John

On Saturday, January 14th (my due date) at 5:18am I woke up to a small gush of fluid while I was sleeping. I thought that I had peed, but when I got to the bathroom, it didn’t stop. My water had broken. I woke up David and told him that it was time.

David took a quick shower while I got in touch with my mother (to come over) and I got my bag ready. We arrived at the hospital around 6am.

Since my water had broken, I was sent directly to a labor room. I was about 4cm dilated. The nurse (Nancy) asked a lot of questions, and we were on our way.

About an hour after arriving in the labor room, my contractions were getting much more painful. I asked for the epidural, which was such a relief. Not sure I could have done it without.

As I labored, I watched some TV (some sports show talking about the Patriots and the playoff game vs the Broncos to be played that night) and played Words with Friends on my iPhone.

By 11am I was almost fully dilated. Labor was moving very quickly. Before I knew it, the nurse said it was time and a flurry of doctors and nurses arrived. The nurse reminded me how to push, and about 20 minutes later, John had arrived (at 12:05pm)!

John David Gauthier
January 14, 2012, 12:05pm
8 pounds, 11 ounces
21 inches

Overall it was a great experience. Quick, easy, relatively painless.

NOTE: We didn’t have a name for John until about an hour after birth. The top names were John, Adam, Wes, Derek, Brett, Luke, James… I liked all of our tops, so it was up to David to decide.

About 2 hours after delivery, my nurse was very concerned about my bleeding. It was clotty and much too heavy. The doctor came in a few times and was concerned that there was some tissue left in my uterus. After some manual searching, I was brought to an operating room for a procedure to clean everything out. It was a little scary. There were a lot of people. I was put back on the epidural and oxygen. It took about 20 minutes.

After the procedure, I spiked a fever and my body was chilled. I was brought in to a recovery room and set up with a heated bubble cover. My uterus was very “boggy” and wasn’t contracting. The doctor again was very concerned. I was given all sorts of medications, and the nurses had to very firmly massage my uterus every 15 minutes – to kick start contractions. There were discussions about additional surgery to remove my uterus, and I overheard something about a blood transfusion. It got pretty scary.

Finally around 9pm, I was stabilizing. David was able to visit now and again, but I hadn’t seen John or the rest of my family the whole afternoon. I was sad, but I was also very out of it due to all of the medications. Around 9:30pm, David headed home and the nurses brought me John. I snuggled with him (and did some feedings) until about 2am. At that time, I was moved in to another room where I was supposed to get some rest. Rest was VERY difficult seeing as the nurses had to massage my uterus every 15 minutes throughout the entire night.

Around 8am, the doctor was happy with my progress and my uterus was firm and where it was supposed to be… so I was moved to my actual room by 10am. My family soon arrived and everything was looking up.

I stayed in the hospital until Tuesday.

So my labor and delivery were awesome, but the post-delivery issues were not fun.

Despite my issues, John was/is doing fantastic.

Check out some photos on our photo site (email me for password if you don’t know it, janamjl@aol.com):
http://gauthierphotos.shutterfly.com

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