Our oldest son is 11 years old today. We didn't do anything party-like today. He had his best friend of six years sleep over on Friday night. We turned our computer room into Redwall Abby-Redwall is a book series that Tyler is into at the moment. He never seemed too into reading until he discovered these books. There are a lot of books in the series and he's read maybe a dozen of them so far. It is a story set in something like the middle ages and is about mice and other small critters. One of the mice is a warrior. It's a great series of books, really quality literature. I'm very pleased that he's reading them.
So, we decorated the room with swords and shields and I drew some "R's" on some posterboard for banners. I printed a few character coloring pages off the internet and put them on a big piece of cardboard that said "A special feast in honor of Tyler's birthday." We brought in a TV so that they could watch the Dvd's of Season Two of the Redwall series that they did on PBS. We checked it out from the library. I bought some ice cream sandwiches and ranch Doritoes at Tyler's request. And they decorated their own Redwall shields on posterboard. I also sewed some pouches out of felt and tied them with some red felt cord that I found on clearance. Then Monday morning we'll have our Spanish class stay afterwards for play and cupcakes.
Tyler's birth story
Tyler is the second child-the first one was c-section. I knew I didn't want to go through with another one of those, so I did a lot of research into VBACs. We were in Hawaii and I was being seen by military doctors at a military facility. They weren't very encouraging about me having a VBAC. They were pretty sure it wouldn't work out, but they'd go ahead and let me "try". I had an ultrasound later in the pregnancy, maybe 32 weeks. I was carrying "small" they said, so they wanted to make sure fluid and all were fine. They noticed they the baby's ureters were dilated. That meant that the tubes that carry urine to the bladder were somewhat enlarged. They wanted me to schedule a test after the birth to make sure the plumbing was working normally. Things progressed along well. I was carrying him very low. Around maybe the 37th week, the nurse practitioner assured me that I was not going to make it to my due date. "You had better get your shopping done and your bags packed because your are not going to make it to your due date!" she said. Well this was my second baby, I was only 21 and I didn't know anything. So I believed her. The next week was the same thing, only added, "As soon as you start having contractions you better get here fast- this baby will be coming fast!" Okay.
My due date came and went. On the 9th day overdue, which was a Friday, they said that if I didn't deliver that weekend, they were going to induce on Monday morning. I've heard many wives tales on how to get labor started. And the only thing I had on hand was a spicy frozen burrito. It couldn't hurt. I ate the burrito on Saturday night and on Sunday morning I woke up with contractions. I was supposed to rush to the hospital, right? So, I called David who was out patroling (military policeman with the Marines) and told him that he'd better get home. He raced back to base with his blue lights flashing and picked up our friend that was going to watch Brittany. We raced up to the hospital and the nurse checked me out. "You're not that far along. You can go back home if you want and go walk around for a bit." Huh? So we went back home and walked. And walked. And walked......
This was my first lesson. Doctors, midwives, nurse practioners,etc. DO NOT know when you will go into labor and DO NOT know how long it will last.
When contractions picked up we went back up to the hospital. We'd gone up there the first time at around 8 am. We only lived about 5 minutes from the hospital. The hospital actually looked like a big pink palace up on a hill. Anyway, we went back up there maybe around lunch time. They went ahead and let me stay this time, but of course tied me to the bed with monitors, wires, IV, and stuff. They might as well use duct tape. Labor is much harder to deal with lying flat in the bed not being able to move. Lesson number 2.
Apparently Tyler was not dealing well with labor. His heart rate was dropping and they had me on oxygen and then attached an internal monitor to his head. I just couldn't deal with it any longer so they gave me Nubain. I was now out of my mind and still in pain. So, after begging David to just tell them to do another c-section to get it over with, they said they'd let me push. I wasn't ready so my cervix swelled. Things weren't progressing. They gave me an epidural. This was the only time, other than the c-section, that the epidural took on both sides and didn't make me throw up. They realized that Tyler had meconium, which means his first bowel movement had already happened. If babies asperate this they can get pneumonia. At least the epidural allowed my cervix to stop swelling and then I was able to push. They had a neonatal team standing by to make sure Tyler didn't cry until they had cleaned him up. There must've been a million people in that room. Give a girl some privacy-sheesh! Finally, after 2 and a half hours of pushing and an episiotomy Tyler was born at 5:36pm. This is the only episiotomy I've had, and even after having ten pound babies, I've never even torn. Tyler was only 8 pounds 6 ounces. The episiotomy was unnecessary in my opinion, but I didn't have any ill effects from it at least.
They cleaned Tyler all up and he was just fine. They took him to the nursery. I don't remember even getting to hold him or nurse him. I was taken down to my room, and I wanted my baby so I walked down to the nursery. He was in the little isolette under heating lights. I remember thinking, "Well, couldn't I just hold him and make him warm?" But, I just sat there for what must've been 45 minutes at least waiting for him to be released. Then we went back to our room, which I was sharing with another mom. Yes, military hospitals have customer satisfaction high up on there priority list.
The protocol was to have a nurse come to your house to give the baby a check up at two weeks. It was Hawaii so it was around 80 degrees and we had no central heat/air so you leave your windows open all year round. It was spring so it was really windy. This woman came in and took off his sleeper, and said he didn't need it. Then she took off his diaper and put on another, but this time folded it down in front under his unbilical cord, because I hadn't done it the right way. She treated me like a completely incompetent mother. Mind you, I had another 21 month old child right there and she had survived so far. She handed me Tyler, who proceeded to pee all over me because she had folded his diaper down too far. I didn't even let her know. I just sat there until she left. Lesson number 3. Do not let others treat you like you don't know how to care for your own child.
I scheduled Tyler's plumbing exam. He was about 2 and a half weeks old. They injected a dye into his urethra, and when he'd pee it out, they could look on the scanning machine and see if all was working. He screamed and screamed. They had him tied down. Everything was working fine. Well, at least I had a healthy baby boy.
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