Easy Ezzie: The Birth Story

Don't hate me because I have easy labor/deliveries.

Friday 2/17/12- 37 weeks/6 days
I was down to working 2 days/week and had worked the day before. I had my 38 week appointment that afternoon. The previous week I was 3cm dilated. Dr. Tan told me I was 5.5cm dilated and he could palpate mild contractions. I had no idea what he was talking about; as I didn't feel anything. He tried to have me press on my abdomen when a contraction came so I could see what it felt like. I lied and said, "Oh yeah, I can feel that". He then stripped my membranes which caused me to almost pass out. Thank God little Maddy sat on a chair about a foot away from me happily typing away on her V-Tech Innotab tablet; she usually panics when I get my temperature taken.

After my episode faded away, I was feeling a little better and not so freaked out and worried I would go into labor right there. He teetered back and forth but ultimately decided to let me go home; with his private pager number written down with the instructions: "As soon as YOU feel a contraction, or your water breaks, just go straight to the hospital and page me on your way there."

That evening we had pizza with our neighbor friends Chris and Jodi. We then split off (as usual) with the boys going to their house to play video games and the girls staying at our place. As we chatted I felt what I thought were contractions. They came in waves like contractions, but were only mildly uncomfortable. If I wasn't 38 weeks pregnant, I probably would have ignored them. But given the circumstances; we timed them and they were about 7 minutes apart. Hmm.

It was 10:30pm. I contemplated going to the hospital, but Jodi encouraged me to go to bed and sleep. I am SO glad I did...

Saturday 2/18/12- 38 weeks

5:37am- Ouch. Okay THAT was a contraction, and it woke me up. (sound familiar? ;) I nudged Ross and said, "time to get ready, here he comes".

5:42am- Another contraction, and dammit its really starting to hurt. Let's go.  "I think we should go now; call your mom and I'll call Jodi (Ross's parents live 20 min away, so we worked out a plan to have Jodi come to our house immediately so we could go straight to the hospital, and stayed there with Maddy until Ross's mom got there).


6:00am- Longer, stronger, closer together. As soon as Jodi gets there we hop in the car. I page Dr. Tan; he calls within 3 minutes. He is seriously the best doctor ever.


6:15am- @ the hospital. "Dr. Tan called us and we're ready for you." They offered me a wheelchair, but I declined because I remembered it was harder to sit still while contracting. She offered to escort us to the maternity ward, but we said we knew where it was. WELL, we forgot, so we wandered the halls a little bit. Silly, silly Lumsdens. 


6:30am- Did I mention my water still hadn't broken? Well it didn't. The nurses told me that Dr. Tan gave them strict instructions "not to touch me; just get my IV started and then he would come in and check me". I could tell the gal was nervous, and she blew my gigantic hand vein on her first try. Even with the contractions, I tried to boost her morale and confidence, because starting IV's is about 50 % skill and 50% confidence. She missed the other hand. I showed her my beautiful forearm vein, and she told me it had "too many valves", and proceeded to explain what valves were to me. As an IV nurse; I had to bite my tounge REALLY really hard. Dr. Tan poked his head in a couple times; looking a bit annoyed. I allowed them to poke me again which was another fail. Then I got impatient and started giving them tips (in between contractions) and pointed out good veins. Even in the transition stage of labor, I proved to be my usual neurotic awkward self by fearing that the nurses would think I was a drug addict because I was pointing out all my "good veins" and what kind of person does drugs when she's pregnant? So I finally told her I was an IV nurse. This was probably a good thing, because then they got all squiggly and grabbed their supervisor to start the darn thing. She was successful.

7:00am-7:15am- Dr Tan checks me and I'm 9-9.5 cm but my water still hadn't broken. He wants to give me a bit more time. Pain meds are offered but refused. I took a shot of Fentanyl when delivering Maddy and I don't think it helped at all, so why bother? The nurse told me that if I felt the urge to push or bear down, then I need to tell her because then she would get Dr. Tan and I could start pushing. I lied and told her I felt it, because I just wanted my baby to be born and the painful contractions to be over with

7:30am- Dr. Tan offers to break my water, and I'm whining because I want anything that will help me deliver the baby faster. He breaks it and I feel the warm gush which was SO weird. Not like peeing your pants; like a warm waterfall (sorry). My water broke in small spurts with Maddy, so I had never felt that before. Then I got to start pushing.

7:54am- Ezra James is born and immediately placed on my chest. My first thought was how adorable and perfect he was; but how crazy that he didn't look a thing like my Maddy did when she first came out. They offered both Ross and I to cut the cord and we both declined. We're not all symbolic like that; we just wanted to marvel at our new baby boy (who's name was actually not decided at the time).

Delivering the placenta was a tad more uncomfortable than I had remembered, but not too bad. The after pains when nursing were worse this time around, but the ibuprofen helped a lot. Ezra took to nursing immediately with a great latch. If you are a faithful reader of my blog, you will remember my documentation of what a horrible time we had getting Maddy to latch. He was pretty textbook and wanted to eat about every 2-2.5 hours.

I don't think I lost very much blood, because 2 hours after delivering him I got out of bed, showered, put on makeup (visitors were coming) and even curled my hair a bit. I was SO excited when Maddy arrived and cautiously and bashfully climbed into bed with me and met her new baby brother. I had missed her. As I cradled my new baby boy with one arm and cuddled Maddy with the other, I felt like my family was complete. It was such an amazing feeling.

Ross and I decided that he would go home with Maddy and stay overnight with her so she wouldn't have to go through too many changes all at once (I was so troubled about how she would handle the new baby and all the changes). It got a bit lonely spending the night in the hospital without Ross, but I enjoyed getting to bond with my baby boy. He stayed in the room with me all night; except for the 30 minutes when they did his hearing test.

The next morning he had his pediatrician exam before his circumcision. Ezra had a strong latch and nursed for at least 30-45 min at a time, so I asked if it was okay to give him a pacifier. I could already tell he was a comfort sucker/nurser and I would have to end the nursing sessions myself because he just wouldn't stop. My nurse and the doctor were both supportive of it, so we went ahead with it.  When it was time for the circ, they asked if Ross and I wanted to go with him but we both declined. Having our boy leave the room to have "surgery" was surprisingly difficult. Ross couldn't stand it, so he left to go be with him.


I will NEVER forget the feeling I had when they brought my baby boy back in the room. They had been gone for a half an hour and I was starting to worry a bit. I remember it was about that time that they wheeled my sweet boy back in the room in his little clear bassinet. I had envisioned a baby who had just been circumcised would be screaming and wailing, but my little guy laid their happily sucking on his pacifier like nothing had happened. He just looked so sweet and completely took my heart. We went home 2 hours later. 


We picked the name Ezra after reading Maddy one of her favorite books by Ezra Jack Keats; "Snowy Day". It was such a special book at that time, as it always made her so happy when we read it. The rest is history.  We call him Easy Ezzie because he is such a sweet, happy, gentle baby. 


At 4 months old now, Ezra wears 9-12 month clothing and is still as sweet as can be. He and Maddy get along just great and she loves entertaining and holding him. I'm not saying that its easy managing 2 little kids, but at this point they bring me so much joy that I don't even care about the challenges.