The arrival of Gavin Andrew Hunter

Giving birth was much different this time around that it was when I had Easton... Different doctor, different hospital, and different birth plan...

We were scheduled to be induced on Saturday March 9th. We got the call around 11 am to come in and after an hour of registration we were finally settled into our room at noon. I was 3cm dilated and 75% effaced upon arrival. To get things started I was given a pill that was suppose to help my contractions start coming regularly. Consistent contractions I guess are a problem for my body. With Easton I has inconsistent contractions even while I was pushing. This time, at first, I was getting them every 5 minutes, but by the end of the 4 hours when the pill started wearing off I was getting them every 10-15 minutes again. During this time we walked the halls, bounced on a ball, watched Spider-Man on the TV, and regretted not bringing any cards to play a game or something. I should have known better too because when my friend Katie had Zoey we got bored while waiting. Abby was at our house the night before and also mentioned bringing a game, but I guess its not exactly the first thing on your mind when you're about to have a baby. 

A few hours later nurse checked me around 4pm and said I was barely 4cm, but pretty much all the way effaced now. She said she was going to call Dr Sawyer to get him to come break my water instead of starting me on another pill because the babies head was really really low. She also started me on some Pitocin. I was nervous about being started on Pitocin without having the epidural, but she said she was giving me a really small amount. 

After waiting and waiting and waiting for Dr Sawyer (who was stuck in a surgery), he finally came and broke my water at about 530 or 6pm. I should have asked for the epidural a lot sooner since the very next contraction after they broke my water was intense! Luckily, they came about 5 minutes later to get me ready for the epidural, which couldn't have come soon enough. This part always makes me super nervous for some reason and I even started crying. Something about a giant needle in your back I guess can do that to ya. Well, after getting the epidural I was unfortunately not getting the relief I was hoping for. It was only working on one side and I could feel the pain of every contraction very intensely on my right side. It made me very uncomfortable to think they might have to re-do my epidural if it was only going to be one sided. I think it took thirty minutes (could have been less, but it felt like forever!!) for my epidural to finally start working on my right side. These pictures were before the epidural started working properly if you can't tell...

Everyone's weight guesses...

Not long after my epidural started working I started to feel the "urge" to push. This was about 7 o'clock and seven o'clock also happened to be the time they do shift change. The same thing happened with Easton where I was ready to start pushing and I had to get a new nurse for delivery. I was a little disappointed because the nurse I had was amazing!! But next thing I know we are fixing the bed, turning on the big lights, and getting ready to have a baby. 

I felt like I didn't really know what to do this time as far as pushing, almost like I forgot how to. I didn't really push at all with Easton because I was given an episiotomy. So I really had to work this time for him to come out. Finally at 7:27 pm, beautiful 7lb 15oz Gavin Andrew Hunter was born. He was perfect of course! (Thank you Marissa for taking pictures for me!! I've had the opportunity to take pictures for a few of my friends during their deliveries and I really wanted someone to do the same for me)

Gavin was a lot bigger than I expected. He's been a pretty good baby and only occasionally keeps mommy up all night. Easton loves his little brother now, but you tell from his face he was less than enthused when he first met him...

He was more interested in mommy's hospital bed :)

A few things about my postpartum with Gavin... 

-Nursing Gavin at the hospital was very difficult. From the beginning Gavin was an eater. After the first 24 hours he became very impatient with the colostrum and didn't want to nurse. So we supplemented him with formula til my milk came in. Then when my milk came in he started to nurse better. I started to use a nipple guard because it is like a bottle top, which at that point Gavin preferred over me. This has worked very well since, especially while we were on our car ride to Atlanta because I could give Gavin a bottle if I needed to, something Easton never did so this has been a welcomed change. 

-The next big thing about my postpartum was I was getting these really bad headaches on and off. Anytime I laid down it went away, but when I sat up it would come back. I was getting them in the hospital, but the morning we were to be discharged they went away. This ruled out a spinal headache because they told me spinal headaches don't give you relief at any point. But when we got home they came back and started to even get worse. My medication wasn't giving me any relief, which seemed strange since that's what medication is suppose to be for. We finally figured out that the pain killers (oxycodone) was the culprit behind the headaches. I started to realize along with the headaches I had no appetite, which I figured out could only be the medicine. So once I stopped taking it I was 100% better. Unfortunately it took us almost the whole week to figure it out. Yuck!