I think in my mind, my due date was 38 weeks, the same time that I had Carter. When that date came and went, I started to get a little bit antsy. There were a few times I felt contractions, but when I didn't go into labor, I went back and forth between being really relieved because I didn't feel quite ready and feeling panicky, like my pregnancy was never going to end..The day before Logan was born was pretty relaxing. Carter and I went over to our friends, the Beards, house for a playdate, I cleaned the house again (for some reason I get really compulsive about this when I get to the end of my pregnancies, I feel like I have to have a perfectly clean house for the baby to come home to) and I made Jeremy watch Anne of Green Gables with me while I ate Christmas goodies. The next morning, I woke up and my water had broken. It was really similar to when Carter was born, I didn'r really feel any contractions. We didn't waste too much time getting out the door though, because I know second babies can come fast. It seemed like second babies were always the ones born in the parking lot of the hospital. We dropped Carter off at the Beards' apartment, and we drove to the hospital.
The whole time we were at the hospital, I was amazed how laid back they were with everything. The midwife didn't even check me when I got there, they didn't have me on the monitor hardly at all, and they let me eat whatever I wanted. Right after we got there, they sent up a huge pancake breakfast for me. Jeremy was delighted because he got to eat most of it. After talking with the midwife, we decided to walk in the hallway and see if labor would start on it's own. We walked up and down the hallway up until about 1:45 pm. Jeremy had a conference skype call at 2 pm for the Spark Clean energy competition. He and his team had been working really hard and had made it to the final round of the competition and they were being interviewed by judges. By this point, I was five centimeters, and the contractions had picked up quite a bit. The call was only supposed to be 20 minutes long though and I thought I could just wait until it was over the get the epidural. As soon as the conference call started, things started to get really intense. I tried not to make any noise because Jeremy was in the same room. The call ended up lasting about 45 minutes because the judges had a lot of questions. About 10 minutes before the call ended, I couldn't take it any more, I told my nurse to call the anesthesiologist and I figured Jeremy could just let his team finish the call. The anesthesiologist ended up walking in the door right after Jeremy finished (They took second place nationally, so I guess I'm glad I let him do it :)
The anesthesiologist was really fast and did a great job. My blood pressure dropped quite a bit with the epidural, so they had to give me a bunch of ephedrine and I felt really shaky the rest of the time. My midwife came back to check me afterwards and I was 8 centimeters. A couple of hours later, around 6pm, I was fully dilated and ready to push!
I thought pushing the second time would be so easy, maybe I would have to push like twice or something...that was not the case. It was still really hard, and I wasn't moving the baby very well. Logan's heart rate started to have a few small decelerations when I pushed and the midwife suggested the possibility of using a vacuum. I told her I definitely did not want to do this unless it was a last resort, and she suggested turning off the epidural. I wasn't thrilled with this option either, but I really didn't want to use a vacuum. After we turned off the epidural, I was able to push a little bit better. I asked for a mirror so that I could see how I was pushing. After about another 15 minutes of pushing, Logan was crowning. The mirror was still there at this point, and it was really surreal (and if i'm being honest, kind of horrifying) watching Logan be born. Logan finally made his grand entrance at 6:32 pm!
Right after he was born, one of the nurses said, "Look at his back!" I asked, "is it hairy?" because I wasn't thinking super clearly at the moment and I thought for sure that would be the only reason they would be commenting on his back at this point. Turns out they were just commenting on all the fat rolls! He was a chunky little man, weighing in a 9 lbs even, and 20 inches long.
The next morning, Jeremy went to pick up Carter and brought him to the hospital to meet his little brother. We brought little Thomas the train to the hospital, and told Carter that it was a gift from Logan.
Carter was really interested in the train and all of the buttons on the hospital bed, but not very interested in Logan at this point. Our friends, the Millers, took Carter for the rest of the afternoon while we waited to be discharged. I thought the nurses I had in labor and delivery were pretty good, but our postpartum nurse was kind of terrible. I told her early in the morning that I wanted to go home at 24 hours because I really didn't want to be too late picking Carter up. It was really strange, she knew I was a nurse, and she kept asking me what she had left to do (the hepatitis B shot, newborn screen, hearing screen, etc.) but she didn't actually do any of it. As it got later and later, I got more and more annoyed. I wanted to tell her, "just give me the supplies, and I will do it!" I should have. She ended up not doing anything all day and leaving everything for the evening nurse to do. I still haven't gotten over it, can you tell?
Around 9 pm we were finally on our way home. I was so annoyed, I started bawling as soon as we got into the car. After we picked up Carter and were on our way home, we were talking about bringing the "boys" into the apartment. We looked in the back seat and saw the two carseats and it hit both of us at the same time that we were a family of four. It seemed so strange at the time, but I almost can't really even remember now when Logan wasn't part of our family. We love you Logan!
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