Happy 2nd Birthday to Our Little Monkey

Two years ago today I was high on morphine and Gravol. Two years ago today I was scared out of my mind but was too doped up to notice. Two years ago today my beautiful baby boy was born and our world was turned upside down in the best way possible.

It was an easy birth in some respects as it was mostly painless, at least until the drugs wore off. But getting to the actual birth wasn’t so easy.

Our little guy wasn’t at all keen to enter the world. He wasn’t ready to be born and he wasn’t growing fast enough in the womb. From the beginning, doctors were worried about his birth weight as I was of ‘advanced maternal age’. It turned out that they were right on as OLM wasn’t packing on the weight he should have considering I was feeding him plenty.  

And so in the 7th month, after my last hurrah in Waikiki, Hawaii I was at Women’s Hospital every week for Ultrasounds and then 6 weeks before he was born we were there 3 times a week. 

We were worried about fetal movement as well because OLM wasn’t a mover and shaker but I think that because he was small and had lots of room so I didn’t feel him as much. They strapped the monitors on anyway, and to our relief his heart rate was great and he moved. A lot! I think I was in shock the whole pregnancy though as not much really bothered me.

What did bother me was bed rest. I tell you what. Two days of bed rest is fantastic but any more than that and I was wanting to pull my freakin’ hair out.

Say Induction Five Times Fast

But I the best rest was all worth it and I didn’t have to wait as long as I thought. Sixteen days before the due date of September 1st 2010, my Ob/Gyn decided that enough was enough and we went to hospital for what turned out to be the first of 5 inductions. Yes that’s right, five.  We started on a Sunday and OLM was born on the Friday at 3.28pm.

Now I suppose you’re thinking that it must have been terrible. That being in labour for so many days would have brought me to my knees. Maybe from boredom if nothing else. The first four times did absolutely nothing.

The fifth round was only marginally better. After about and hour and a half, I started to feel contractions that lasted through the night. It was scary, and it was painful. But the contractions didn’t feel right. They were strong but only on one side of my abdomen. I knew I was in for some complications.

At 7am I was admitted to hospital.

The doctor checked the progress and to my chagrin I was only one centimeter dilated. This is an obvious problem considering that I was induced five times already and I hadn’t progressed even a little bit.

So we had to make a decision then. Should we wait and hope OLM starts pounding on the door with another induction, or let them go in to make for an easier exit.

We chose the latter.

There is so much more to this story of course. And when I can I will finish this story. I might call it Birthing Story: The C-Section that Almost Didn’t Happen. For now, here’s some precious photos of our little monkey.

I can’t resist baby toes especially these particular purplish-red ones.  Yummy.

Thanks for reading.

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