Milo Oliver

First things first... Yesterday at 10:07, just seconds before 10:08 (significant because that's what time we were married, only in the am.) Nathan and I finally met our perfect, handsome son, Milo Oliver. Milo weighed a healthy 8lb 9oz and is 20 inches long. He has his Dad's beautiful dark hair.

Right now as he lays asleep on my chest, I cannot even begin to put into words what I am feeling. If you are a parent... you know.

The past day and a half has been a whirlwind of excitement, exhaustion, pain, and joy. I'll try to sum up yesterday's events. I guess you could call this Milo's birth story.

1:30 am I woke up with contractions after only being asleep about an hour and a half or two hours. After the second contraction, I knew without a doubt I was in labor. I did exactly as my midwife instructed and labored at home until contractions were about 3 minutes apart and strong enough that I could not walk or talk through them. By the time we got to about 3 and a half minutes apart.... I told Nathan I was ready to go to the hospital. And I mean... I was ready. So we made it to the hospital around 5 am. My plan was to go drug free, but I knew the hospital had the jacuzzi tub and I was ready to start trying some natural methods of pain management. Unfortunately in triage... I was still only dilated to 2cm. But based on the amount and strength of my contractions they knew I needed to be admitted. So we were taken to our room. Our midwife had another patient in labor, so she went back and forth between us for the first few hours.

I labored and labored. I labored on the ball, in the chair, in the bed, walking the hall, in the tub. I found an incredible amount of relief in the warm bath. Even though my contractions were still just 3 minutes apart, I was able to reach a deep enough state of relaxation to doze between contractions while soaking. And I must say... I had the breathing down to perfection.

I figured I had to be close to 10 cm, as I had been laboring for many hours by this point, but the next check showed that I was only to five. So on I labored some more. Again, I labored in the tub. And the next check showed that I was still only dilated to 5 cm. At that point, I had labored 100% drug free from 1:30 until about 4:00. The next step was to start Pitocin to try to increase the intensity and frequency of contractions in hopes of getting to 10 cm. But after laboring for that long on about two hours of sleep, I was exhausted. I knew that there was no way I could handle Pitocin contractions with out some kind of relief. It was at that point, that I started asking to have a csection. I had hit my wall and I just wanted it to be over.

But Denise, knowing what I had hoped for Milo's birth, didn't want to see me go from a drug free labor straight to surgery. So we went ahead and agreed to the Pitocin. I also was given a mild narcotic to help me relax between contractions. It felt good, but it did nothing for relief during actual contractions. So I went another two hours with no relief from the actual contractions. I then asked for an intrathecal which is a shot given in the back by an anesthesiologist. It was then about 6:00 before the anesthesiologist showed up, which was over 16 hours into my labor.

The fun thing about the intrathecal was I had to remain completely still through very intense contractions while they repeatedly poked a needle into my back. The nurse anesthesist had a very difficult time just because of the anatomy of my spine. So I had to lay perfectly still through contractions and pokes for 45 minutes until she finally called the anesthesiologist to come do it.

The intrathecal gave me great relief for a couple of hours. During that time I had progressed to 7 cm but that was after laboring for almost 18 hours. I had hit my wall back at 5 cm. And the intrathecal had worn off too, so even during the c section prep and spinal... I was still have the intense contractions.

The decision to do a c section was not taken lightly by my midwife. She knew what our hopes were and we did everything we could to uphold those. But in the end the c section was definitely the right choice. And while I don't love that we are now seeing some mild effects of the drugs he was exposed to, we know we did everything we could before taking that route.

Yesterday was certainly the longest day of our life. It was traumatic for both us. It pushed Nathan beyond his emotional limit having to watch me and still support me going through all that.... it pushed me beyond any emotional and most definitely physical limits I had. But the minute I heard my son cry, it was worth every single ounce of energy. We fell in love immediately.

Nathan was able to cut the umbilical cord and go to the nursery with Milo during the first few minutes. And really, I was able to hold Milo probably within about 20 minutes. And we started nursing immediately as well. I had to lay flat, so our nurse pretty much did all the work while I laid there. But Milo proved to be an excellent eater. His first three feedings lasted 20 minutes on each side. So while labor and delivery was not easy, breast feeding has certainly gone very well so far.

He truly is a miracle baby that we have been praying for, for a long time. In fact, we've been praying for him by name for a long time. While we certainly considered other names, Milo was the baby we had been praying for. And just in case you were curious, Milo means peaceful and is also the Greek word for apple. And yes, his initials are MOM... and after yesterday... I think I deserved to be the namesake of his initials. :)

Thank you for your prayers and support. And I look forward to each of you getting to know our beautiful son.

And let me just add that it has seriously taken me an entire day to write this post!