Birth of Evan Edge

Oh my little man has arrived...almost 7 weeks ago. It is so much harder to find time to sit on a computer now with 2 little ones. This may be graphic for anyone reading so I warn you now that you may want to stop here if you don't want to read a birth story.

This pregnancy was going so well. I was put on Prilosec from the beginning and that controlled my heart burn very very well. The days I forgot to take it before eating were spent in misery. Then at the 28 week glucose screening my number came back elevated. It meant I had to do the 3 hour glucose test. That was not much fun...makes you nauseated to drink 100 grams of a flat sugary drink. And they draw your blood before you drink the glucose and then every hour after....4 times with a 18 gauge needle. They ought to come up with a different way to draw these. Well...I failed the test. 2 out of 4 numbers were elevated....I had gestational diabetes. My risk factor was I was over 25 years old. I met with a diabetes educator and learned how to estimate and count carbs and learned how many carbs I should have with each meal and snack. As I went along with the pregnancy and counting carbs, I lost weight. I would check my glucose an hour after I ate to make sure I wasn't too high. If I was I would change what I ate. The only thing that made my sugar stay high after an hour was cereal. My doctor had me scheduled for an induction on my due date January 4th 2015. He didn't want to go over the due date due to the gestational diabetes and the risks that come with prolonging pregnancy.

I hoped Baby Edge would show up before the end of the year for the tax deduction but he decided to stay put. I had been struggling with a head cold since Thanksgiving and still had a cough. I was starting to get better until we were exposed again to another illness. I called in sick to work on Friday January 2nd because Emma was worse and so was I. Poor Emma had to spend her 2nd birthday cooped up with a yucky cold. On Saturday I woke up unable to hear out of my right ear. At 9 AM I made 2 appointments to be seen at our urgent care clinic for Emma and me. I swear as soon as I made those appointments, I started to have contractions. We went to the appointments and I definitely contracted every 5 minutes or so through the appointment. I talked the doctor into antibiotics since that was the only thing that helped me in November. We picked up my prescription and had lunch at home. Around noon, we put Emma down for a nap. My contractions were definitely picking up the pace and the intensity. No position felt good to be in with a contraction. Steve was starting to get worried with the frequency. I told him that we would head up to my parents and hospital when Emma woke up. We packed the car with everything we could think of that Emma would need at my parents for a couple nights and everything we would need. Thankfully I had already sent a lot of stuff to my parents the week before. We dropped Emma off around 2:45. I didn't even get out of the car because the contractions were coming every 2-3 minutes. My poor mother got snapped at by me when she tried to talk to me while I was having a contractions. Sorry Mom! We made it to the hospital around 3. When the nurses checked me over in the OB Emergency I was a 6+. I was getting close to where I wouldn't be able to have an epidural. I definitely wanted one. No natural anymore for me! Unfortunately for me my stomach was not happy...I was nauseated and had diarrhea from lunch. The nurses were a bit concerned when I said I had to go to the bathroom. I promised them that I just had to go to the bathroom and I had no feeling of needing to push. They made Steve promise to stand outside the bathroom door just in case. They rolled me over to Labor and Delivery immediately after they did a quick ultrasound to make sure baby was head down. When we rolled in the room, my nurse, charge nurse and anesthesiologist were waiting. It took 3 attempts to get an IV in but once that was in they got the epidural in. The epidural took away the pain but I could still feel the contractions. We were finally settled in at 4.

 The resident broke my water around 4:15. Dr. Sharp came in around 4:30 to check me and I was ready to push. Of course, Steve had just walked out of the unit to go get a drink. When he got back and everyone was in the room waiting, he thought he had missed something. At 4:50 PM we started pushing. It was hard to breath with my head cold and stuffed nose but Evan Edge was born at 4:53 PM. I couldn't believe that it only took 2 contractions and 3 pushes later to have a baby. Much easier than the 1st baby. They laid Edge on my chest and dried him off. He was perfect. I was elated that I was able to hold him right after birth. They took him to do his measurements. He was 20 inches and 7 pounds 4 ounces.

They felt that he was grunting and decided to have him watched in the nursery. Steve went with him while I was finishing the delivery. I only had a small "paper cut" after delivery. Woo hoo. When they brought Edge back, he was sucking his thumb. We put him to the nipple and he latched on very well. He was amazing at latching and sucking. Maybe a little too amazing...bruised my nipples until we figured out the right position. We went home on Monday January 5th. We picked Emma up from parents. Everyone was sick. Whatever we all had picked up was extremely hard to get rid of. It took a good month to finally feel better. Emma was very excited about the baby. She listened to us for about a week when we told her not to touch the baby. After the first week, she stopped listening to us. At least her cold was getting better by then.

We are happy to have a happy healthy baby boy in our family!