Desmond Lewis Gibbs Makes His Debut

I know some people like to hear birth stories, or at least I couldn't get enough of them as I got closer and closer to my due date, so I wanted I would share mine. It's taken a few weeks to get posted I know, but we've been having so much fun (lack of sleep) getting to know our new little one that I've gotten behind in updating. Without further ado - Desmond's birth story!

************************

We arrived at the hospital at 8am Sun the 15th for the induction as there was concern regarding the baby’s heart rate. They got me settled in and started an NST (non-stress test) to see how baby was doing. This is where monitors are attached to my belly to monitor things inside. Turns out we failed it twice in the time they had us hooked up and had we waited until our regular NST scheduled for the next day, we would have been sent over for the induction anyway. This made me feel so much more comfortable with the decision to be induced!

I came in at 4cm/75% effaced. They started me on Pitocin and I labored like that with the pain at a very low level for pretty much all freaking day. I felt the contractions but they were completely manageable, even with the Pit on its max. The worst part at this point was my STARVING since I hadn’t eaten since 7am. Around 7:30pm they checked me and saw I still hadn’t progressed passed 4cm, even though I was 100% effaced at this point, so they broke my water.

That turned into a shit storm that is a bit of a blur. They didn’t turn down the Pit when they broke my water, but my body kicked into its own labor efforts when they did, so this resulted in a 15min long constant contraction that baby realllly didn’t like. They shut down the Pit, gave me a shot of something (terbutaline?) that relaxed my uterus to stop the contraction, but it gave me the worst shakes! Once it wore off my body kicked into gear with some insanely painful contractions! Mark helped me through them sans pain meds until 10:30pm or so when they came to check me again. I thought after all that for sure I’d be close, but no…4cm STILL. I broke down crying and got the epidural.

At first the epi didn’t work, my muscles were numbed but my nerves were not and I was barely handling each contraction. The anesthesiologist finally topped me off with something after Mark told him that the dentist has to give me 3x the lidocaine to numb me fully (epidurals are in the same medication type family). It finally started working around midnight and I slept for about 15 mins, although it felt like 3 hrs. I woke up and told them it was hurting around my hip in about a fist size spot so they checked me again and I’d gone to 9 cm!! I went into transition pretty fast after that as the baby dropped into my pelvis.

Next thing I know I was pushing, and about 1.5 hrs later they were raising the baby up for us to see. Mark says that there was a moment of silence, then I just said what everyone was thinking “That’s a boy!” We had a 6lb 6oz, 20.5in bundle of cuteness!!

As for choosing a name with this surprise sex switch, it was really easy to decide. We’d had it down to 2 boy names, one that he loved and one I did, before we were told the sex was a girl. When he came out he just looked like a Desmond (Mark’s pick), not a Daniel (my pick), so easy peasy!