To celebrate Malcom's one week birthday, here's a little birth story.
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| Off to her 3rd wedding, the Love wedding :) |
The night of my last post about Vivienne's amazing flower girl abilities (she completed her third and last wedding this past weekend), I went into labor and just a few hours later, Malcom Douglas Harrington was born! Actually, I'm pretty sure I was contracting as I finished up the post :)
I had my 39 week appointment on Wednesday where my doctor said I was pretty ready (almost 4 cm and 80% effaced, compared to 2 cm the week before, which is a big jump), so she offered to
strip my membranes. Wanting to speed up the process because of my great discomfort, I took her up on her offer. While I'd read that some women found the procedure really painful, I found it only as uncomfortable as a regular exam. If it's going to stimulate labor, it will work in about 24-48 hours.
It took me six hours.
I had some cramping that afternoon as we went to the beach and I frantically completed things on my 'to-do' list realizing the baby could be here in the next day (sweeping, mopping, sorting the mail, etc). Around 9pm (while I was blogging), I heard/felt a 'pop' in my pelvis and realized my water had probably broke just a little. By 9:30pm I was contracting every 5 minutes and Doug went upstairs to tell Marie (his grandma whose basement apartment we live in) that we were going to the hospital; by 10pm we were in the hospital.
As the contractions got more painful, I was physically reminded of my birth plan: EPIDURAL. The anesthesiologist came and I had to sit up while I poked and prodded my back. He also made conversation, including asking me if my hair had red in it. I thought he was just quirky, but he explained the chemistry behind the fact that red-heads usually require a higher dosage of drugs (I don't remember exactly why). I thought that was interesting.
Until it turned out that my hair must have more red in it than we thought.
The first epidural just wasn't working. The pain was lessened, but definitely still there. The doctor stuck around to make sure it was working, so when it was obvious I was still in pain, he said, "You know, your just feeling more than I would like, so let's do this again."
Funny, I was thinking the same thing. So, we did it all again and this time it worked! I love me a good epidural. I was still able to feel and slightly move my legs, but no pain. Yay! The nurses encouraged me to take a nap, which I did for about a 45 minutes until they came to check on me. They asked me to roll over and, as I did, my water totally broke (I felt a bigger pop in my belly, but nothing more because of the epidural) and the nurses had a little mess to clean up. Right after that they checked me and said, "Oh, it's time to push!"
Very quickly my bed and room was reorganized and new equipment brought in for the baby. It was weird going from sleeping to pushing in about 5 minutes. I only had to push for about 10-15 minutes and, apparently, the baby kept coming even when I wasn't pushing or contracting. He was so eager he 'oozed' out (that was the doctor's word); ok, that's a little gross, but I guess that's how eager Malcom was to come out! Doug moved down there in time to 'catch' Malcom and also cut the cord before putting him on my chest.
It was love at first sight. Malcom has an amazing head of hair, not unlike his sisters, except his is thicker, darker and lays flat (hers was all over the place). He also has the family cheeks (big). He looks just like Doug. He was 8 lb, 7 oz and 19 inches long (Vivi was 7 lb,8 oz and 19.5 inches).
Doug went home in the morning to bring Vivienne to the hospital and the first meeting between these two siblings was so sweet. She was timid as she first walked into the room wearing her 'Big Sister' t-shirt that I bought just for this occasion. She looked at my belly looking for baby brother and so I pointed to the bassinet where he was sleeping (a conscious decision so I could give her a hug if she wanted it, which she didn't because she was so preoccupied with the baby). Doug took Malcom out of the bassinet and asked Vivi if she wanted to kiss the baby. She said 'No, papa kiss it,' just so she would know it was ok. After Doug kissed him, then Vivi felt comfortable enough giving him a kiss.
Soon after, Vivi wanted to hold him. At first she was very good at listening to our instructions on how to be soft, but as she got more comfortable and excited about it (and closer to nap time), we found ourselves playing a lot of defense as she tried to point to his eyes and pat the top of his head. She heard a lot of 'No!!' which I think just frustrated her (and us) by the end of the visit. Luckily, we had more visitors to keep her distracted and help out.
This labor was shorter and easier than with Vivi and the recovery has been, too. Well, with one exception. I fought a fever for most of the weekend. Running hot and cold was pretty miserable, but other than I'm feeling really good (besides the usual tired stuff). My back was sore because of the epidural, but I had no tearing down there and everything went really smoothly. Plus, it produced an absolute angel of a baby, which makes it all worth it.
I love our growing family. Here's our first family picture just before we left the hospital.
We've had a great first two weeks with baby Malcom! Today he had his two-week check up and everything looks great; in fact, he put on 13 ounces in 10 days (since the check up four days after he was born)! He's put on almost 1 pound since we left the hospital! The doctor was very impressed.
Vivi loves to hold baby Malcom. She's really good at giving him kisses and her idea of giving Malcom a 'little hug' is putting her head on his tummy. Vivi is so cute because she also likes holding his hand and sometimes she'll grab his hand and then put her thumb in her mouth and try to snuggle with him. She doesn't call him Malcom, it's always 'baby brother' or 'baby Malcom.' I think I've got her trained to say "Shhhhh, shhhhh, it's ok baby Malcom" whenever he screams/cries, instead of what she used to yell, 'Stop it baby! Stop crying!' In fact, she did that all throughout the grocery store while we were shopping and he was crying. It was really sweet because I didn't even have to remind her not to yell at him :)
