Weston Lee Clark

Well, it has been a long time since i've posted...so here's the rundown of what's happened to us the past few weeks:

After going in for my appointment on Monday April 6th, (before the squirt was born) the doc scheduled me to come in Tuesday night to start the induction process. Well, Tuesday morning around 2:30 I woke up having slight contractions. I was able to fall back asleep in between contractions until 4am. At 4, the pain in my back was pretty terrible and the contractions were 10 minutes apart. After about 4 of them...being painful enough to make me think they weren't braxton hicks. I woke chad up and he immediatley woke up and started rubbing my back. Around 4:30, the contractions jumped to 2-3 minutes apart and they were completely in my back. At that point, I decided to get in the shower and let the hot water run down my back. Chad rubbed my back the entire time. Unfortuneatly the hot water only lasted about 15 minutes and then it was gone :(. I wanted to cry.

At that point, i started walking laps around the house and squatting each time I had a contraction.

I called my mom at 6am to see what she thought. At one point, i had to lean over the sink b/c i thought i was going to vomit. My mom started laughing and said, "that my dear, is a contraction". Funny mom.

We decided to wait it out a little bit more and then finally at 8am after taking a walk around the block, we decided to head to the hospital. When we got there, they checked me and i was 90% effaced and still only 2 cm if that, dilated. My doc came in and broke my water around 8:30-commencing the long and tedious birth process. The contractions didn't get too horrible until around noon. I was trying to avoid pain meds unless i needed them, and boy did i need them.

I was having all back labor which was horrible and my contractions weren't even giving me a break. After contractions one on top of the other-literally no break from the pain-I decided to get an epidural. They gave me Nubaine to tide me over until i could get the epidural...well, it did NOTHING aside from make me loopy :) Chad said he would ask me questions and i wouldn't be able to answer them. I would just kind of stare and mumble.

I was finally at 4 cm and we were hoping the epidural would help me to relax and dilate a little faster. So at 2 pm, i finally got my epidural-how amazing it was...while it lasted.

Both sets of grandparents were at the hospital by 4pm on Tuesday. The Clarks arrived around noon and the Snyder's arrived at 4. Everybody hung out in my room as we talked, laughed, and watched TV...until around midnight when the pain was getting bad again.

The parents got kicked out of the room when the pain got more intense. When i finally asked if they could redo or up the epidural, the nurse said it was too late b/c i was 8 cm. What horrible news to hear!

So chad helped me breath through the contractions until it was time to push...and that didn't come until 3am. that was a VERY long time.

The nurse had me start pushing at 3am Wednesday morning-almost 25 hours after my labor started. This was without pain relief! I wanted to try without pain relief...but that was before i was in labor and i wanted something.

When i first started pushing, the squirts heart rate would drop, so the nurse called the dr in...however, when the doc got there, his heart rate was fine.

After 2 hours of pushing, the doc came in and said the we would need some intervention. They figured out that the squirt was coming out sunny-side up...which means he was facing up instead of down...hence the back labor and terrible pain. If he would have been facing the correct way, he probably would have come out a bit easier, but the doc seemed skeptical. So, my doc said that he could either use the forceps, but i would have 4th degree tearing that would be very painful, or we could do a c-section. At this point, my doctor didn't know that I didn't have any pain relief. As I winced and moaned through each contraction he asked me if I was feeling everything, and boy was I, especially when they tried to manually turn the little guy...that did not feel very good at all!

So when the dr figured out that I had no pain relief, he recommended a c-section. They were a bit concerned at this point b/c I had developed a fever-probably b/c of my being in labor and having my water broke for so long. I really didn't want a c-section from the beginning, but at this point, i wanted the pain to end. I had my mom come in to give me her suggestion and she told me that if it was her she would go for the c-section. So that's what happened...we went in for an emergency c-section.

They gave me some drugs to stop the contractions and they gave chad scrubs to change into. All of this happened at around 5:15am Wednesday. They wheeled me out of my room at about 6am. The anesthesiologist (sp?) came into the OR, took out the epidural and gave me a spinal...WONDERFUL!!!!! That was the best pain relief in the world. I couldn't feel a thing from my armpits down.

I was a bit upset that we had to resort to this, but it was the best option at this time. The whole c-section took only 25 minutes. As i was laying there, chad was by my shoulder and i could hear the doctor talking to chad but i wasn't sure what was going on. i was a bit out of it. I heard them talk about our little guy as they were pulling him out and I started crying b/c i couldn't see him and I didn't hear him cry. That was horrible. after a while they brought him to my head as they were stitching me up and they let me kiss his cheek and then they took him away. he still wasn't crying at this point and he was very limp.

i started crying even more and chad was also crying. Chad followed the little guy out to his recovery room and then they rolled me out to my recovery room. Since our little guy wasn't doing very well, i couldn't see him or hold him. Apparently, he wasn't responding very well and his color wasn't very good either. they had to keep putting a tube down into his lungs to suck out all the fluid. He couldn't cry very well and his oxygen levels were very low.

Fortunately, there was a video camera in my recovery room that allowed me to see my little guy as they were working on him. I pretty much was crying the entire time.

The pediatrition came in and told me that if he didn't start improving faster, then they would send him to Toledo...which really made me cry. At this point, the nurses fetched chad so i could have some support. After about 2 hours, my nurse snuck my little guy in so i could see him and hold him for the first time. I got to hold him for about a minute and then she had to take him back to put him back under the oxygen hood.

Luckily, mr weston started improving, so he didn't have to go to Toledo. After 4 or 5 long tedious hours, i was taken back to my room and weston was brought to us. Hence ending the long process of our little guy coming into the world. We got a taste of both worlds-natural birth and c-section. I will never have to go through a natural birth again-which i am ok with. Everybody says you won't remember the pain that you went through having your child...well, i remember every minute of it, but let me tell you, it was completely worth every minute. I would do this all over again for my little man. He is such a blessing from God!

That is Weston Lee Clarks birth story. Our little guy-born April 8th, 2009 at 6:23am; 8 lbs 3 oz; 20.5 inches long. Blue eyes, brown hair, long fingers, skinny toes and long skinny feet just like his daddy.

I love my handsome boy-i love being a mommy. I wouldn't change it for anything!!

Weston Lee Clark

Chad and I crying when they brought Weston to me in the Recovery Room.

That is a thermometer on my forehead in case you were wondering :)