tonyandkirsten.org

We welcomed Kai Russell Hill to our family yesterday (February 6th) at 3:49pm.  He weighed 7lbs, 15 oz. at birth and is 20 inches long.

For those who are interested, here are all the details of his birth.    We arrived at the hospital at 8am on Friday, February 6th for a scheduled induction.  I was 41 weeks, 5 days along in the pregnancy — 12 days past my due date.  While anything under 42 weeks is still considered in the range of “normal,” induction is fairly commonly recommended at some point before a woman passes 42 weeks gestation.

The induction began around 8:45am with a pitocin drip.   The whole morning was pretty uneventful, other than a couple times when Kai’s heartbeat dipped down for 30-45 seconds or so before coming back up to normal.  Especially since I was 12 days past my due date, they were watching this very closely because it can be a sign that there is meconium in the amniotic fluid or that the baby isn’t responding well to the stress of labor. (Luckily, neither of which proved to be the case.)

I was having contractions all morning that were growing ever so slightly stronger and closer together, but the contractions were really not very painful.  While this was great in one sense, it also meant that the labor was not progressing very quickly.  Around 2:15 or 2:30, I was having contractions that were maybe 3 minutes apart, but I was also still only 3cm dilated and 80% effaced.

The midwife went ahead and broke my water at this point.  I was very nervous about this, because the act of the doctor breaking my water was very painful in my labor with Madeline.  It was a much better experience this time, and not painful at all.  I think the water breaking was just the cue my body was looking for, since things really started to move quickly at this point.

A little before the midwife checked my progress and broke my water, the nurse had asked me if I wanted to try a birth ball in order to be up and moving around, use different muscles, etc. (It’s basically a huge ball that is inflated enough to support a woman’s weight, but is soft enough to provide comfortable support when sitting on it).  I moved back to the birth ball after my water had been broken, and I was so thankful to have this option.  The contractions were getting more painful and closer together fairly quickly, but I was able to get some great body positions while on the birth ball that made the contractions as bearable as possible.

Some time later (maybe a little before 3:30pm?) the nurse and midwife suggested I move back to the bed, partly because they were having trouble continuing to get a good fix on the baby’s heartbeat, but also because (as Tony told me after it was all over) when they could get his heartbeat it was obviously getting lower.  Also, even though they started diluting the pitocin in order to try and space out the contractions just a little bit, my body kept accelerating the contractions on its own. So, I am sure it was clear to them that I was nearing the pushing phase of labor.

I took a few very strong contractions while moving from the birth ball to the bed.  Then, just about as soon as I was laying down on my left side in the bed (the position my midwife suggested), I started to feel the sensations associated with being ready to push! I was pretty surprised, since I figured I might be in for quite a bit longer time experiencing strong, painful contractions.  After a few small pushes, Kai was really ready to make his entrance, and I gave a few more strong, painful pushes to get him out.  Tony tells me the whole pushing phase lasted about 15 minutes,  and that I was mostly on my side when Kai was born.  I was surprised to have given birth in that position, but it seemed to have worked well and I pushed for (I think) about half the time I did in my labor with Erik.

I was so happy to have made it through the induced labor relatively quickly (at least realatively quickly once things really got started) and without needing any pain relief.  I had the epidural in my labor with Madeline, and it was actually not a bad experience (and made a long labor much more bearable), but having labored naturally with Erik I knew my body was capeable of it and I wanted to be able to do that again.

Kai has been a great baby so far — he is an eager eater and yet was nice enough to only wake up once for a true “middle of the night” feeding last night, thus allowing us to get a fairly good night’s sleep.

We’ll be here at Fairview Riverside hospital until sometime on Sunday, then we’ll be heading home to begin adjusting to life as a family of five!