Happy 1 Week Birthday Rykken!

Well yesterday was technicaly Rykken's 1 week birthday...but I didn't get a chance to update my blog yesterday so we are going to pretend it is today! Rykken is AMAZING! He has already changed so much from when he was first born. I can't believe he has already been with me for a week. It has been a rough first week, not because of Rykken, he is a very easy baby, just the fact that I am having trouble recovering from my c-section. I over did it my first few days home, mostly because I don't think I realized how much pain I was in and I was very happy on my pain pills and guess what....the pain pills have run out! I think I have strained one of my muscles and I am having trouble walking and picking Rykken up. It is very frustrating and I have cried a ton over it, because I am so sad that I have to have other people help take care of him for me. I can't even make it to the changing table to change his diapers. I just fear that I am missing out on a lot being so immobile these first weeks. Hopefully I will be back up and going soon, I can only pray! Like I said Rykken is doing great, he is a little chunky monkey...he eats so much! He is already eating 3-4 ounces every 2 hours! He had a doctor's appointment on friday and he weighs 8lbs 3oz, which is really good considering most babies lose weight their first week and his jaundice is gone. He is just a sweet little cuddlebug. He smiles ALL the time. My favorite is at night after he has finished eating he just smiles and smiles....oh how I love him! He truly is a miracle and I can't believe he is mine!

Rykken Is Finally Here!

I am so relieved and proud to announce that Rykken has arrived. He is finally here and only 3 days late! I am so happy that I didn't have to wait until the 21st! Rykken made his appearance on August 16 at 8:32am. He was about as big as they estimated...he weighed in at 7lbs 12oz and 20.5in long. He has black hair and a ton of it! He is absolutly perfect in every way possible. He is completely healthy with a little bit of jaundice. Like I guessed, he is very laid back and calm...he loves to sleep during the day and play at night....hmmm....does that sound familiar from my some of my complaints from my pregnancy blogs :) His middle name came from my baby brother Kyler Luke. Those of you that know me well...know how special my brother is to me!

I know many of you are probably curious about my delivery...so here you go...all I can say is it was an adventure! I began having mild contractions Wed. August 13 (my due date) at about 6:45pm (thats when I started timing them anyway) I continued having them inconsistently anywhere from 12-8 minutes all the way through Wed. night into Thursday. I went ahead and went to work Thursday morning (Crazy I know) and left at half day, but by the time I left work I was in a lot of pain...but they were still just too inconsistent in timing and duration to call or head to the hospital. Now let me tell you about my contractions. All of my labor was back labor. I felt no front cramps, every contraction I had I felt in my back....even though they were about 12 minutes apart they still were almost unbearable. My mom went ahead and drove down Thursday night to stay with me, even though I was in denial and kept telling her it was just false labor and not to bother driving down. I made it through Thursday night, and mind you...I hadn't slept since Tuesday night because of the contractions, try sleeping and every 10-12 minutes being jerked up out of bed with pain. On Friday morning about 6am I had the first sign of a bloody show. I was so happy I almost started crying and told my mom that I really was in labor, because I just kept denying it before I started bleeding. My contractions were still inconsistent about 8-6 minutes apart. I called my doctors office and Murphy's Law...my doctor was out of town. They told me since there was no one to check my progress at the office to just go ahead and go to the hospital and they would check me there. About 9am I headed to the hospital, they checked me and I was only 1cm dialated and 80% effaced! Now it wasn't much...but since I had been told 2 days before that, that I was not dialated or effaced at all, I felt like it was positive progress. They sent me home with Ambien to try to get some sleep and get my body to relax to try to get the process started. Taking Ambien was the worst experience of my life! I was out of it before my mom could get me home...she had to practically drag me into my apartment and put me to bed. I slept for about 4 hours until I woke up hallucinating and crying and in the worst pain I had ever been in. (Not to scare those that are expecting their first babies....I don't think regular labor pains are as intense as the back labor I experienced....or maybe I am just a cry baby!) So I headed back to the hospital and was admitted at around 7pm so that they could start me on a pain medication IV. They started the IV checked me again and I had progressed to between 2-3 cm and was 90% effaced. After about 15 minutes of getting the IV drip and getting admitted my water broke naturally. Everything progressed pretty quickly from there on out. About 4 hours after my water broke I got my epidural and was completely dialated in about 5 hours after receiving the epidural. So not counting the two days I was having contractions before I was admitted to the hospital, I labored for about 9 hours. I started pushing at 5am on Sat. morning and pushed for 3 hours. The reason I was having back labor is because Rykken's head was turned side ways in my pelvis. The nurse and the doctor both tried to turn his head several times, but it wasn't happening. The doctor gave me two options after 3 hours of pushing with no progress. He could either go in with forceps and try to turn Rykken's head and help pull him out...or a c-section. He did not think with my size that the forceps would be a safe alternative and that it would be riskier and a harder, longer recovery for me than a c-section. So along with the doctor's guidance I agreed to a c-section. I agreed to the c-section around 8am and by 8:32 my little man was here! While the doctor was finishing the surgery he informed me that even if we would have gone ahead with the forceps that it wouldn't have worked, so the c-section was definetly the right choice. His head couldn't progress down into my pelvis due to two protruding pelvic bones and this is also why they didn't have any luck trying to turn his head. He was stuck! For the c-section they over medicated me to make sure I would be numb enough for the surgery with just the epidural with out having to insert a spinal and they ended up completely numbing me from the neck down. It was one heck of an epidural! Once I was in recovery they brought the baby to me so I could see him, but I couldn't hold him because I had no movement in my arms and hands, so he got to lay on me for about 10 minutes until they took him back to the nursery. I didn't get to see him again until around 11am that morning when I finally made it to my permenent recovery room. It took me almost all day on Sat. to get feeling and movement back in my limbs. My legs took the longest and I really didn't have complete movement back until Sunday morning, I was really scared I was going to be paralized or something....but nope...all the feeling eventually came back. I was discharged on Monday...a day early because I was recoverying so well and so I was home by about 1pm on Monday. YAY! Overall things went really smooth, and I am so grateful I had a relatively low complicated labor and delivery and that Rykken is healthy! He is worth all of it!

My Big Boy!

So today was my last doctor's appointment until the big day. I am due tomorrow...but my baby boy is thinking otherwise. He is not ready to meet the world yet and I THINK I have come to grips with that...it also helps that no matter what, I KNOW he will be here by the 21st which is only a week away, I am slowly starting to feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel (no pun intended).

My doctors appointment was very eventful today, I was checked and surprise...no dialation or effacement...which honestly did shock me today as other things have been taking place with my body that I could have sworn would lead to dialation...but nope! I also have noticed a decrease in Rykken's activity so the doctor performed a sonogram to make sure he isn't wrapped up in the umbilical cord and to measure his weight and head circumference more accurately. Everything looked really good according to the doctor, he is not wrapped up in the umbilical cord, he is still head down and you could even see all of his hair on the sonogram. She measured his limbs and tummy to get a more accurate weight estimate and he is weighing 8lbs 1oz! She didn't tell me what the head circumference measured at...I don't think I want to know...and who can blame me! After measuring his head and taking as good a look at my pelvis as she could on the sonogram, she thinks he should fit through nicely, but obviously only time will tell. After the sonogram she went ahead and performed a stress test on him. Basically they hook you up to a fetal monitor just like they do when you are in the hospital and they monitor the babies heart rate and movement in relation to contractions. I had 3-4 contractions in 20 minutes, and he reacted great to all of them. He had no change in heart rate when I was having a contraction so it means he is tolerating them just fine. So basically....the consenus is that he is not stressed out, he is not hog tied in the umbilical cord, his head shouldn't be too big to start moving down into my pelvis, and he is just getting big with less room to move around resulting in decreased activity. He is perfect! They looked for every scenario to be able to help me out a little and go ahead and induce earlier and found no reason. It is still better to give him until the 20th to see if he will come naturally, but as of the 20th if he is not here...they are going to drag him out! He has no choice! So I will check into labor and delivery the afternoon of the 20th and they will begin trying to soften my cervix overnight with a gel and an IV with something that will aid in the softening process (as of right now, I am un-induceable because my cervix is still hard). Then the next morning or whenever my cervix becomes soft they will start the poticin and break my water...and then hopefully this baby will be here not to far after that. The late afternoon or night of the 21st hopefully! The only down side to this whole induction thing is that I am going to be in the hospital for a VERY long time before the actual labor process even starts! Probably about twelve hours just getting to an induceable state, and then who knows how long it will take after they actually get labor started. All I can say is bring it on, I am ready!

Update

Just a quick update:

I paid the doctor a visit yesterday and unfortunately there has been no change. I am due next wednesday and there is still no dialation or effacement. It's really discouraging. Here I am a week from my due date and I feel now, more than ever, hopeless. I would feel so much better if my body showed just the smallest sign that something was happening...that my body was at least working towards something....but nothing. I know they say things can change so fast and one minute you can have no labor symptoms and the next you can be in active labor, but its just hard to think positively about it right now. My entire pregnancy I was so worried about him coming early....never dreaming that he more than likely will be overdue. Since there has been no change and no sign that I will be going into active labor anytime soon, I have been scheduled for an overnight induction starting the night of the 20th and then delivering the 21st. So the doctor is giving me a week past my due date to see if I will go into labor naturally, but she won't allow me to go past a week...thank goodness. So after nine months of looking forward and waiting for August 13th, now I have to wait for another week. IT'S HORRIBLE! Please pray that I will go into labor naturally closer to my due date than the 20th. I just don't know how I am going to make it another two weeks. For any of you that are currently expecting or have had babies you know how hard it is to have patience to just make it to your due date, let alone be told more than likely you will deliver a week late. I am just ready to have my baby boy here and I'm tired of waiting.