Lincoln’s Birth

My due date with Lincoln was March 27th, and my doctor had said she would wait until 10 days after to induce me if I didn’t go into labor on my own. She wrote on my chart that induction would be April 3 (which is not 10 days after), then left on vacation. Day 4 after my due date, I went in for a checkup and the midwife noticed the discrepancy in dates and asked what I wanted to do. Since my mom had arrived and was staying for 2 weeks, I really didn’t want to go the full 10 days and have her leave right after the baby was born. The midwife checked with the on-call doctor, who said I could be induced the following day.

The morning of April 1, I checked in to the hospital and waited all day with not much happening. They would check me every once in a while and then send me to walk around the hospital. I could leave the maternity ward but couldn’t leave the hospital. Nate and I became very familiar with the tunnels that connect the maternity ward to the other parts of the hospital. They started Pitocin around 3pm, and when there still wasn’t a ton happening, they broke my water at 5pm. That’s when it got really fun. I had considered a couple times throughout the pregnancy trying to “go natural” and avoid the epidural, but didn’t feel strongly about it. About 2-3 weeks before my due date, I decided I wanted to try it. I didn’t do a ton of prep, and it definitely showed. By the time I was really in pain, it was too late for the epidural to do anything, so I didn’t really have a choice anymore. If I thought it would do any good, I may have given in and asked for an epidural. Childbirth in the movies is always dramatized with lots of screaming, and I never pictured myself being one of the screamers. But I was. I blame it mostly on my lack of preparation, and on my 9-lb 11-oz baby, but I almost couldn’t control it – that was just my way of dealing with the pain.

Other than my screaming in pain, Lincoln’s birth was a fairly peaceful experience. The only people in the room were Nate and I, the on-call doctor, and the midwife (they didn’t have nurses in the hospital, but had midwives who did mostly the same things as a nurse in the US). They weren’t in a rush to take Lincoln to bathe him or even weigh him, but let us hold him for a while first. The doctor didn’t realize we didn’t know the gender, so he just wrapped up the baby and handed him to us, and we checked ourselves. I have to admit I was a little surprised it was a boy – for some reason I had been picturing girl. But we were excited to have another little boy in the family, and so grateful that he arrived safely and healthy!

 

The next morning (Saturday), my mom brought the kids up to see the baby. They loved him! Eliza and Ryan were especially excited and kept pointing out his cute little toes and fingers. We stayed in the hospital Saturday and Sunday, and were able to go home Monday morning. My mom and Nate took turns going home with the kids during the day, and Nate was able to stay with me at the hospital overnight. Nate spent his birthday on Sunday at the hospital – definitely not the most exciting! We tried to go home Sunday but that morning Lincoln had a slight fever and had lost weight, so they wanted us to stay another day and make sure he was getting enough to gain weight and not be dehydrated. A few more pics from our hospital stay: