William Robert Redelle made his grand entrance on Monday, June 29th, at 3:18 p.m.
As labors go, it was relatively brief and easy. I woke up around 1:30 on Monday morning with irregular contractions and couldn't get back to sleep. Elizabeth woke up with teething pain at 2:30 and since I was already awake, I told LB that I'd go try to get her resettled. That lasted until I had a big contraction as E was squirming on my lap. I called for backup and started timing contractions around 3:30. LB came back to bed around 4:00 and I said, "I really hate to do this to you, but these are five minutes apart."
I waited till a quarter till five, then called the doctor and was told to come in to the hospital. LB and I called his mom to come sit with E and took quick showers. I finished packing my bags and folded a load of E's diapers and went over the details of E's routine with my mother-in-law, and we were en route before 6.
When we got to the hospital, they put us in the same LDR suite that we'd been in with Elizabeth. I was only about 2 cm, so the nurses put me on the monitor for a bit and then sent me out to do laps around the second floor. LB walked with me for the first 45 minutes, then after I went back on the monitor for 20 minutes and went to do another 45 minutes, he went to get some breakfast since the doctor wasn't going to come check my progress until I was finished with the second phase of walking.
While I was walking, I had some bigger contractions that made me start to perspire a bit, but nothing that felt terribly strong. We called my mom around 7:30 to put her on alert and told her not to go to the airport until we heard from the doctor whether we'd be staying or not.
I headed back to the room around 9 and the doctor came around 9:45. He checked and I was at 5 cm, so we were officially staying and having a baby at that point! We called LB's mom and my mom to give them the news.
The doctor said with a second baby, I could sit around for four or more hours and make no progress, then go from five to ten and have the baby in an hour. Since my water hadn't broken on its own, he suggested that I might want to get an epidural once I'd gotten a bit farther along and then he'd break my water and things would probably move very fast at that point. I decided to stick with what I was doing for the moment and reevaluate as things went along.
I labored on my own for another 2 hours or so, then decided to get the epidural at 6-7 cm because I was getting tired after having been up for almost 12 hours and not having eaten anything since dinner Sunday night. LB went and got lunch (including the famous chocolate cream pie!) while we were waiting for the epidural. The anesthesiologist came in and had the epidural in place around 1 p.m. The doctor came and broke my water after that, which put me back at 5 cm.
I started feeling really nauseated, and the nurses said my blood pressure was too low, so they put me on oxygen and put a shot of something in the IV to raise it. I felt better pretty quickly and was able to fall asleep for about an hour or so.
I woke up around 2:30 and was feeling some pressure. My nurses offered to check my progress and I said I was willing to wait another half an hour or so. After about fifteen minutes, I couldn't wait any more, so the nurse checked and I was at 10 cm. She called the doctor, who got there around 3:00 and said that everything was ready to go.
I started pushing at 3:10. Two pushes and eight minutes later, William arrived. His first action when they handed him to me was to pee all over my left side. LB got some beautiful pictures of him. He weighed in at 7 pounds 9.3 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long.
I think that he looks a bit like my dad; he sleeps with his head tilted back and his mouth slightly open like Dad does. He has long slender fingers like a pianist or a surgeon.
Elizabeth met him on Wednesday. She came to the hospital to help us bring him home. Right now, she is fascinated with her baby brother and tries to pat him every chance she gets. She points at him and chirps and babbles.
We're trying to get as much rest as we can, and thankfully both of our sweet children are cooperating with this agenda. Juggling two little ones is a challenge we can meet better with a few good night's sleeps under our belts!
