Ethan David Lake

Jed and I would like to take this time to introduce Ethan David Lake, born July 28, 2011 at 10:10 pm.  He weighed 9 lbs 15.4 oz, and was 22 inches long.  He is the most precious baby in the world!  After 13 hours of labor, we ended up having Ethan via c-section, but all we cared was that we had our healthy baby boy.  Here is  a little bit about the events of his birth day.  (Sorry this post has taken so long, this is the most I have been on the computer since he was born!)

After our hospital visit on Wednesday, we checked into the hospital at 7:15 Thursday morning.  The hospital was very full, so we were placed in triage until about 10:15.  They started me on fluids in my IV and got me comfortable (haha) for the long haul.  I was already dialated to a 3, so we didn't think it would take too long.  We started pitocin at 9:15.  I was feeling the contractions, but it was only tightening feeling, nothing that really hurt.  At 10:15 we were finally moved to a room and at 10:45 my dr broke my water.  By this point my back and hips were starting to feel the contractions, so I had tried to change positions, but when the dr broke my water, Ethan wasn't as low as she wanted him to be, so they wouldn't let me use the bathroom for fear that the cord would come in front of him.  Ethan's heart rate was still not accelerating as much as they hoped, so they confined me to bed, had me lay on my side, and started me on oxygen.  I had hoped to go for awhile without an epidural with the idea that I would be able to get out of bed and change positions to help me labor.  Once I was confined to bed, I really started to hurt.  I finally ok'd an epidural at about 2:30, and about 3:15 I got my epidural.  Not feeling my legs was a very weird feeling.  For about an hour I was pain free.  But then, unfortunately my hips and back started to hurt really bad from the positions they were having my lay in.  (I had hip pain pretty much throughout my pregnancy).  They checked me about an hour after my epidural and I had progressed to a 5.  I was excited that I had finally progressed and Ethan was dropping a little lower.  They put an internal monitor on his head to monitor his heart rate.  By this time they had turned the pitocin down because my contractions were right on top of each other (all being felt in my hips!).  I continued to lay there and wish that my epidural was helping a little bit more, and hoping that I was progressing.  About 8:30 my doctor checked me and I hadn't dilated anymore and the baby hadn't dropped anymore.  The doctor was concerned about this, as well as about the baby's heart rate not accelerating often enough, even with stimulus, so she said she would give me until 10:00 to make progress or we would be making a c-section decision. At 9:30 when she came in to check me I had made no more progress so the decision was made to do a c-section.  By 9:45 we were being wheeled back to the operating room, and by 10:10 we had our HUGE baby boy (hence why he wouldn't drop!).  Everything looked great on him.  I was very jealous that Jed got to be with him while they were stitching me up I didn't get to hold him for quite awhile, but I was glad Jed was there for him.  They wheeled me to recovery where I finally got to hold and nurse our beautiful baby boy!  We let the family that was at the hospital come back and meet him and then we were taken to our hospital room about 1:00.  Jed stayed with me that first night and Ethan had a pretty good night.  Recovering from the c-section was definitely not that fun, but all I could think about was our baby boy!  We were in the hospital until Sunday afternoon and then we finally got to bring Ethan home to his new home!