Welcome James!

James Rodney Phalen

16 June 2009

8 pounds, 20 inches

My blood pressure didn't get any better. In fact, it got worse on bed rest. On Monday we had a doctor's appointment and it was decided that inducing immediately was best for the baby, even though he'd be 2 weeks early. So we got our bags together and headed to the hospital. We arrived at 5:30 and they put me on a medicine to make my cervix a little more ready for labor. The contractions got really bad, but I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep. By morning I was exhausted and was only 1.5 centimeters dilated, which was depressing considering all the cramping and inability to sleep. My doctor came in and broke my water around 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday and labor started progressing pretty rapidly. About 9:30 I couldn't handle it anymore and gave in and got an epidural. It apparently didn't work because half of my body didn't numb up...which proved quite unfortunate. By 11:00 I had dilated to 4. By 12:00 I had dilated to 6. And by 1:00 I had dilated to 9.5 and was ready to push shortly after. The anesthesiologist came down again and tried to numb me up...but it didn't work. Neither did the local anesthetic :( I pushed for 2 hours with Paul counting out the contractions. At this point they put me on pitocin to help speed the contractions up. The baby was in a posterior position, meaning that the back of his head lined up with my spine, making giving birth very difficult (having to fit through the pelvis and all). My doctor was finally able to turn him (this doesn't feel so good...at all!) and had to help me get him out with forceps. It was quite traumatic for all involved, but at 3:35 on June 16th (also Grandpa Willardson's birthday...only 90 years later) James Rodney Phalen made his entrance into the world weighing in at 8 pounds even, and 20 inches long.

After 21 hours of labor, the cord wrapped around his neck at birth, the meconeum in his lungs, bruises from the forceps, and the downright awfulness of being born, James is in the special care unit right now for monitoring. He wasn't breathing normally when he was born (almost hyperventilating), but he has shown a lot of progress. I was able to hold my sweet baby for the first time today! His head hurts so bad that whenever he is really moved he cries and cries. Today I happened to be there when they were giving him a dose of Tylenol and as soon as he heard my voice he got really quiet and tried to open his little eyes. So precious. I feel so bad for him, but he is looking SO much better today. His bruises are almost gone! He will probably have to be here for 2 more days because the nurses didn't start my antibiotic drip in time (I was tested positive for strep B and he was born sooner than they expected. Really they just want to make sure he gets all the antibodies possible) and so he is hooked up to antibiotics. I'm not looking forward to leaving him here tomorrow :(

My recovery is going to be slow. After delivery the doctor was fixing me up and because there were no pain meds that would work at the time I ended up losing consciousness and hemorrhaging pretty badly. They were actually looking for a blood match for a while there because it was so bad. This morning my doctor even suggested transfusion again because I've been shaking pretty horribly. We've figured out that I just need to eat more often as my body is trying to recover. Everyone here knows about me and they are always telling me that they heard how horrible a labor I had and that I've been a trooper, but I really don't feel like it. It's going to be a painful few weeks, but it's true what they say....that little baby makes it all worth it!