On Wed, Dec 16th, we rose bright and early and drove to the hospital for our induction at 7:30am. Here I am in my pregnant glory in my lovely hospital gown before getting all plugged in:
By the time I had my IV in and the pitocin started it was 9am. And then it was a waiting game--a waiting and waiting and waiting game...in fact, I spent much of the morning finishing addressing my Christmas card envelopes. At 12:30pm the Dr came in and checked and I was at 4 cm, so she broke the water then, hoping to jumpstart things a bit. Knowing things could get painful now, I asked for the epidural...got that going and was under orders then to sleep, which I willingly did:
Frustratingly, each time the Dr or nurse checked me thereafter, I was STILL at 4 cm despite the fact that the nurse kept cranking up the pitocin (all the way up to 20, which they told me was quite high)! Here is a shot of the graph charting the baby's heartbeat (in the blue area) and my own contractions--I don't know when George took this photo but the graph looked just like that for a very long time:
The last time the nurse checked me at 4:30pm, I was still at 4 cm. Around 5pm, George left to get himself some dinner...he came back with the food (which smelled so good but I was not allowed to eat, so inconsiderate of him!) but we joked that maybe the smell would entice the baby out. I think it was somewhere around 5:30/5:40 that I noticed my IV fluid was completely empty and called the nurse to replace it, and while she was in there taking care of that, I felt that telltale pressure down low and said so to the nurse. She didn't seem all that alarmed and left the room. Another nurse came in a minute later and said she'd run the catheter again before checking me...well she sat down, took one look, saw the baby's head right there and said, "Forget the catheter!" and called nurses in from the hall and called for the Dr, saying, "We need Dr. Thum in here, like YESTERDAY!!!" I was instructed not to push until finally the Dr was there and ready to go...then with one push, there he was!
He arrived at 5:52pm, and weighed just 7lbs, 11oz (that was a surprise! I totally thought he'd be 8lbs at a minimum) and 20-1/4 inches. He's mostly cleaned up here but was covered in vernix when he came out--most of my babies have been so late that I never see that!)
Getting his first bath:
Not happy when she pulled the washcloth away!
All clean and happy now...and I finally got to eat before being whisked off to my postpartum room. Then the great name debate began. We'd decided on our top 3 contenders by then, which were Oliver, Timothy & Zachary. We eventually knocked Oliver off the list and dueled it out over the last 2--George pushing for Zachary and me for Timothy. We still hadn't decided before George called it a night and went home to sleep.
When he returned the next morning (and I'd had a decent night's sleep thanks to the overnight nursery) we got back into it. We went back and forth--me even erupting in tears at one point (I blame that on hormones!)--and finally decided it would have to come down to a coin toss since neither of us was completely opposed to the alternate name.
The coin landed heads-up, so Zachary it is. I still get a little lump in my throat when I think about him not being Timothy, only because I had thought of him as Timothy throughout all 9 months (which I shouldn't have done, knowing George wasn't in agreement all along), but I do like Zachary and I think the name fits him just fine. Besides, last time when we had Benno, we got into the same name quandary and my choice won then, so it's fair. (George's choice then was Giovanni--thank goodness I won!!!)
More than anything though, the birth went really well and I have this wonderfully handsome (blond!) little baby boy who is so sweet and so far a very easy baby! I am perfectly in love with this little Zachary and so are all his adoring older brothers, who finally got to meet him when we came home Friday! Welcome to the world, baby Zachary!!!
