Levi, you sure kept us waiting on you! At 41 weeks, you still were not making any movement to meet us.
Your older brother Elijah was a very big baby and the doctors were worried that there may be complications with natural birth if we waited too long to meet you. We were so excited to meet you and did not want any complications so we opted to have an induction
On Friday May 12th, 2017 we headed to Swedish Ballard. We were a bit surprised that we were able to get in for an induction without waiting - since we had to wait an extra day when your big brother Elijah was born. In our usual fashion we walked in to the birth center with our coffee and bags in hand. I was nervous because the induction process had been long and arduous with Elijah.
The process got off to a rocky start. The Labor and Delivery nurses struggled to find a vein to put an IV in for Pitocin and Penicillin. After several painful tries, they eventually paged an IV Therapist - someone who specializes in IV's. Finally at 11:20am they were ready to start Pitocin and Penicillin. The next couple hours were spent waiting to see how the Pitocin would work, watching videos of Elijah and wondering about who this new little person was growing inside of me.
Papa asked one last time, what I thought - boy or girl. My guess was for a girl, only because I really wanted a little boy, but I thought I should be prepared in case it was a girl.
At around 1:30pm the Pitocin levels were increased because we not getting any traction on the contractions. At around 3:30pm, we began doing laps around the nurses station to help contractions increase. At 5:00pm we returned to our room to rest and increase the Pitocin.
Dr. Pollack came by to check my progress and I decided to have him break my bags of water since that worked well for jump starting the contractions with Elijah. At around 6:30pm, we started resuming our walk around the nurses station. Contractions became noticeably stronger and I was needing to stop and breathe through the contractions. After an hour of walking, we decided to move to the birthing tub to help manage the increasing intensity.
At around 8:00pm the contractions were even more intense. For a while I had a good rhythm for coping, but in a short amount of time the intensity ramped up and I was finding it incredibly difficult to find a comfortable position in the tub as well as it was difficult to get through each contraction.
At 9:00pm I adamantly declared that I wanted an epidural. My nurse asked if it would make a difference with regards to how dilated I was. I told her yes. She had a difficult time getting a good check and declared me only at 7.5cm dilated. Yep, I wanted that epidural. The next half an hour was tough. I was back in the room, shaking uncontrollably from being cold after the tub and feeling like I could not warm up while at the same time trying to cope with the contractions. At 9:35pm the anesthesiologist arrived and administered the epidural. Immediately I began to feel better.
My nurse encouraged me to rest and try to get some sleep if I could. So I relaxed on the bed and chatted with Paul and our Doula - Ciara. A couple hours later, I began to feel what I thought at first were contractions. I realized soon that it was pressure near my cervix. Paul went and got the nurse who did a check and said that I was fully dilated. She suggested that I start some practice pushes. I didn't think much of this because I had spent hours pushing with your brother Elijah. But within 15 minutes, Dr. Pollack was in the room and there was a team assembled ready to help welcome you into the world. I began pushing at midnight and at 12:14am you were born at 8 pounds and 14 ounces and 21 inches long.
Dr. Pollack immediately placed you on my chest. Your eyes were open and you were looking up at me, and then suddenly very upset that you were no longer in your cozy spot. You cried out! I waited to hear your gender and someone finally said - Boy! I was so delighted to finally meet you Levi Daniel! Your proud papa cut your umbilical cord and had his chance to hold you. Our perfect little guy!
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