Welcome Devon James Colliton

On a chilly Friday afternoon we calmly drove to the hospital, parked the car and made our way to the OB floor to check in. Then we were calmly shown to our labor and delivery room. We unpacked a bit and I got lots of vitals taken. I really didn't expect this part to be the calm part of our experience, but it was.

The rest of this story may have parts that if you are super sensitive or queasy you'll want to skip. Like the whole thing. For example, Christopher, my brother in law, probably won't make it through the next paragraph. Sorry buddy.

They put the first planned medication in, which was called Cervadil - it's an 8" long white knitted thing like an extra flat shoelace with a strip of paper with the drugs in it in the end. This goes pretty much around the cervix with the intention of getting it 'going'. I apparently had what they call a VERY posterior or backwards facing one so it was pretty tough for the nurses to get the little web of medicine to wrap around it. Once in, it started to release the meds right away.

We had a very exciting dinner of substandard chicken soup, salty mashed potatoes and limp salad for me and a terribly underwhelming sandwich from McDonalds (Fried chicken and pickle slices on bun. Gross? Kinda. Funny? Yes.) for Russ. We also got the party started by watching Short Circuit while the temperature plunged outside.

I didn't sleep too much Friday night. The contractions began to get painful about 11pm or so at a level of maybe a 4 out of 10. I got a little medicine to help me sleep and take off the edge so I could be more rested for the next step. It helped a little bit and I did sleep some. One of the 'side effects' of the Cervadil was that I had to stay hooked up to the fetal monitoring system so they could make sure Kiddo didn't get freaked out. So, every time I had to go to the restroom, I had to get someone to unhook me. And they had to come in all the time to adjust the sensors as Monkey moved around and hid.

At 5:30am Saturday they took the strip of Cervadil out and then just watched us until about 9 since I was having really regular and strong contractions by this point but only at a pain level of about a 4 or 5 - very manageable with breathing and massage and I actually slept a bit more. My cervix had dilated to 3cm when she checked it around 6am but was in a much better position. Around 7am they had me go on my right side and gave me an oxygen mask because kiddo's heart rate and movements were decreasing but my contractions were getting stronger and harder on him. At the same time the started giving me IV fluids. (Over the next five hours, they would give me six liters of fluids.) That seemed to do the trick and we continued to wait to see if things would progress on their own without needing to start the Pitocin drug which would stimulate contractions.

At 9 the nurse said things were pretty stable so if I wanted to, I could take a shower. Yippie! Sure thing, here I go. [shuffle, shuffle] May as well be clean going into a potentially long induced labor process. The shower felt great and the contractions were still only at about a 4 on the pain scale and pretty much non existent while I was in the warm shower.

However…

As soon as I got out of the shower the show began. I suddenly started having what felt like a really long contraction at about a 9 pain level . Russ quickly went to get our nurse and she ran in and helped me get dried off and back into the monitoring equipment and my labor clothes. Things were a bit hectic since I was in a lot of pain and we nearly missed one of my arms when putting the tank top on. It was like someone had just turned on a heat lamp (rather ironic considering what it was doing outside here) and made everything super bright so we had to close the blinds. Too bad since we had a great view from our room! From this point on things get a little hazy for me.

I had a number of really, really tough contractions, which on my 1-10 scale, leaped off the end making it to 11 and finally to 12. After about 3 of these I asked for the epidural process to start RIGHT NOW since I knew it could be a bit before it actually got going. In the meantime I really don’t know how I got through each of the contractions. Breathing techniques were just about impossible since the pain and effort made me search urgently for how I could push or pull myself into a less blazingly painful position. But I found if I closed my eyes there was this sort of square design I could see and there was a really bright one in the center that I fixated on. What’s funny is that in the middle of the previous night during one of the smaller contractions I described the pain to Russ as a square. Why? I have no idea, but the connection seemed interesting to me.

It felt like days but in reality I think it was only about 25 minutes before the epidural was going. I’m sure I said something to the effect of why on earth did we decide to do this at this point. I was fairly certain we had made a big mistake… In the meantime, the nurse checked me and I was now dilated to 10cm. Ok then, I guess we really won’t need that Pitocin to get the contractions moving!

Our doctor came in to check things out and asked Russ if there was anything significant about either of our births. Well, both of us came rather fast (me in about 6 hours start to finish and Russ was almost born on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.) and when Russ told her that, the nurse actually started to move quite quickly. She set up a table of stuff (don’t ask me what was on it) and the tall, humorless anesthetist worked with me and Russ to make me more comfortable. I was on my side in bed at this point (once you have an epidural you can’t get out of bed) and that was FINE WITH ME. I think it was about 10am at this point.

I was feeling much more human once the epidural had started to take effect and now felt like I could concentrate on this whole birthing process instead of just being a side observer. Since we were unexpectedly to far along in the birth process, I had to push a button get additional epidural medication every 10 minutes to "catch up". The doctor let me labor him a bit farther down and then I really started to feel the urge to push about 10:40. With each contraction they coach you to push (no breathing in or out, unlike swimming, which was what they compared it to) for a count of 10 and you try to make it all the way to 10 three times. The nurse and the doctor told me I was a professional pusher as each session produced results and I often could do 4 whole pushes per contraction since the contractions themselves were really long. They were also really impressed at how strongly my uterus was contracting. In between each session I felt like taking a long nap as it was really tiring, but I just found my little squares and was amused that Russ, the nurse and the doctor were having a very normal conversation about small dogs playing in the snow while holding my legs in the air. Naturally.

At 11:07am I pushed the last time and out slid kiddo and a WHOLE lotta fluid. He was doing a good job of acting like a cork and keeping most of the amniotic fluid inside until he came out first. They helped me pull him up onto my tummy and dried him off while Russ cut the cord and kiddo exercised his new lungs. 7 lbs, 3 oz and 21 and ¼” – long and lean. Perfect for a biker…

I had to stay on my back for a bit to get some stitches (again, happy to have the epidural for this part) and Russ stayed near kiddo as the nurse cleaned him up and did some assessments on him. Everything looked great so they gave him back to me and we had a little family bonding time while he was awake and alert. And this kid? This is a cute kid. Even if I am biased. We had a short list of names and decided our top pick did suit him just fine. Devon James Colliton. Devon is a name both of us instantly liked while we were looking through options. It’s unique while not being too out there, easy to pronounce and spell and nice to say. It means ‘Poet.’ James is after Russ’ dad.

Next important step? Lunch for mom! That was the best omelet, bacon and fruit I’ve ever had! I had an omelet the next day and realized that perhaps I had been mistaken about the quality …

So our little family got all packed up and moved to our next room to settle in. Devon is a very good sleeper so far (which is of course bound to change as he gets older than 24 hours). We practiced some feeding, snuggling and diaper changing. Last night Auntie Becca and Uncle Chris came by to meet the little guy before they left town today. I’m pretty sure Becca would have taken him home with her if she could have. Her smile was that big...

Today (Sunday) has been about sleep, trying to get Devon to eat and starting my healing process. We hope to sleep a good amount again tonight and then bundle ourselves up tomorrow and head home after breakfast sometime.

Thank you for all the good wishes and happy thoughts. We are so excited for you all to meet and love our little guy. We’ll let you know when he and we are ready for visitors or playdates. Until then we will continue to put pictures up and keep you updated about new and exciting things in our little family!