Bradley and Ellen: July 2010

Alright, NOW that we are home, I have a moment to get Ollie's story up! It's a long one, so hold on tight!

Thursday, July 1st I was scheduled to be induced and we were going to stay at the hospital overnight. The hospital was so full that they kept pushing our time back into the night until a bed was empty, so we didn't get checked in until 10. Well, with the first medication, I thought it wouldn't start contractions until they got me pitocin in the morning along side it. I thought we would be bored out of our minds playing card games and watching HGTV. Wrong. The contractions started after an hour. They were bad at first. And then they got badder. I know that's not a word, but I'm trying not to use profanities. It hurt. Bad. And they wouldn't let me go to the bathroom for 2 hours after the medication started, so it was wretched. In order to get through it, I had to picture that a rock was in my hand and I was crushing it to dust. Weird, but true. Bradley said I didn't look like I was in pain, but trust me...

Well, our little friend the epidural came. Not to judge anyone who likes to go all natural or whatever, but who in the sam wouldn't get one??! The lady who gave me mine had it in my back in literally 2 mintues tops. The funniest part was when she said it would feel like I hit my funny bone in my butt...hmmm. Did I care? No. Stick that needle in, crazy! And quick!

I wish I could say that after the epidural everything was cake. For almost all 19 hours of labor I was shaking like crazy. I'm talking BIG shakes. It was so weird. I couldn't control it. I bet this has happened to some of you. It is horrible! You try to "rest" like the nurses say, but you are shaking the whole bed! I kept apologizing for it (well, for everything), but the nurses were so nice and kept telling me I was completely normal. Phew.

It was a really slow process. One of the funniest things was that I was burning up (naturally) and so I kept asking Bradley to turn down the temp. And down. And down. Pretty much every person who came in the room was like "Whoa! Do you know how cold it is in here? Are you cold?" Um, no. I was burning up and Bradley was wrapped up like a mummy in a long toga-like blanket. The doctor made some sort of a joke about my husband wearing a dress, but I didn't really think anything was funny. This was the doctor in my group of OB's that I was trying to avoid the whole time and lucky me--he was the one on call that day. We've called him "Doctor Knit-whit" from the beginning just praying he wouldn't deliver our baby. And he wears tight jeans. It's disturbing. Okay, back to the story...

Before his actual birth, his heart rate started to slow down a lot. It gave us a little scare, but the whole process was hard on the little guy. The cord was just losely around his neck, but he was breathing really fast and was blue when he came out. I seriously had no idea what was going on. I was so out of it, and I was so traumatized by Dr. Knit-whit making stupid comments to distract me that I just stared off into space.

But little Oliver was here! They put a ginormous oxygen mask on his face that totally smushed his eyes back. It made me so sad. But I got to hold him for a quick minute before he went off for testing. I didn't get to see him until much later that night and then I just snuggled him. It was sooo nice. And Bradley is sooo cute with him. They are just great!

Overall, the only good part about having Oliver was Oliver himself. Totally worth it, but a bit of a nightmare. ;-) Good thing he's delicious.
Ollie and his Daddy