a birth story

Since I did not start blogging until March, leaving much of Nathan's first year of life unaccounted for, I have decided to slowly recap the beginnings of Nathan Parker Skretkowicz. This first post will encompass the days leading up to and including Nathan's birth a little over one year ago, August 25, 2008.

My due date was August 22, 2008 but Nathan decided he was not quite ready to be born at that time. That day I had an ultrasound to make sure everything was alright and I got a sneak peek at my little boy, the gender part was still an unknown at this point.



Saturday I ate dinner with my family and loaded up on the oregano (pregano) which is supposedly a labor inducer. Like how I edited the container as a little memory?



Monday morning I went to church afraid that my water would break in front of the entire congregation. After church I played a little Dance Dance Revolution, watched the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics, felt crampy, and then ate dinner at Arby's with my husband.



After a million trips to the bathroom and a call to my OB/GYN who told me to head into the hospital, I decided to eat the other half of my Arby's sandwich since I knew I would not be allowed to eat once I was admitted to the hospital and then head to hospital. I had a small meltdown about leaving my cats for a few days and it took a phone call from my sister in law, Megan, to convince me to finally go to the hospital.

I spent all night in the hospital having contractions. The nurse gave me a sedative through my IV which knocked me out during the contractions. Monday morning I finally realized that an epidural was hooked up through an IV as well. If I had known that an epidural would last and not wear off shortly after administered I would have opted for it sooner.

After getting the epidural I felt fabulous! Although it made me dizzy for some reason and I even vomited that coveted last meal. The anesthesiologist turned off the epidural drip until I felt better and what a surprise I instantly "felt better" when I heard this. After ensuring that the machine was actually dripping that lovely epidural stuff, I was satisfied. No more trips to the bathroom every 5 minutes thanks to the catheter and I even managed to doze off for a few hours.

UPDATE: My husband would like me to add that I repeatedly badgered him for over ten minutes to make him check and recheck to make sure the epidural was ACTUALLY dripping and they were not just humoring me. He would also like me to add that he knew we were having a boy since the "gender" ultrasound around 18-20 weeks even though everyone else swore we were having a girl (all the Old Wives Tales pointed to girl - scissors, ring, heartrate, cravings, etc). He swears he saw Nathan's "thing". Um, whatever you say honey!

I was ready to push as soon as I woke up and an hour later at 1:45 in the afternoon (not feeling a single contraction from the moment I received the epidural), Nathan was born. 22 1/2 inches long. 7 pounds, 11 ounces.



After the nurses were through with the measurements, foot prints, eye ointment, etc I was able to breastfeed Nathan and introduce him to his grandparents for a short time until he was swept off to the nursery attached to a heart monitor, see next paragraph.

While Nathan was in utero the doctor noticed that his heart rate was not quite right, that there was arrhythmia. It was monitored closely throughout the labor and he had to stay in the nursery attached to a monitor after he was born. He had an echo cardiogram analyzed by a pediatric cardiologist which revealed he had premature atrial contractions.



Note to self regarding breastfeeding: bring lanolin and nursing pillow to hospital for next baby.

Note to self regarding labor and delivery nurses: take photographs of the nurses that we become particularly attached to. This might help with postpartum meltdowns. {smile}





Coming soon to a computer screen near you: Nathan's first month of life, including his diagnosis with Cystic Fibrosis.