6:00 am
Contrary to the title of this post, the pace is quite calm this morning as we arrived at Northside Hospital.......thank goodness. I thank the lord for the fact that you could not make a movie about either of Joanna's pregnancies or deliveries, so far. The plot would be typical, dialogue mundane, and the action scenes would absolutely put you to sleep. This IS a good thing. I'm not sure if I could find the hospital if I looked over to see Joanna in writhing pain in the front seat, I would be too worried thinking about the baby coming out and landing in the floorboard.
We arrived at Northside right at 5am this morning, the staff quickly assigned us a labor and delivery room, E1. Something felt very familiar as we passed the nurses station and saw the number on the door. This is the same room we were in two years ago when Melanie was born! How crazy is that, in the baby factory, to actually get the same room twice. There is something very comfortable happening here.
The first nurse of the day, Jennifer is reading Joanna the bill of rights HIV, blood transfusions, consents, enema's, you know all standard stuff. Joanna's doctor has more cases this morning than anticipiated, and will probably not be in to break her water until noon. Looks like we could be headed for another afternoon delivery. The coincidences begin to stack up.................stay tuned for more.
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10:00 am
We saw the midwife Lisa a couple of hours ago and she said she would start inducing labor this morning around 11:00 or noon. There was a little mix up with the timing today. Lisa called Northside yesterday to push back our admission by a few hours. Well, the message never got to the lady who called last night and said to be here at 5am. But we didn't have to get in a rush, and didn't get stuck in morning traffic, at least that's the silver lining Lisa pointed out. At least we can just relax and take a nap. Scratch that, the nurses come in too often to get anything resembling sleep.
Some very interesting programs are on PBS, so I guess we'll just learn about naked mole rats while we relax.
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1:00pm
The doctor came in this afternoon and started the pitocin drip, followed up by the anesthesiologist who inserted the epidural. Joanna has it made in the shade now since she won't have to get up every ten minutes to go to the bathroom. Well, at least realize she needs to go to the bathroom. No pain below the belt from here on out.
The plan is to break the water here in the next thirty minutes and it should be all fireworks from there.
I promise the pictures will get better when I have something good to shoot. For now, you get the epidural delivery system.
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2:00
Lisa came in to break Joanna's water. Man, is "water" a misnomer or what? There is nothing that resembles water in that process. Anyway, Joanna seems to be progressing nicely and Pace has calmed down after someone drained his swimming pool. Heartrates and BP are good. We lost our wonderful nurse Debbie (who actually hails from Texas, maybe even Dallas) because the patient next door is 10cm and pushing. Lisa thought we might give her a run for her money and beat her, but alas it was not meant to be. So, we wait.............They have Joanna on her side trying to move the baby into position. The plan is to let her body progress on its own a little further before they turn on the spotlights, oh yeah spotlights!
2:45
7cm, 100% effaced.........no need for any further details or pictures at this point.
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3:45
It's go time, about to start pushing. Will keep you all posted.............C'mon buddy almost there!
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4:08
Pace has arrived. Pace Bradley Joyner Born at 4:08pm 8lbs. 20.5 inches.
Joanna is a champ and popped him out with three pushes! She couldn't even believe what she was hearing when he started crying. As soon as the tears stopped I picked up the camera...........
