Thursday 18 August 2011

Ah, labour - Noah Benjamin Bechard has arrived!

So I made it to Candices wedding - JUST. I am so thankful that Noah decided to wait until the wedding reception to start the action so that I could be there.

Yes, I said he waited until the wedding reception, as in I was in labour during the wedding reception. Thankfully though, my contractions were only 20 minutes apart at that point and I was able to hide my discomfort (for the most part - there were a few ladies who were aware of what was going on.) The wedding ended at 9pm and by the time I got home at 10pm, my contractions were coming every 4-6 minutes and starting to get painful.

I could probably write an incredibly long detailed blog about everything that went down, but im going to try and keep it as compact as I can. Many of you are aware that I had a very, very long labour. 46 hours start to finish to be exact. It took me 36 hours just to get to 5 cm. You may say thats a good thing, because going to 5 cm isnt as painful as 5-10... but bear in mind that I was unable to sleep for any of that. Also, I had just spent the entire day on my feet at a wedding and been up since 7am. I was EXHAUSTED. Thankfully I had an amazing mother and husband who stayed awake with me pretty much the entire time.

I was admitted to the hospital Monday morning at 200am (5cm) and requested my epidural straight away with the hope of being able to get some sleep.I had to wait an hour and a half to get it because he was in surgery, but once he was there he was awesome and cracked jokes with me the entire time. Totally put me at ease. The epidural worked initially and my bottom half was nice and numb... but unfortunitly once I hit 7cm I started to get back labour. For those of you who dont know... epidurals DONT USUALLY WORK with back labour. So I felt EVERYTHING. At least now I know that I have fully experienced labour and managed to survive; so it IS doable! Of course... next time I will totally opt for the epidural again in hopes that back labour was a once in a lifetime experience haha.

They decided to break my water to speed things up and within an hour or two I was complete. May I just add here that my delievery staff were incredible. They were unbelievably supportive and with me every step of the way. I had 2 nurses, an intern and a doctor with me when I began to push. Apperently I was a good pusher and was making fast progress until they discovered that Noahs head was turned to the side instead of down. Totally explained the back labour, but he started to get stuck. They had to put a heart rate monitor on his head because with each contractions his heart rate would drop. Kind of scary, but they assured me that he was totally fine and it always came back up after. In the end they had to use the vacuum to turn his head to the side. Once they did that I was able to push him right out ... (with his elbow up at his head might I add!!!) ... all 9 pounds and 22 inches of him at 1:29 in the afternoon. No one could believe how big he was.

As hard and long as my labour was, I feel very blessed that he is a happy and healthy boy. He took right to breastfeeding within an hour of being born and gave us 6 hours of straight sleep our first night at the hospital. My recovery has been pretty smooth too. Despite being weak and tired, im healing fast. Managed to only get 4 stitches! Matts home from work for the week which is a huge help and were trying to adjust to our new life. Have to admit that I am kind of dreading once he goes back to work next week - but I know I have alot of supportive family and friends around who are more then willing to help out.

Thank you all for your many prayers and congrats over the past couple of days. We are so excited for you all to meet our little man!



1 comment:

  1. love hearing birth stories. back labour is the WORST! sounds like you did awesome!! congrats, noah is perfect!

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