Baby Walker's Arrival

The day is finally here. Michelle and I came to the hospital last night for a slow overnight induction for baby #3. We arrived at 6:00 pm and were checked-in and prepped for the induction. Michelle was given some medication overnight and the night was fairly uneventful but not the most restful of nights for either of us. I think we both felt like little kids on Christmas Eve awaiting to unwrap the gifts on Christmas morning. At 6 am today the nurse came in and got Michelle started on IV Pitocin to increase her contractions. About an hour later Michelle's wonderful doctor, Dr. Reardon came by and checked Michelle. To everyone's surprise the baby was actually breach. A quick scan with the ultrasound machine confirmed this disappointing news. Dr. Reardon discussed our options and the doctor and staff proceeded with a version.

A version is where the doctor manually presses very firmly on the abdomen and flips the baby around so they are head down. This is a quite painful process and isn't always successful. But all went well and baby flipped quite easily. So pitocin was resumed and about 20 minutes later Dr. Reardon returned to rupture Michelle's membranes so the labor process would continue, this would also allow the baby to settle into the pelvis and assure that he wouldn't turn breech again. Within a few contractions of breaking her water the baby's heart rate started dropping with each contraction. Normally a baby has a heart rate from 120 to 160, but with each contraction our baby's heart rate would drop as low as 60-70's. This caused a whole team of nurses to come in and start checking on Michelle and the baby. Various maneuvers were implemented to keep the heart rate up, but with each subsequent contraction the heart rate would drop again. By this time Michelle had dilated to 5 cm, but the Pitocin had to be turned off because of the dropping heart rate. Dr. Reardon even tried infusing some saline back in to the uterus to see if this would improve the heart rate. Apparently with each contraction the baby's head or body was pressing on the umbilical cord causing the heart rate to drop. Despite all these interventions the baby really wasn't tolerating the contractions very well, so Dr. Reardon recommended we proceed to a cesarean delivery.

Once decided, the nurses quickly wheeled Michelle to the OR where the anesthesiologist gave her a spinal for anesthesia and the surgery proceeded. I got to go in and be present for the delivery. Dr. Reardon did a fantastic job and the new baby was quickly delivered at 10:12 AM. And to everyone's surprise we had a new baby boy.

So despite all the challenges with getting our little man here all was well in the end and mom and baby were doing great in the end. The new arrival weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and was 18 inches long. He has a small amount of sandy brown hair and blue eyes. Preliminarily he looks like Ashlyn but he likes to make a scowl with his forehead which is something Preston did when he was first born as well.

So now the real challenge of this whole birth will be determining a name. Since we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl prior to today we had prepared with both boy and girl names. We had pretty much decided on one girl name that we liked, but were still narrowing our list for boy names. So for now he is just baby Walker and hopefully over the next day or two we can finalize his name before he develops complex over the whole issue.