Labor Story Numero 3

The last post I wrote about Eamon wasn't meant to replace his labor story, I just wanted to blog about him at that moment. So here's his story:

When Andrew was about 15 months old, I realized that if I were to become pregnant, Andrew and the next baby would be exactly 2 years apart, and that was something Phil and I wanted. So for the first time, we actually tried to have a baby. After one month of "trying" I got really sick with a stomach virus and ended up being so completely dehydrated that I had to go to the hospital where they gave me a magical pill that stopped the nausea and 2 IV bags of fluid. Ahhh, the miracles of modern medicine! They took my blood to see if I had an infection and of course the doctor asked me if I was pregnant. To which I responded with my standard "I don't know, could be, it's always possible" and then, like whomever asks me this, she looks at me perplexed until I say, "I use NFP". In these cases, I either get the I'm-so-sorry-for-you-my-poor-misguided-child look or they have no idea what I'm talking about. This time I got the former response. Anyways, it's always an opportunity to evangelize in a small way.

Needless to say, they tested my blood to see if I was pregnant, and the doctor came back to report that I wasn't. Phil was in shock...we actually tried to get pregnant this time, and it didn't work. I had to remind him that sometimes it takes couples months and years before they can conceive, and we have just been very lucky in the past. I think it was a blow to his manhood. However, a couple of weeks later, I took a home pregnancy test and it came out positive! I guess I was so newly pregnant at the hospital that I got a false negative result. Yeah, we were expecting baby number three and Phil felt like a real macho man once again! (He's gonna kill me for writing that...)

After the initial whole-day sickness (morning sickness, yeah right!) wore off, I got huge as a house and we decided that since we already had two boys (by surprise), we wanted to know what this baby would be. We found out he was a boy! We wanted to name him Brendan, but then I had a dream that I went into labor early, and when the baby came out I said "We shall call him Brendan" and then he died. So we changed the name to Eamon, which was a cousin on my mom's side and I had always loved the name. Phil took a little while to get used to it, but when I suggested we give Eamon the middle name Philip, he was all for it!

Since I had tried to have 2 drug-free births before, and always ended up getting the epidural at the last minute, we decided to forgo the midwife and get an Ob/Gyn and get the epidural early on. I figured if I was gonna get one anyway at the end, I might as well get it early and be comfortable the whole labor.

Once labor had started 10 days early, we went to the hospital and even though I was only about 2 cm with irregular contractions, they let me stay and I got the epidural around 3 cm. Then I started feeling really strange and my blood pressure fell way down, and the nurse yelled for the anestesioligist to come back because the baby's pressure was dropping as well. It was really scary. But after everything was settled, Phil and I were able to relax, sleep and watch tv throughout the night. Then in the morning my doctor came in before her office shift to check me, and said she would be back at noon to deliver the baby and just to rest until then. Hmmm, not sure I liked this whole doctor thing after being used to midwives who stayed with me almost the whole time, and let my body do what it needed to instead of working around what the clock said. (Disclaimer: with 4 doctors in my immediate family, I have nothing against doctors in general, they have the hardest jobs ever, get no respect and deserve every penny they make. However, during childbirth I have felt that in a healthy delivery, it is far better to have a midwife that an OB.)

When the OB came back at her lunch break, I pushed 2 times and out popped Eamon Philip. He was adorable and a great eater. Unfortunately he was also allergic to dairy and soy so I had to cut those from my diet in order to breastfeed. He was colicky and spit up so much that we had him tested for acid reflux, which came back negative even though he threw up all the time. So we switched him over to the hypoallergenic formula at 3 months (which our health insurance paid for thankfully) and he started doing a little better. He was always fussy and crying, and had 3 ear infections by the time he was 7 months old. We went to our ENT doctor and he suggested tubes (which Andrew also had) and that seemed to help, at least with the recurring ear infections. But we finally realized that he was just a high-need kiddo, and the older he grows, the better he becomes. He is my most challenging child thus far, but nevertheless will always hold a special place in my heart.