was the drip machine and changed that out... still nothing. He checked the connection to my back but not sure that was it either. In the meantime, I was writhing in pain. My Dr. came in and thank goodness for her taking control of the situation. If she wouldn't have come, I think they might have sat around trying to evaluate every aspect of what could be wrong instead of fixing it!!! She ordered me to have a shot of morphine for the pain through my IV and checked me. I was dilated to about 9 or so but it wasn't even enough for her liking and we decided to go the C-Section route. Finally the anesthesiologist manually gave me a shot of something that went directly into my spine and was a HUGE relief. I could breathe again. I do not know how women that had no pain meds give birth. I understand women's bodies are made for it, but wow... that is some major pain. Once the pain meds finally started working and I knew we had made a decision to do the C-Section, I started to feel a lot more calm and was anxious to be done.

The nurses once again changed shifts (I think we were on like nurse #5 or something) and she prepped me for the surgery. I put on a pretty hair cover thingy and Patrick got scrubs. Around 1145 we were heading down to the OR and I was feeling no pain, just cold. Patrick had to meet me in there so this is the time where he left my side, only because he had to. There were so many people in the OR, I kind of felt bad they all had to come back to the hospital. I was also thankful that they did! They rolled me onto the operating table and strapped my arms out to the sides in a 'T' formation. They put up a sheet so I couldn't see my insides being cut into and pulled apart. Thank you for that! And they started giving me more pain meds. I was FREEZING so they put some warm blankets over me and around my face. That felt sooo good. I then heard my Dr. voice and that actually made me feel more calm. They started asking me if I felt things and after a few tries it didn't feel sharp anymore. The Dr. said she would start but wouldn't deliver him until Patrick was there. Sounded good to me! I was focusing intently on if I could feel anything and expecting to feel some sort of pains but never did. The next thing I know Patrick was there by my head and the next thing I hear a baby crying!!! That was one of the best moments in my life that I can remember up until now. I had been wanting to hear that noise for so long and it was finally there. 12:19AM Bennett was born. What a relief!!! How exciting!!! MY BABY! I couldn't see him but the nurse next to my head said that he was cute! :) They took him over to the side to clean him off and Patrick went to cut the umbilical cord. They began finishing me up and sewing me back together and I was fending off shivers. They held him up for me to see and I started to tear up. That was our baby, we did it. What a wonderful feeling. I didn't get a real good look at him before Patrick and the nurses took him up to the nursery to get checked out.

I was then brought out to the recovery room area and I had some bad cottonmouth. I was still freezing to death and my teeth would not stop chattering. Eventually this got better and I was able to have a few ice chips that helped a lot with the dry mouth. After about half an hour they wheeled me back up to my room and finally got a good look at our baby. He was absolutely beautiful!! So adorable and I couldn't believe he was actually ours. So surreal. Not long after we returned to the room, I was able to finally have some sips of water and some crackers. OMG did they taste good!!! Even though it was so early/late, Patrick made the round of calls to the Grandparents. It was probably somewhere around 330-4AM that we finally got to sleep.

We were in the hospital from Wed. 12/16 7PM until Sunday 12/20 around 1PM and it was so nice to finally get home and out of that tiny room and all the nurses bugging you at all hours of the day! I was an early discharge but I feel fine about that. Baby was 6 lbs. 9 oz. when we left, but a few days later at the follow-up check-up at the Dr, he was up to 6 lbs. 12 oz. already. I am already starting to see a difference in his legs, the little piggie!

I can talk all day about how bad the pain was but I know I would do it all over again just to meet my little guy. I am already starting to forget the details of everything and that is the healing in time. I still haven't fully recovered from the C-Section, but that is okay. I'm very thankful that Patrick was able to take off so much time from work to help me out with everything. I am thankful for a healthy baby and no real complications. He is everything I ever dreamed of and I look forward anxiously to everything that is to come, even all the sleepless nights, the off-the-chart screaming, the explosive diarrhea, the terrible two's, teething, EVERYTHING. We love you Bennett!