Dane has had quite the first week of life - including 4 long days and nights under bili-lights for Jaundice, 5 nasty heel pokes to draw blood, a late night visit to the doctor's office, weight-loss, sleepless nights, fussy eating....
But the Jaundice is gone now, he's sleeping better, eating better, pooping better (I'm sure he'll thank me for publicizing that information when he's older). We are just loving having him here.
I'll relate some details surrounding the labor and birth - feel free to move on if you wish, but some people wanted to know.
I'd been having practice labor pretty consistantly for the last week or two before Dane was born. Early Wednesday morning I woke up and took note that the practice labor surges felt different than before. I could feel it more in my lower abdomen and back and not just the top of my uterus. I had a doctor's appt that morning and the doctor didn't report anything that led me to believe I would be having a baby any time soon. So I went to work and continued having the surges all day. By the time we went to bed Wednesday night, the surges had intesified and I couldn't really sleep. So I got up around 1:30 am and just went to the living room and tried to relax. Finally about 3:30 am I had decided that I wanted to head to the hospital. We arrived at 4 am and found out I was dilated to 3 1/2. But the nurse didn't feel comfortable letting me leave, so I stayed and in a couple more hours was at a 5 and they admitted me. A few more hours went by and I gave in and got the epidural. The back labor just became more than I could deal with. About 4 hours later I was complete and Dane was born at 1:56 pm on Thursday, May 6th.
I had posted before that I wanted to do a natural birth (as far as using no drugs) using Hypnobirthing. While I didn't quite succeed, I'm not disappointed with the way things went. I used the breathing and relaxation as long as I could and felt that I couldn't even have gotten as far as I did without them. I'm really glad we took the class and I plan on practicing it again for the next baby and having success.
