Follow-Up Post: Birth Story

Hi everyone...it's me, Chrissie. I'm sitting here in the hospital room while Sevak takes a very angry big sister home for her nap. I feel so sorry for Rose...this has been a difficult transition. Hopefully once I get home things will stabilize a bit. I'm planning on getting discharged this afternoon. Anyway, here's the birth story:

August 25th at around 1 a.m. I started having contractions. They were very sporadic, probably around every 20 minutes or so. They also weren't very painful. I figured something would probably start happening soon enough, though. Well, once everyone started waking up (6 a.m.) things appeared to be dying down. I still was having contractions, but very sporadically. At 11:30 or so, Sevak's American mom called to see how things were going. I told her my contractions were 20 minutes apart, but lo and behold, I had one while talking and it had only been 10 minutes from the last one. She asked if I wanted her to come over and I still wasn't sure anything was going to happen totally soon, but I said yes. Thank heavens she had the foresight-- things started progressing pretty rapidly from then on. I called Sevak, he came home from his MBA orientation duties, and we drove to the hospital. When I arrived I was dilated to a 7. They pretty much immediately wheeled me into my room, my midwife broke my water, and things got really painful. I went natural with Rose, and I was thinking I would probably do it again this time, but for some reason things just seemed more intense than I remembered. :) I seriously was behaving like a possessed woman. It almost makes me laugh thinking about how wildly I was thrashing and moaning (I really do think the pain was worse this time around because I don't remember being as crazy last time). My midwife told me that's why she asked if I wanted the epidural before she broke my water. After the meds kicked in I was in seventh heaven and almost wanted to plant a big wet one on the anesthesiologist (I spelled that correctly without spell check, by the way). I started pushing immediately after because I was fully dilated, but it was taking a long time (Rose was out in only two pushes). I thought it was because I wasn't pushing correctly due to lack of sensation, but the midwife said it was because Simon was posterior, so his face was hitting up against the pelvic bone. After an hour of pushing (really glad I had chosen the epidural at that point), they finally determined that they would need to use forceps to twist him the right way. After the forcep maneuver, Simon was out immediately. He had a full head of thick hair, which looks even fluffier and cuter now that he's had a bath. He was born exactly two hours after I arrived at the hospital--if he hadn't been posterior, it probably would have only been an hour!

In my opinion, Rose and Simon's newborn photos look very similar to one another. Their births are also similar, in some respects. Both were born almost two hours to the minute after I had arrived at the hospital, both came earlier than their due dates (Rose 4 days, Simon 6), and both weighed within 2 ounces of each other (Rose 6 lb. 8 oz., Simon 6 lb. 10 oz.). And I love them both immensely!