This time around, with the help of our great doctor, we took multiple measures to ensure that super #2 stayed in the womb as long as possible. We still had a scare around week 35, but thankfully caught it early on and persuaded baby not to make his appearance just quite yet.
Last Tuesday I finally hit the magic 37 week mark. Because we were trying for a vbac, and needed to avoid induction, Doc S performed an "aggressive" (read: OUCH) exam to try to get things started. I don't think she expected "things" to begin moving along quite so soon! Tuesday evening I started having regular contractions. They continued into early Wed morning, at which point I woke up Sameer and told him we better get ready to head to the hospital for real.
After taking care of some last-minute details (like scanning and emailing Sameer's college degree for new insurance!) we said goodbye to our "chicha" and headed to the hospital Wednesday around 8am. Upon arrival, the nurse infomed me that I was farther along than she expected--2 cm dilated and almost 100% effaced. She said to expect a baby by sometime that evening! Over the course of the morning, contractions continued to get closer together, but still manageable.
After taking care of some last-minute details (like scanning and emailing Sameer's college degree for new insurance!) we said goodbye to our "chicha" and headed to the hospital Wednesday around 8am. Upon arrival, the nurse infomed me that I was farther along than she expected--2 cm dilated and almost 100% effaced. She said to expect a baby by sometime that evening! Over the course of the morning, contractions continued to get closer together, but still manageable.
Around lunchtime, Doc S came by and broke my water. Almost immediately, the contractions multiplied 10x in intensity...at least it felt that way! It took some time for the anesthesiologist to arrive, but thankfully I got some relief via an epidural around 2pm. At that time the nurse did a quick check and announced, "you're 8 cm"! WOW! Sameer and I began to prepare ourselves for the fact that our son was going to arrive very soon.
At 3pm, Doc S arrived once more. She said that I was ready to have the baby. It finally dawned on me that we were going to be successful with this vbac thing--I was NOT going to have another c-section.
So the pushing began...I had pushed for about 10 minutes when Doc S started getting concerned about the baby's heartrate. It was going way down before recovering, over and over again during each contraction. She pulled out the vaccum and told me she wanted him out now.
At 3:22pm, Satya made his entrance. He was very pale, so off he went to the warmers for a bit while I got stitched up. Sameer was able to hold him, but I was kept waiting for about 10 minutes...finally a nurse brought him over. Our baby boy, the "victory of truth":
He was still somewhat in shock from the birth, as you can see from his color. So off Satya went to the nursery for some more "warming". By 5pm, though, he was back with us and ready to stay:
The next morning, Satya met his big sister for the first time:
She is completely in love with her "fuzzy" baby brother, as are we all:
