Graham William Carney

Labor with Graham started our very different than expected. The main reason was that I had to be induced this time around at 40 weeks 3 days. I was called around 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon and asked to come in at 7:30 pm to start on cervadil, a drug which would soften the cervix and make sure I was ready for pitocin to do its magic the next morning.

The first hiccup was that the doctor on call did not think the cervadil was necessary even though the delivering doctor for the next day had ordered it. He said that because I was already 1-2 cm dilated and was having contractions every 5 minutes. I did not realize this because they were not painful at all. So we spent the night in the hospital "just for fun." Brent slept a descent amount on the pull out couch with his sleeping bag and I did not sleep hardly at all on the rock solid bed.

At 6:30 the next morning our first nurse of the day, Mary, walked in. She started the pitocin and stayed with us, talking about everything under the sun, for about 2 hours. I had not had any changes over night, though the contractions were a little closer together. Though we had high hopes for a baby by the time she left at 11:30, this did not happen. When she left I was still 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced. Not much progress for 5 hours of medicine.

Our next nurse, Sarah, came around 11:30. We had a great time with her and by the time Graham entered the world, she and I were talking about how we needed to be BFFs. She took such good care of us all day long! She talked me through the contractions as they continued becoming more intense, informed Dr. Moore when it was time to break my water, and held me tightly while getting the epidural. Around noon, at 3 cm dilated, was when Dr. Moore broke my water. Right afterward I was given the epidural. About 1:00 I was 5 cm dilated. We were finally getting somewhere! At this point Dr. Moore was guessing a 4:00 delivery and Sarah was saying 5:08. I just wanted the baby to be here and was getting pretty impatient! That's when we started playing "Rollie Pollie", Sarah's game where you lay on one side for a half hour or so, the other side for half hour or so, then sat up straight.

It worked! At 3:30 I was finally fully dilated. However, Graham had not moved down into the birth canal enough yet so I had to wait. Then I started feeling pressure, so 4:15ish we started pushing. About 45 minutes into the process the epidural had worn off on the outside of my body almost completely, though I was not feeling contractions. This meant that I was feeling the pressure completely as we pushed. At 5:10, we realized that I was in too much pain, though Graham was crowning. Dr. Moore came in with a suction, I managed to push a few more times, and our sweet baby boy was here at 5:16 pm.

Graham William Carney weighed 9 pounds 11 ounces and was 21.5 inches long. Though it was quite unexpected, he's even bigger than his brother was at birth. He's healthy, has a good set of lungs, and loves to eat already. We are in love!

About 2 hours after he was born, Oliver got to meet his baby brother for the first time. He was incredibly excited! Hopefully we will leave the hospital after dinner time tonight. That will be when we begin our life as a family of 4!