Once again, I'm home grabbing some stuff while Dodi takes it easy. I figured I'd take some time to write up a more detailed report of our birthing experience. I've also posted a bunch more pictures to go with the story.

Getting the show on the Road - April 17th, 4:45AM to 8AM

We got up at around 4:45 AM, since we had to call ahead to the hospital at 5AM to make sure they had our bed ready. We'd both stayed up until about 11 the prior night, getting all our last minute things together. We got to the hospital around 6 and got everything moved into the room. As you can see, Dodi was jazzed up and ready to go! Little did we know what the next 24 hours would bring (ominous music here). Dodi changed into a robe, the nurse got an IV started (after 3 tries), and hooked up a zillion sensors and leads. . . and then we waited. It wasn't until 8AM, after a shift change, that they started the Potosin drip.

Labor (such as it was) - April 17th, 8AM to April 18th, 3:55 AM
Now, we'd heard plenty of stories about Potosin. Frankly, after hearing all the comments about how much harder labor was with Potosin, and how my sister Dee had gone from 3cm to Baby in 4 hours, we were expecting fireworks. We were very disappointed. Not that we expected to have a baby in 4 hours, but we expected things to move along quicker.  We were sadly mistaken.

We had the contraction-graph and baby heartbeat monitor on Dodi's stomach. Every time she would shift position either or both of the sensors would go out of alignment and we'd have to either get a nurse to reposition them, or try and move them ourselves. Since we pretty much didn't have anything to do but wait, I would sit there and watch the contractions go by. Over the course of the next 20 hours, the contractions went from about 7 minutes apart, 1 minute duration to almost continuous 1 minute contractions.  Of course, every time the monitor would stop working, I was poking at it.  By the end of Labor, I was able to reposition the contraction monitor almost as well as the Nurses.

About every 6 hours or so, the monitor would run out of paper, causing it to ding.  The first time we didn't know what was going on . .  we're looking around, searching for what is making the periodic dinging noise.  We didn't figure it out until the thing spit out it's last paper and started really dinging.  We called the nurse to come fix it.  We had so many machines that would start dinging - at first we didn't want to call anyone, but eventually we'd call right away and say "Something is dinging, please fix it".  We were very close to the nurses station and they always came right away.

I should mention how awesome the nurses have been throughout this whole experience.  I have never once gotten the "well, what do you want me to do about it" type vibe.  Sutter Roseville has a clear commitment to quality care and their staff shows it.  We went through 4 shifts worth of nurses and every one was uniformly helpful, knowledgeable, friendly, and sometimes funny.  They've answered all of Dodi and I's technical questions with ease and always seemed willing to take time to explain.  Totally full of Rock.

The first 8 or so hours were uneventful and completely boring.  Shortly after they induced the broke her water, which I wasn't even in the room for.  Between the two of us, I watched the monitors and read, Dodi shifted positions and read.  It wasn't until 5pm that her contractions started to get a little painful and she decided to get the Epidural.  This was a great decision and she had no pain at all until after we had started to push.  We spent a lot of the day saying "This is what I was worrying about?" (more ominous music).  I've got a great video of Dodi saying, "Man, if it's this easy, I'll have 10 kids."  To the left, Dodi chills in a glide rocker.

Dodi started at 1.5 cm and it took 20 hours for her to become fully dilated at 3:55am.  Every time we would get to a new size, the nurses would say, "oh, it's supposed to go faster then" - it never did.  Even the last 1/2 cm took almost an hour.  Then the fun really began.

(Continues Next Post)