Easiest Labor Ever ... or so it seemed

Here is the birth story of our new little boy: Seth Tetsuhiro Funai.
Brief details: He was born June 24, 2009 at 6:25 pm (37 weeks, 3 days) and weighed 6 lbs 3.8 oz (2830 grams) and was 19 inches long. He has a lighter complexion than Andrew with lots of brown hair and gray eyes.

Birth details follow below.

Andrew was kind of sick Tuesday evening and he just kept waking up, so at 10:00, all of us went to bed together and we all slept until 8:00 am (actually Katsu woke up a little earlier). I am so glad we all had a good night's sleep. We needed to go to the Farmer's Market so we hurried and got ready. This is probably too much TMI but I was a little leaky and thought "Hmm, maybe my water broke," but I figured probably not since I was only 37 weeks and decided I would wait and see. We got our CSA share, dropped Katsu off at work and came home. After a couple of hours I decided that I must have broken my water since I was still leaking. Katsu came home at like 10:30 and we got stuff ready, took Andrew to a sitter, and left for the hospital.

We got to the hospital around noon. After an exam they determined that yes, indeed, my water had broken. I was relieved that I wasn't just imagining it, but of course, still definitely not in labor. They moved us to a regular room and we told them that we might as well start Pitocin because at this point it had been several hours after my water had broken and nothing was happening. I also said that since I was going on Pitocin, I would want an epidural, but I would wait until contractions were well established and pretty painful. They started Pitocin at 2:30 (it took a while) after taking 4 attempts to get an IV in (I still have a nasty bruise on one hand from that). Nothing happened for awhile (just weak contractions) and so they upped it to a "1" at 4:00 and I walked the halls and started getting feelable contractions. They upped the Pitocin again to a "2" at around 4:30 and to a "3" at about 5:00.

By 5:00, it started to get a bit more painful (to the point I needed to breathe through contractions) and we went back to the room. I spent some time in the rocking chair, and some on the birth ball. I decided to switch positions and by this point the contractions really started to hurt. I kind of felt like a wimp since I had had only contractions for a little while, but when the resident suggested it looked like I might want an epidural, I said yes. Let's do it. So, at this point they gave me my one and only exam and Lo and behold at 5:45 or so I was 6 cm dilated and 90% effaced (no wonder it hurt).

From this point, I was in transition and the contractions REALLY hurt. But since the epidural was on the way (right?), I vocalized my way through them (i.e. moaning) and the pain was bearable. But as the nurse was directing me through the contractions she sent for a delivery team and said I was completely dilated. This was maybe like a little after 6 pm. I was like, "What?" and was still kind of waiting on that epidural because after 4 hours of pushing with Andrew I was kind of scared of pushing.

But the delivery team showed up and after about 10 minutes of pushing (about 4 pushes), little Seth came into the world. So a total of about 1 hour of active labor was all it took!!! I think I spent the next half hour saying "Are you sure it's done" and "That was so easy". It hurt, yes, but it was SO fast. I still couldn't believe I was at the hospital at all, much less already had the baby. I guess the placenta flew out immediately. Everything was little shocked at that - they had never seen that, and unfortunately they couldn't get any cord blood because of that for the study I was in. They weren't sure if Katsu would be able to cut the cord, but he was able to.

The labor started with my water breaking, no labor, and Pitocin and ended with a nasty third degree tear, just like with Andrew. But the whole middle was completely different. I am so much happier. I am hoping that my recovery will be a little easier, too.

Seth has been a very sleepy baby and for the first 24 hours really didn't have much of a rooting reflex and wouldn't open his mouth wide open or latch on or suck. He wouldn't even really suck on a finger. My attempts at breastfeeding were pretty much rebuffed so after a while, we ended up with a routine of trying to feed him, pump, and then spoon feed him colostrum each feeding. I had no idea, but I guess babies born right at term often have a hard time breastfeeding. So, everyone though it was best if we both spent an extra day at the hospital. Thankfully, things went much better last night. Seth is still really sleepy, but he is latching on and feeding. Hopefully things will get better from here on out.