Tuesday, January 8, 2013

John Paul's Birth Story...

*I realize some people may not love reading these stories.  I just don't want to forget.

   




As with Carter and Peter, John Paul’s induction was set for 39 weeks.  Since I had my first child with a scheduled induction and no complications, and because we live two hours from the hospital, my doctor has never wanted to “chance it.”  Being a little bit of a planner, I love being induced!

So, the night before the induction, we loaded up Carter and Peter and headed to Amarillo to stay with Mimi and Pops.  They had offered to keep the boys while Jeremy and I went on a date.  However, on the way there, Peter had a fever, and we decided to make an appointment with his pediatrician.  Thankfully we did, for he had an ear infection and needed antibiotics.   The doctor’s appointment and prescription-getting took awhile, so rather than going out to eat, Jeremy and I ordered Papa Johns (reminiscent of college days), ate it quickly, and then headed to see Lincoln at the movie theatre.  I was a fun last evening as parents of two.

We checked in the next morning at Baptist Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Amarillo at 7am to get the process started and were placed with an amazing nurse, Brenna, whose grandpa and mine were great friends.  I had signed all of the paperwork and was hooked up to an IV of Pitocin by 8:30 that morning being about 3 cm dilated and 60% effaced.  Everything went as expected…mild contractions until Dr. Carrillo came to break my water around 11:30.  Then the contractions intensified quickly.  By the time I reached about 4.5 centimeters, I was where I needed to be in terms of getting an epidural, so the anesthesiologist was called in.  With my other two, the epidural wasn’t bad at all.  The first was perfect, the second a bit too numb, but this one hurt really badly.  The anesthesiologist was trying hard to give me a lose dose of meds slowly because my blood pressure was so low (normal for me), however there was one part of my lower body that would not get numb.  He pulled out the epidural catheter a bit to reroute it, but that didn’t work.  So, he upped the meds substantially.  Before I knew it, I had tunnel vision and couldn’t hear a thing being said.  My blood pressure had dropped to around 60/20 and the nurse laid me flat and quickly administered another kind of medicine to counteract my drop in blood pressure.  All was well in a few minutes, minus the complete loss of feeling from my chest down.   I was fairly comfortable, and things started to progress.  Having warned the staff that once I hit 6 cm, things go quickly, I was surprised I wasn’t being checked more often.  Around 2:30 (I think), I was at 8 cm, and they called Dr. Carrillo.  I couldn’t feel anything and was a little worried that I might be farther along than they expected, and everyone seemed to be taking their time.  Well, when Dr. Carrillo checked, I was ready to go.  One nurse was putting one of my legs up and another was walking by the computer and said, “Oh you’re missing a contraction to try and push.  Push!”  So, I did and out came John Paul much to everyone’s surprise.   It was as quick as could be, and John Paul came into the world at 3:31 pm, the littlest of the three boys…weighing eight pounds, one ounce and measuring 19.75 inches long.  He was bright red with strawberry blonde hair and looked nothing like his brothers.  Yet, we were completely taken with him from the very first moment!  What an extremely special blessing to be a mom and to be trusted by God to care for one of His.  I don’t know that I will ever be able to say that I am done having children…I love them too much.

John Paul Matthias, we couldn’t ask for anything more.  We love, love, love you!



Thanks for the link-up, Camp Patton.

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