Three weeks ago...right about now

**I started this post on 10/18 at 10:30 pm but the muchkin decided to have a fussy fit in his pack n play so it was delayed a little bit.**

Three weeks ago...right about now I started the last phase of bringing my son into the world.  It took about 2 and a half hours and I felt like I had been run over by a truck when it was all done but I would do it all over again just to see his cute little face.

I've had a few people ask me about my marathon 70 hour labor so I'll give a brief synopsis of how it all went down:

In the wee small hours of the morning on the 26th of October my contractions started.  They were pretty tame and only about 30 minutes apart so I slept through a lot of it.  By 5 am they were coming at about 7 minutes apart and at 8 am they were 5 minutes apart so we started calling family to let them know that it looked like we'd have a new Munger sometime in the next day or so.  My mom drove down from Seattle and by the time she arrived at noon my contractions had slowed down considerably.  Then they picked up again a few hours later.  So we called the hospital and filled them in on what was going on and they said it sounded like Braxton Hicks and to give them a call a little bit later.  Since I was opting for a non-medicated birth I was okay with this advice - my doctor had already said to stay at home as long as possible to avoid un-necessary intervention.

Then the contractions slowed down.  And then a few hours later they picked up again.  So we went for walks and I tried to grab some cat naps during the "down time" but honestly everytime I slept it seemed like things slowed down so I started dreading sleep to the same degree that I was craving it.

Wednesday morning we went to a previously scheduled doctor's appointment where my midwife informed me that I was 3 cm dilated and 100% effaced and that if she were a betting woman - which she wasn't because she'd been doing this too long - she would bet that we'd have a baby by the end of the day.  So our options were to go home and labor at home or walk over to the labor and delivery wing of the hospital and get checked in.  We opted to go home and wait things out there.

And we waited and we waited and we waited.  Frustrated with  my lack of progress, I called the hospital at 10 pm and they gave me the go ahead to at least come in and get checked again.  4 cm.  No go - but I was told to walk around the halls for an hour to see what happened.  Mission accomplished!  I was at 5 cm. My contractions still weren't all that strong or regular and I remained frustrated but the admitting nurse and midwife were awesome and so encouraging.  They commented more than once that I must have some freaky high pain tolerance or something.

When my midwife came on duty around 6:30 am we discussed our options and my pain level and how we'd like to proceed.  Wanting to move things along but not really liking the idea of Pitocin we tried breaking my water but couldn't because Owen's head was pressed so tightly up against my pelvic bone that there was no way to do it without hurting his little head (he still has a scratch on his head from where they tried).  The good news was that I was at 6.5 cm - the bad news was that it took such a freaking long time to get there that we were all starting to worry that I would be too tired to get through the next three cm and however long it was going to take to push the kid out!  Our midwife went over our options again and Matt and I had the following conversation:

Jackie:  What should I do?
Matt:  This is your decision and I'll support whatever you decide to do.
Jackie:  I'm so tired - I just want this to be over.
Matt: You've been doing this for 56 hours.
Jackie:  Holy Crap.  That's a long time.  I don't have to prove anything to anyone at this point.
Matt:  No you don't.  You didn't ever have to prove anything to anyone.
Jackie:  That's true.  Tell the the midwife to get the anesthesiologist in here.

At least that's how I remember the conversation - things were a little fuzzy.

And then I slept through centimeters 7, 8, 9 and 10.  My water broke somewhere around 9.5 or 10 cm and they learned at this point that Owen was trying to come out face up and his little head was kinda stuck.  So we tried a few things to get him turned around which worked at first but then stubborn little guy that he is, he turned right back over.  So I pushed and pushed and pushed for 2 and a half hours before asking for the vaccum extractor.  On the first try, it slipped off his head and did quite a bit of damage to me personally.  The second try also failed.  On try three they told me I had one last shot before...well, they didn't exactly say what my next option was but I came to the correct conclusion on my own that it was going to be a C-section.  His heart rate really started dropping and I had lost quite a bit of blood from the first go around with the vaccum extractor.  No worries though, Owen and I are champs and we came through in a big way.  At 12:40 am on October 29th Owen made his entrance into the world.

Because our little bugger had pooped while still in the womb, the doctors wisked him over to the warmer to have his lungs checked (among other things) and daddy followed to watch.  Meanwhile, Mommy spent the next hour and 15 minutes getting stitched up.  At some point during my "reconstructive work" Owen was delivered to me and I cried and Matt cried and my mom cried.  Oddly enough, the baby didn't cry.

There are so many more details but I said I'd be brief (and failed miserably thus far) so I'll stop here.  I would like to add that even though nothing went according to plan we still count it as a positive experience thanks to the hospital staff at Kaiser Sunnyside.  Because we lasted through three shift changes, we had quite a few visitors from Labor and Delivery after we were transferred to the recovery floor.  The nurses and midwives all wanted to meet the little baby who took his sweet time coming into the world.

The cutest baby on the block