BirthDay

Today is Kaleb's Birthday, and in honour I though I'd write briefly about his birth and the weeks leading up to it.

My original due date was January 31, but for some reason I knew right from the beginning that I wasn't going to make that far. Sure enough in November my blood pressure began climbing.

High blood pressure (and other things like protein in urine) is not good when pregnant. It's a sign of pre-eclampsia, which left untreated, leads to eclampsia which is really really not good. I'm not a doctor, so I won't go into details but that is the gist of it.

By December, I had full out pre-eclampsia and was being watched closely. I was prescribed blood pressure medicine, followed by being hospitalized the first week of January in an attempt to get my pressure, proteins and swelling down.

In 3 days, I lost something like 7 pounds in water and both the proteins and my blood pressure went down, so I was allowed to go home and told to take it easy. Three days later at my regular OB appointment, we made the decision to induce. Everything was back up again and the BioPhysical profile (special ultrasound) showed that baby was ready. My doctor stripped the membranes and told me to come by in the morning to get Cervadil. That didn't happen, another girl (whom I'm now friends with!) went into labour, meaning the only labour room was occupied.

We would just wait until Wednesday and go in for our scheduled induction. Wednesday finally came and we were up nice and early to be at the hospital for 7:30. I was asked what felt like a bazillion questions, hooked up to the fancy machine that watched contractions, baby's heart beat and my blood pressure (they took my bp every 10 minutes). I was told that what I thought was baby's butt pushing up was actually contractions and they were five minutes apart! Who knew! They got my IV going and started pumping me with Pitocin at 8:30. Everything was fine until they decided to break my water. OUCH. My contractions really picked up then and I gave in and got an epidural. It was highly recommended that I get it, since with every contraction, my bp would shoot through the roof. 


Once the epi took, I was able to relax again, joke with my nurse and watch some TV. My bp went down slightly too. By 4:00 pm, I was 10 cm dilated and we waited until I got the urge to push, which was just over an hour later. Twenty minutes later, at 6:08 p.m. my baby BOY was born! Any mother can tell you this, but there is nothing to compare the feelings you have when they place YOUR baby on your chest. It is so surreal. 

Jason cut the cord and got to hold him, and while I got stitched up, he followed him to the nursery where they weighed him, gave him a shot and checked him out once again. He weighed in at only 6lb 1oz and was 18.5 inches long. He was teeny tiny! Once we were all back in our room, we finally decided on a name: Kaleb. 

One year later, he is somewhere around 23lbs and fiercely independent. And almost everyday I look at him and am amazed. 

Happy Birthday to my Sweet Boy!