Malcolm Ernest Grimm

FB post Apr 2: Malcolm Ernest Grimm is here! He was born at 3:32pm weighing in at 9 lbs 3oz and 20" long. Mommy is doing very well. Baby gets to spend some time in the NICU due to a rash they're concerned about, but otherwise he's a healthy, chubby, cute cute boy!

This is it! The post you've all been waiting for! The Birth Story!

We had gone to the doctor on Monday morning. Dr. Grover was out of town, so we had seen Dr. Glenn. The perinatologist had said that since the baby was measuring two weeks early she hadn't wanted me to go past the 39 week mark. Dr. Glenn was surprised when I said that I had wanted to be induced while Dr. Grover was out of town. I was ready for this baby, and at 39 weeks I didn't want to wait anymore. He was skeptical, and wanted to talk to the perinatologist before agreeing to the induction, so he sent us on our way, not knowing if we would be having a baby the next day or not, telling us that they would call and let us know. We went about our day, taking naps, packing bags, getting everything ready just in case they wanted us to go in for the induction. 

We had decided that we were only going to tell Sarah whether or not the induction was getting scheduled, because she was going to take Molly for us. Everyone else would find out once the baby was here. In the early afternoon, the doctor's office called us and said that we were scheduled for an induction, gave us some quick instructions, and told us the hospital would call and let us know what time they wanted us to be there. About an hour later, they called and said we had a 6:00 am appointment and gave us some further instructions. We started getting excited to meet our little boy. 

Since the appointment was so early, Molly was going to spend the night at Sarah's house. We took her there right before her normal bed time, dressed in jammies and ready for bed. She didn't fall asleep for hours. We left at almost midnight and Sarah was still sitting in the girl's room with her, trying to get her to fall asleep. I hadn't ever left my baby overnight, and leaving this time was especially hard. I knew I wouldn't be able to put her to bed for at least two more nights, and I really struggled with that. Not to mention when I did come back home I would have a new baby to take care of and I wasn't sure how well she would adjust. I finally kissed my baby goodbye, and left.

We grabbed some food on our way home and tried to go to sleep. I didn't sleep much these days anyway, but even through my exhaustion, going to bed KNOWING I was going to be having a baby the next day made it almost impossible to sleep. After the lights were off and I was situated in my recliner that I had been sleeping in for about two months TR and I talked about how things were going to change. We went over the plan for the days I was in the hospital again, and just other little things in general. I finally fell asleep around 1:30 with my alarm set to go off at 5. I slept pretty soundly once I was able to go to sleep. Once my alarm went off (and I hit snooze a couple of times), I jumped in the shower, double checked my hospital bag, and made sure TR was awake. At 5:45 we were off to the hospital. 

We were right on time for our appointment, and we filled out paperwork quickly and got admitted and all hooked up to IVs and such. They started the Pitocin around 7:00 and we were on our way. At this point I was dilated almost to a 3. We had the BEST nurses. Our Labor and Delivery nurse was named Melanie, and there was an intern from UVU there named Sean. They were both there through my whole labor which was really nice. It was nice not having to switch between nurses. With Molly we saw three different nurse shifts. I loved having the same nurse the whole time. 

Once the pitocin really started working I was kind of hating life. I have a really really low pain tolerance, and the contractions were pretty much making me want to cry. I thought I had to be dilated to a 4 in order to get my epidural, however Melanie came in after I had been breathing through contractions for about 25 minutes and told me that since I was getting induced I could have my epidural any time I wanted. Yes! Now please! I had to wait another 15-20 minutes for Dr. Lind to come because he had done an epidural for a C-Section, and had to stay until she delivered the baby. I got my epidural around 10:00 and it was all smooth sailing after that. Once the epidural was in, Dr. Glenn came and broke my water. Then they put the internal monitors on the baby, and I was more free. I slept for a few hours between getting checked and checking on the baby. 

It took until about noon to get to a 5. Once I was to a 5 though I dilated pretty quickly. Around 2:00 the baby's heart rate would drop every so often with a contraction just like Molly's did, so they watched that pretty closely. Around 3:00 the nurse checked me and said I was about a 9.5, but that we just needed to get the baby out cause he wasn't tolerating the hard contractions very well. Dr. Glenn came and checked me and said I was complete and he was ready for me to push. The baby was in a posterior position, so he was going to use the vacuum to turn him while I pushed. I pushed once and his head and shoulder came out. Dr. Glenn said he didn't even really need to use the vacuum cause I'm such a good pusher (I know, I know, hold the applause), but it helped him turn the baby the right way anyway. One more push and our boy was out! He was crying and he sounded just like Molly did. They held him up and I tried to take him, but the chord wasn't quite long enough. They cut the chord and put him right on me.

When I first got handed Molly, I didn't recognize her. I didn't recognize her until after she had been bathed. Malcolm I recognized right away. He looked just like the baby I had dreamed about, and I instantly felt my heart swell almost to bursting. They took him to get weighed and cleaned up. As they were cleaning him he started getting little spots all over his body. They called them petechia, or little broken capillaries. Because they didn't know what they were from or if they were something contagious, they took him to the NICU to get a general antibiotic, antiviral, run a bunch of tests and to keep an eye on him.

The stink eye 

Tuesday, April 02, 2013