Roller Coaster of Love: Part I

To say the moment Parker started to make his entrance into the world through the first week of his life was a roller coaster ride is no exaggeration. There were high moments and low points...even dippity-do's & loopty-lou's. At my 38 week appointment, my doctor had decided to go ahead and induce me if the baby hadn't arrived on his/her own by the next week. My doctor seemed fairly confident that my baby would make his big debut before this induction date, so that helped ease my mind as I've always been rather anti-induction. Too many of my friends (in fact, all that I am aware of ) started with an induction and ended with a c-section. Yes, I was ready and anxious to hold my little one in my arms, but I still wasn't sure an induction was the best route for me. Luckily, I didn't have to experience that.

I went to bed Thursday night (May 12th) having a few strange contractions here and there. They just didn't feel anything like what I felt with Nolan, and actually, they were more like sharp, shooting pains rather than 'contraction.' To be honest, I didn't think much of it. At 2:30 a.m., I woke up feeling wet. So, my first reaction was shaking Brian awake saying, "I think my water just broke!" He responded by quickly jumping out of bed. As I made my way into our bathroom, I noticed I felt pretty wet, but the bed wasn't. It wasn't until a few moments later that I noticed A LOT of bright, red blood rather than clear water like I was hoping for. Immediately, the excitement faded as panic and worry set in. Brian quickly got Nolan up to take to our friend's house, as I called the hospital and grabbed a towel. On the drive to take Nolan, I began having some contractions and no longer really noticed the sharp pain.

Upon arriving at L & D, the nurse went to check me and quickly put a halt on that as she noticed even more blood. She told me she didn't want to agitate anything more by checking me until she received the OK from my doctor, well the doctor on-call since it wasn't my own doctor's week. After speaking with her, they informed me that they wanted to do an ultrasound right away to try and determine where the blood was coming from and to make sure baby seemed okay (even though the heart rate was excellent). The ultrasound turned out to not show much...they were fairly confident it wasn't my placenta, which was one of the #1 concerns at that point. The baby also scored an 8/8 on something - which was great. Meanwhile, my contractions grew stronger and were about every 6 minutes, and the nurses & doctor seemed less worried about the bleeding although it was still more than they were comfortable with it had started to slow down.

At about 10:00 a.m., the bleeding sped back up and the contractions started to become more intense. I finally decided I was ready for the epidural, as I'd held off for the last 4 hours. After entering epidural bliss, they chose to start pitocin because my contractions had started to space out...which is the opposite of what happened with Nolan. Once I got my epidural with him, my contractions picked up and I dilated even quicker! I quickly learned from the beginning that I could no longer compare this pregnancy to that of Nolan's...my process from baby 1 to baby 2 was completely backwards. Don't believe the stories you hear about the second one coming earlier, faster, easier, etc...it's all a crock of shi... true for only some people. This is the point when they decided to call my doctor in due to the bleeding picking back up and at this point I was dilated to a 6. She still wasn't overly concerned and assured me how great the baby was reading. My labor & delivery nurse told me that she wished all babies on the floor were doing and always did as well as mine had been, especially with what my body was doing! That definitely made me relax a lot more. At about quarter til 2, my water was broke, I was at an 8 1/2, and knew that my baby BOY (at this point, instincts completely kicked in and affirmed my prior suspicions that this one was indeed a boy) would soon be here and this scariness would be put behind me.

At 2:45 pm on Friday the 13th, Parker James Curry entered my world and our family became a family of 4. He weighed 7 lbs and 15 ounces, a pound and half more than his brother, and was 19.5 inches long. He was placed on my chest briefly as a teary-eyed Daddy cut the cord. Through my smile and own tears of joy I saw the nurse take my oxygen off and place it over my newest love's nose and mouth, telling me that he just seemed to be breathing a little fast. After weighing him and all of the other protocol stuff they do under the heated lights, she told me that I could hold him again soon, but for now she needed to get him into the nursery and under an oxygen hood. Our joy-filled and excited hearts deflated.



(He sucked on the edge of his hood from the start and held on to it for several hours afterwards)

Currently, Parker is letting me know that it is, once again, time to eat. Oh, the joys of nursing every 1 1/2 - 2 hrs, has set in. But, considering where we've been...I'll take it! To be continued...