Labor and Delivery

At 11:30pm on Saturday, June 21st, the doctors started my induction process. Mind you they were trying to make things happen starting at ground zero. My body up to this point is showing NO signs of labor. They "checked" me about 4 hours later and gave me some more to get things going. Then they started me on Pitocin Sunday morning, and I did start having contractions and was 1 cm dilated and 80% effaced. I was in a little bit of pain, so I got in the jacuzzi (that's right, I had a jacuzzi in my room). It was heavenly, so I stayed in there for about an hour. At about 5:00pm my contractions were coming one after another so the nurse came in and turned down my Pitocin drip. As she was walking out of the room a water balloon burst in my pants. So, with my water broken I thought things might start moving along. I went ahead and got an epideral - and then felt no pain. The anesthesiologist told me that some spinal fluid had leaked out so I could get a spinal headache after giving birth. Oh great - something to look forward to. Turns out I got a headache right away and was having a hard time moving my head without pain. I was laying in bed with no more pain below the waist but apparently my contractions were powerful and 1-2 minutes apart. The doctors came in and were a little concerned because Brooks's heart rate was dropping after each contraction. They "checked" me again and I was now 1 1/2 cm dilated and still only 80% effaced. Since things weren't really happening, they thought a c-section would be best because of Brooks's heart rate. So, at about 11:45 Chad dressed in his scrubs (the ones on his feet kept ripping, so it took a couple of minutes), and they wheeled me down into the operating room. The blue sheet went up and my arms were stretched out. They gave me more meds to make sure I wouldn't feel anything, and the doctor warned me that I might get nauseous. And about 60 seconds later I was puking, so they gave me something else to help me stop puking. I started to feel lots of tugging and pulling, and eventually I heard the most wonderful sound in the world - Brooks started crying (12:39am was the official time of birth)! It turns out that the cord was wrapped around his neck 4 times! Good thing we did the c-section. Chad brought Brooks over a couple of minutes later and I couldn't take my eyes off of him - he was beautiful! There was still lots of tugging and pulling as they stitched me up, and then they rolled me to another room where I finally got to hold my son. He was so wide awake, and so was I actually. They were monitoring my blood pressure closely, and it was getting high so they decided to put me on a magnesium drip, which makes people feel like they have the flu - yeah. I laid around for 12 hours with ice packs all over my body to keep me cool, and I held Brooks as much as possible. Monday night they started unhooking my tubes, and we were moved to MOM AND BABY (I had to walk to my wheelchair and I thought I would die it hurt so bad). But my recovery is a different story...this story is about Brooks.
So, bottom line is that on June 23rd at 12:39am - Brooks Bryan Hoffman was born...4 lbs 15 oz and 18 inches long! He is healthy and adorable - and we are so blessed to have him in our lives.