Meeting Milo James: A Birth Story

The night before I was scheduled to be induced I was noticing an increase in contractions but none of them were painful. I assumed it was due to the anticipation of what was to come the next day.

I woke up and was still contracting fairly consistantly, but again, they didn't hurt. It was getting to the point though that I was wondering if I should go in to get checked out or not. I figured I would just wait for them to call me. Around 8:30 AM the hospital called and told me they would be ready for me at 10 AM. It was perfect timing since all the kids were able to wake up naturally and they gave us a long enough heads up that I was able to shower and get all the kids ready to go before loading up in the car. We decided to take two vehicles to the hospital so Susan could just take the van load of kids to her house and Jason and I would have the truck at the hospital.

Checking into the hospital. My last official belly picture.

After getting dressed into the super flattering hospital gown, they hooked me up to monitors and discovered I was already contracting every 5 minutes. Apparently Milo was coming out today whether I was induced or not. Because I was already contracting regularly, they just let me be for a little while and then only gave me minimal pitocin.

I was keeping my family updated via Marco Polo during labor so here are some of the videos that give the best updates on the progress:

When they broke my water it was evident that Milo had a bowel movement already which can cause various problems. Because of this, they ordered extra people (such as a respiratory expert, nursery doctors, etc.) to be in the room during delivery just in case they were needed. I immediately started praying that everything was going to be okay. They tried to reassure me that most likely things would go smoothly still but they just wanted to be prepared. It still freaked me out.

When I was dilated to a 9.5 the nurse said she could finish stretching me to a ten if I wanted or I could wait for the anesthesiologist to give me a little more of the epidural. I was experiencing what they called a "hot spot" on my right side in the front where there was intense pain. It was seriously a spot the size of a fingertip but it hurt really bad and I wasn't too excited to push while still experiencing that (I am a baby when it comes to pain) so they called the anesthesiologist back in to give me a boost of epidural and really helped with that pain.  By then I was a 10 and ready to push. My doctor came in to get things going.

It took about 20 minutes of active pushing to get him out. When his head surfaced Dr. Cloward discovered that his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice tightly enough that she had to clip the cord before continuing. She also had to clear his airways of amniotic fluid so he wouldn't aspirate the meconium when he took his first breath. Once that was all taken care of I was able to push he rest of his body out.
He came out purple and without a sound. He didn't immediately start to cry so they rushed him to the little bed for him and the respiratory people started working on him. They rubbed him down hard while I held my breath with tears streaming down my face. I prayed even harder that he would be okay. The whole pregnancy I had this worry in the back of my head that something was going to go wrong, so when he came out that purple and not breathing I immediately thought "this is it." It was the longest minute of my life while I just stared at him and willed him to take his first breath. After what felt like an eternity I heard his first cry. He started turning pink quickly and despite all the scares they gave him an APGAR score of 8.

They kept him crying for a while to make sure his airway was clear.

He weighed in at 8 lbs 9 oz and measured 20.5 inches in length.

I finally got to hold him. :) He grunted for a little while which worried me because they said that babies tend to do that if they have fluid in their lungs, but they didn't seem to worried about him. He started to nurse shortly after which was an excellent sign that he was fine, the nurses said. If he couldn't breath properly he wouldn't be able to latch on and eat.

My doctor dad told me later that it was actually a blessing that he didn't breath immediately after birth so the doctors had time to clear his airways before he inhaled the meconium. And since he ended up being perfectly healthy I was able to see the blessing.

Milo had always been very aware of surroundings while inside so it made total sense to me when he tried to pry his eyes open despite all the goo to observe this new environment outside the womb.

We both fell in love with him immediately.

After recovering for a little bit I was ready to be transferred to the mother/baby unit.

Look at this beautiful piece of heaven.

 A few hours later Susan brought the kids to meet their new brother. We had asked them a while ago if they thought he would be born with a mustache like one of their books: Mustache Baby. They thought about it for a while and then concluded that he probably wouldn't be. Jason and I thought it would be a funny prank to pull if the first time they saw him he had a mustache.

The boys were not fooled. I think we could have tricked Tessa if her brothers didn't call us out on our prank. Haha. Oh well. It was fun anyway.

They each took turns holding their new brother.

First family picture!

Jason took the kids home after meeting Milo and the rest of the evening was just Milo and me (and a million people in and out checking our vitals).

Around midnight that night Milo got his first sponge bath. He was not a fan.

He did enjoy getting his hair washed though.

Because Milo had pooped in utero he had swallowed some and it was chilling in his stomach when he was born. (Gross, I know.) So the whole day he had been randomly throwing it up to get it out of his system. The nurses said they could pump his stomach to get it out but it would be very comfortable for him and he was doing a great job getting it all out himself so they just let him do his thing. Below is what his spit up looked like. It was a little stressful for me because I had to keep a close eye on him so he wouldn't choke on it, but after the second day he was pretty much done.

 I had decided after one night in the hospital I would recover better at home where my sleep wasn't interrupted nearly every hour by nurses checking vitals. So the next day Milo and I prepped for going home. He had all his testing done and we got the okay from both of our doctors to leave.

Milo's first picture with his bear.

What a cute furrowed brow.

Our room for Milo's first day out of the womb.

He refused either kind of binky. He is just not a binky baby, apparently. The only time he accepted one was right after his circumcision. I am sure it was pretty traumatic for him, poor guy.

My handsome boy ready to go home.

I forgot to get a picture of us leaving the hospital, darn it. We were just so excited to get out of there, I guess. Welcome home, Milo!