Wow, we've been busy! Two kids is definitely much more work. Not to mention the billion doctors' appointments we've had (both me and Caleb). Things are finally sort of slowing down...sort of.
Caleb was born on March 13th at 8:05pm. That morning, I was scheduled for induction and arrived at Mercy Gilbert Hospital (which, by the way, I like much better than Chandler Regional where Ella was born. There was only one slightly scary nurse too!) at 7:30 in the morning. I was not looking forward to the pitocin, BUT, I was able to dodge that bullet yet again. Yay! With Ella, my water broke and I was not really dilated, so they were going to put me on pitocin then, but I ended up not needing it. Anyway, they decided to use some gels instead to get me into labor. They usually give three doses, but I only needed two.
It was a pretty easy labor until the late afternoon/early evening time (don't remember exactly) and the contractions were hitting HARD. They would not let me get the epidural until I was 4 centimeters (which took forever). Unfortunately I had to endure those very painful contractions until then. Finally they ordered my epidural, but had to do some blood work first. The lab must have been very swamped because it took them almost two hours to get to me. Then we had to wait for the results. My body was so exhausted, I almost couldn't handle it anymore. In short, I was 7 centimeters dilated when I got the epidural. What relief!
The L&D nurse was amazing. She was so nice and made sure I was as comfortable as I could be. I was sad to see her go when her shift was over and I still hadn't had the baby. As she was leaving, she joked that I'd probably have the baby while she was in the parking lot.
I wasn't able to get to know the new nurse. First thing she did was check to see my progress, and guess what? I was at a 10! Time to push! I only had relief from the epidural for about 30 minutes before it was time. The doctor came in and in only 2.5 pushes, Caleb was born! It's funny, because my original nurse was probably literally in the parking lot when he was born!
I hate being in the hospital after having a baby, so I chose to be discharged 24 hours after he was born. By the way, the discharge class they made me go to was a complete waste of time. They didn't tell me one thing I didn't already know. It should not be required for those who already had kids. Because of that, we didn't get to leave the hospital until almost 10:00 Sunday night. It was kind of weird leaving at night.
Here are some pictures of the first two weeks of Caleb's life.
