Meet Baby Benjamin!

Introducing Benjamin James, aka Baby Citysaur. Born 3/10/10 at 6:24 PM. Weighing in at 7 lbs 15oz, 20 1/4 inches long.

I mentioned in my last post on Pregosaur that our midwife wanted us to kick start labor on Wednesday...well kick start we certainly did! We started out at 8:45 AM with her stripping my membranes. Then we did some nipple stimulation and took an hour power walk. At 11:30 AM, the midwife broke my water. We did more walking as we went out to have lunch and gather our bags at home, then back to the birth center. By the time we arrived back at the birth center at 1:30 PM, I was having contractions that were 2 minutes apart and was most definitely in labor!

Not the most flattering picture of me, but here we are, in the early part of active labor, just after arriving at the birth center. I did not look this good as the day progressed!

I won't go into the whole, explicitly detailed birth story, but I'll summarize from here. I labored for about 3 hours before pushing, exploring various positions including the birth ball, the shower, the tub, and hanging off the bedpost. About 4:30 or so, I went to the bathroom at the suggestion of the birth assistant, and I started to feel the urge to push. Pushing lasted about two hours, and was the most exhausting part of the experience. The only downside to not going into spontaneous labor was that Ben hadn't quite descended, so I had to work extra hard at getting him down. That part was difficult, because every time I'd make progress during a contraction, he'd slip back when I went to rest in between.

Eventually, after pushing for a while in the tub and hanging off the bedpost, I got into the bed to conserve energy. I almost had to go back to the bedpost, but when I realized they were about to make me get out of bed, I gave it everything I had, and he began to crown. And that's when things got serious.

Ben came out with the cord wrapped tightly around his neck. He was fine until right at the end, when his heart rate plummeted. When the midwife looked at me and said that we had to get him out now, and that I had to push without the help of a contraction, I knew she meant business. Even though I was beyond the point of exhaustion, I found the strength to get him out fast. They cut and clamped the cord from around his neck as soon as he crowned, and then a few pushes later, he was born. Daddy got to catch him, and he put Ben on my belly, but a split second later, the midwife whisked him away to the resuscitation table to work on him. He was born in distress - white as a sheet, depressed heart rate, elevated breathing and low body temperature. Daddy helped the midwife, and after 45 long minutes, he was finally up to snuff. They placed him on my belly and I fell in love!

Family portrait...that's my mom (Ben's Nana) in the pink, and Wayne in the picture. He couldn't be with us physically, but he was definitely there in spirit!

For more pictures, check out our Shutterfly site - click here.

Update...

On the Pregosaur blog. I'm lazy and didn't feel like posting it twice. :o)

Big Baby?

My midwife suspects that I'm growing a large baby. Hopefully not quite as large as the statue above, however.

Yesterday I had my 37-week check-up. According to some sources, I'm now officially full term. Other sources prefer to call that near term, and peg actual full term at 38 weeks. Either way you look at it, I'm pretty darn close to having this baby. And if you listen to my midwife, he's pretty much ready to come out!

Now, I do take this with a grain of salt, because any estimate of fetal size is a guess - perhaps an educated one, but still a guess. But yesterday at my appointment, after palpating my uterus rather extensively, the midwife told me she thinks Baby Ben is already approaching 8 lbs. We have a growth ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow afternoon - but again, I've heard plenty of stories of people who were told after an u/s they were going to have a large baby, and the baby ended up weighing 1-2 lbs less at birth than what they were told.

So, I'm staying calm and not getting up in arms about it. I'm going for the ultrasound, and am actually pretty excited about it. We've only had one other, and I honestly thought that would be it. So we're excited to get to see our son (and, you know, double check that he really is our son) one last time before delivery.

Due date is three weeks from today, and if this large baby thing is true, they'd like to see me go early rather than late. I wouldn't mind that either way, honestly. But since we're using a birth center, they won't be inducing any time soon. So it's still a waiting game, either way. Come on, (Big?) Ben! We want to meet you!