Baby Vincent is Born

by DianeTuesday, July 26, 2011 9:32 pm

Vincent Takumi McGirr was born July 26th, 2011 at 7:41am, weighing 6 pounds, 11 ounces and 21.5 inches long. My labor started a little after 1am when i was awaken by a tummy ache. After several trips to the bathroom i realized i might be having contractions.. a pain would come about every 7 minutes. I tried to go back to sleep because they say that the best thing to do. Well that didn’t happen. So i got up and went to the couch and started timing contractions there since i didn’t feel like i needed to wake Jeff up at this point.

The contractions got closer together in the matter of an hour or so. They were 4 minutes apart for about 45 seconds, then some were only 3 minutes apart but 30 seconds. By 5am i was having them every 4 minutes for over a minute, and then some were only 1-2 minutes apart for 30 seconds. Definitely time to head to the hospital! Jeff got up and said “ok i’ll start the coffee” and in my head i’m like coffee?!?! Lets go now! Haha! I convinced my mom to come along with us because i wanted Jeff and I to have extra support. All the while everyone is getting ready to go my contractions are hurting like all hell! Nothing really helped but i decided to get down on all fours every time i had one so i wouldn’t fall over or collapse or anything. During one contraction I started bleeding suddenly, so i knew for sure we HAD to go. Jeff called the hospital after i told him i couldn’t do it on my own since i’d for sure get a contraction mid-sentence. They told us to come i once i told them about the bleeding, so off we went.

The hospital is about 20 minutes away. The car ride took a while and i was screaming through the contractions. Jeff was trying to help as best he could with his coaching and it did help distract a little from the pain. I remember yelling “help me” a few times… and as we pulled up to the hospital that last contraction in the car, i felt like i needed to push!

Jeff dropped my mom and i off at the front and then i was so confused i didn’t know which door to go into! But we found our way and a security guard put me in a wheelchair and took us to labor and delivery. It was about 6am by now. They took me to my room – which was a tiny room that they haven’t used in a long time since they were extremely busy. I stripped my clothes off as fast as i could, got my monitors on and hopped up on the bed.

They checked me and i was “just a lip” – i think meaning i was about 9cm and almost fully dilated and ready to push. I had to pant through several contractions… i don’t even know how many but way too many in my book! I was waiting for the doctor to show up so i could push. I kept asking how much longer, and they couldn’t really tell me! I kept saying how it wasn’t fair that i had to wait, and that i wanted a 15 minute break from the contractions to catch my breath. Luckily there was a nice lady there that was actually a nursery nurse, that came in to help me through my contractions. She told me to blow out birthday candles so that they would just flicker and not go out. That helped a bit, because otherwise i really wanted to push. After what seemed like an eternity, i was finally told that the octor was close enough to the hospital that i could start pushing. So push i did! It probably took about 7 sets of 3-4 pushes to get him out. It was a challenge to curl up, chin down, take a deep breath and push in the right places to get him out but it was so much better than trying to pant through contractions and NOT pushing. Jeff was a great coach giving me positive feedback the entire time, saying how great i was for doing it natural, etc.

The baby was delivered and he let out a cry. Looked very healthy and i saw Jeff get teary eyed! Didn’t have to wait at all to deliver the placenta. Jeff cut the cord in front of me and then they placed the baby up on my chest for skin-to-skin. Jeff and i just stared at our baby boy and started thinking of names! We were set on Calvin for a few weeks now but hadn’t made any final decisions. So when saw him we thought he looked like a Vincent, our other choice of name. And so he was named!

We all bonded for a while, he breastfed, then the nurses took his measurements. We called my mom in and she got to see the baby. I ended up with a 3rd degree tear (ouch!) and when i asked “how many stitches” i got – the doctor just said “oh we don’t count” – i take that to mean way too many to count! Yikes! But i’m recovering well, it is really not too bad.

Here are some photos! More on Flickr page as usual.