Videos...

Here are a few videos from the delivery and recovery room.

First Pictures

Most of the first pictures taken didn't come out well because I had left the settings on the camera as they had been at Life Teen the week before. So we have a lot of blurry, blue shaded photos... I love the first one though, and even though the second one isn't that great technically speaking, every time I look at it I remember how adorable my dad was when he took Joseph and said "Hi little Joe. I'm big Joe."

Birth Story: Joseph Aaron

It all started a week ago. I visited the doctor's office for my weekly appointment on Tuesday and was disappointed to learn that the baby had not dropped and I was not dilated or effaced. The nurse midwife wanted to start looking at induction because my blood pressure had been up, the swelling in my feet was awful, and I am of "advanced maternal age." So we decided I would go back the next morning for an ultrasound, to see how big Joseph had gotten. She didn't think he was all that big, but wanted to make sure.


So we came back in the morning, and the sonographer took more scans. We saw his heartbeat, his feet, and even the hair on the back of his head floating in the amniotic fluid. It was mostly detail, because he was filling up so much space at this point that there's no way to get a full shot of his head the way we did at 20 weeks. Then she said, "He's a big baby. 9 1/2 lbs." When she said this, I had misgivings. I won't lie and say I wasn't worried about delivering a big baby. But it was what it was, and if that's what it would have to be, then okay. The midwife came in to see us and the first thing she said was "When we are looking at a baby this big, when he's overdue I can offer you an elective C-Section."

That kind of surprised me. It wasn't like I was overdue at this point, and everything on the ultrasound said he was healthy. Just big. I told her I didn't want a C-section, and we would prefer waiting things out and letting him come when he was ready. "That's fine," she said, and then said that she wanted us to meet with one of the OBs since they would be the ones delivering him.

We made an appointment to meet with Dr. Duhaime that afternoon. When we came back, he told us that while he would never say that it wasn't possible to deliver this baby naturally, he did think Joseph would need to be helped along. His concern was that if he was even bigger than they thought, or if he got bigger, that he could get stuck. He didn't think it was necessary to jump right to a C-Section, though, and suggested we try to do some cervical ripening. This meant checking in to the hospital for 12 hours on Thursday while they inserted Cervadil to try to convince my cervix to change. He told us that he did not think it would bring on labor, but this was more like "the pre-game."

This was easily one of the most boring days of my life. We were allowed to leave the room and take walks around labor and delivery, but I was hooked up to monitors to make sure Joseph was okay and to monitor contractions in my uterus. Every time I walked up and down the hall, he would wiggle one way or the other and go off the monitors, so when we walked back to my room the nurse would be waiting there apologetically. We would adjust, try again, and the same thing would happen. After about 5 times, we gave up and went back to the room. I read magazines, Matt played a game on the computer, and we watched a few Netflix movies to try to kill the time. Occasionally I would feel contractions but they did not come regularly or strongly enough to count as pre-labor. Dr. Duhaime came in at 7 pm and removed the Cervadil, and then check my cervix again. He was pleased and surprised to find that it was now at 2 cm dilated. He did some "cervical irritation" which was extremely uncomfortable, and managed to get me to 3 cm. They sent us home with the advice to spend the weekend walking, bouncing on the yoga ball, and generally trying to get Joseph to drop so that his head would press on my cervix and make it dilate more.

So we went home that night and I bounced on the yoga ball like it was my job. We ate spicy food and did general last minute kinds of things to try to get ready for "the big show." We went to bed around 10:30 (weird how an entire day of doing nothing can make you so tired), and I woke up at 4 in the morning with contractions happening every 7 minutes.

I got up and started timing them, and by 5 am I lost my mucus plug and they were about every 5 minutes. I woke up Matt and let him know what was going on, then got in the shower because I'd read that if you did things like relax, take a shower, etc, and the contractions got further apart, then it was false labor. They continued to be 5 minutes apart and were getting stronger. Matt got up and took a shower, and we continued to time. By 7:45, we were at 3 1/2 minutes apart, and they were lasting for over a minute. I asked Matt to call Labor and Delivery, who told us to call the doctor's office. When he spoke with them, they asked us to come into the office, so by 8:10 we were out the door. I was timing the contractions with an app on my phone, and we were at 2 1/2 minutes apart by the time we walked into the office.

Dr. Duhaime came in to check me and I was disappointed to learn that I was still only 2 cm dilated. But he was very encouraging about the amount of change we'd seen in 24 hours. We discussed the plan from here and decided to go check in to the hospital where we could start pitocin to strengthen the contractions and try to get Joseph to move down. By 9:30 we were checked in and Dr. Montanarella came to check our progress. I had dilated 2 more cm to 4, and she decided to break my water because she wanted to make sure that there was no meconium in the fluids. There wasn't (and what a WEIRD sensation that was) but I also knew that meant we now had a timer on this delivery; Once the water breaks you need to deliver within 24 hours. She also said it was time for the epidural, but with every contraction I was shaking so badly that they didn't want to try it without giving me something to take the edge off so that I would be able to stay still when they inserted the epidural catheter.

They gave me small amount of nubain, and once it kicked in the anesthesiologist came to administer the epidural. Between the epidual and the narcotic, I suddenly was incredibly sleepy. I was mostly numb, though I could still feel some of the contractions and people's hands when they touched me. I also became incredibly cold. I was shivering despite the room being warm and the four or five heated blankets they had over me. I had thought the sleepiness and the cold was a reaction to the nubain, and I was waiting for it to wear off, but it lasted for the rest of the day. I slept for a bit, and Matt killed time on his laptop. They gave me pitocin and the contractions were getting much stronger and were about 2 minutes apart. Dr Duhaime came in and checked me and said I was up to 5 1/2, maybe 6 cm. I kept shivering and sleeping. Matt said I would sleep, wake up to moan when the contraction hit its peak, and then fall back asleep again.

At 4:40, Dr. Montanarella came in to check me again, and I was at 5 cm. Joseph had moved back up, and she could tell that his head was turned 90 degrees, which with his size was probably keeping him from dropping lower (I didn't know this until Monday, but it turned out to be not his size but that he was completely transverse, his whole body facing my left side. It might have been able to happen naturally, but according to Dr. Duhaime, it probably wouldn't have). I had been having contractions which should have been more than strong enough to bring him down for several hours. She told me that we could keep trying, but she was concerned that he wouldn't come down any more and she thought that it would end in a C-section. She then told me that she and her team were off at 5 pm, and she would stay to do the C-section if we wanted to, but if we wanted to keep trying the new team coming on would be there. I was completely ready to keep trying, and then she said "It would be Dr. Goldner and his team."

I started crying and told her I didn't want him. I remember saying "He's an abortionist, and I can not have him." Matt says I actually said "That abortionist is not coming near me and my baby." Dr. Montanarella said "Okay, I will stay, and we can do the C-section." She and the nurses left the room to give Matt and I few minutes to talk. We didn't really talk though. I pretty much just sobbed for several minutes and told Matt I couldn't have Dr. Goldner.

In retrospect, I am sure that things happened this way by providence; Goldner is the only doctor I know by name who works for Planned Parenthood. Had it been any other OB, I would have kept trying for a natural delivery. I am sure that God made it Goldner to make the decision very clear and easy to us. It wasn't easy at the time though. At the time I was feeling so angry and cheated. It was the most unfair horrible position to be in, and I felt like I was being forced into the decision to have the C-section not by the doctors or the hospital staff but by God. With a week's perspective, I know it was clearly God's plan, but I still can't write about it without crying.

At about 5 pm, they came back in the room and we told them we had decided to have the C-section. From there everything happened incredibly fast and yet so slowly at the same time. The nurse came in and did some things to prep me for surgery, and the anesthesiologist came back to give me medication for surgery. I was still shivering from the cold and with the additonal medication it was hard to stay awake. I remember at one point Christine Isabelle, the midwife, leaning over me and telling me she had come in so that it would only be people from Dr. Montanarella's practice in the OR. I remember them giving Matt the gown and things to put on over his clothes and thinking that the immediate skin-to-skin contact we had been told was so important would be impossible now. I remember them wheeling me into the OR and how bright it was in there. Most of all I remember fighting to stay awake.

Matt was sitting by my head and holding my hand as they started the surgery. The drape in front of me kept me from seeing anything, and after taking a few quick peeks he shuddered and said he wasn't going to look any more. He looked at me and said, "You're about to become my second favorite person." Then Dr. Montanarella said he was out, and they told Matt to come over to the table. One of the nurses held Joseph up for me to see, and he was crying and red and his feet were pulled up and I thought "Wow, he's really short and broad."

I was still fighting very hard to stay awake, thinking it was ridiculous that I might sleep through this, and things happened in short clips... They had Matt cut the umbilical cord... I saw them put Joseph on the scale and tried to see his weight... The nurses asked Matt if he had a camera, and he only had the video camera and my phone and I told him to use my phone because it takes better still pictures, but he couldn't figure out how to use it and I was trying to explain the controls... Joseph was barely crying and I wondered if there was something wrong... Matt came over and kissed my head and told me I did so good... They brought him over to me so I could see him... They transferred me back from the OR table to the bed and I felt so bad that I was such complete dead weight and I was so heavy, and at the same time I noticed the ingenious roller device they had set up for the transfer... Dr. Montanarella told me that she had made the incision really low and it wouldn't show when I wear a bikini... Then they were wheeling me back into the room and Matt was calling my parents and everyone else and asking if it was okay for my parents to come.

So that's how it happened. He was born at exactly 6 pm, the hour of the Angelus. Healthy and perfect and unbelievably adorable. Praise be to God.

More to come with pictures of the newly hung mirror and shelf soon!

Upstairs walkthrough

Finally got this posted! I'm still figuring out how to edit and upload videos. This one is a little too big to upload directly into blogger. As it is, if I try to go out of "edit HTML," IE crashes. So I'm not sure how the formatting will look on this.

We love the bathroom and bedroom so much, and the bath has been such a godsend in this last month of pregnancy. I also noticed when listening to the narration on this video how out of breath I am! Baby needs to give my lungs a little more room.