The Labor
While contractions had been happening for several days, dilation was not progressing. The hospital had attempted to bring me in on Jan 20th, but there were delays due to hospital staff needing to be moved to the Covid ward. Finally, first thing the morning of Jan 21st, we were told to make our way to the hospital. I was immediately put on pain medication and medication to get the labor progressing. Most of the day was spent resting and watching HGTV home improvement shows. Still not a lot of progression with the dialation. Some similar problems (to Scarlett’s labor experience) arose with the epidural - I had to have it readministered a second time and had to have an additional bump in pain medication. I was very very lucky to have excellent nurses, in particular nurse Cindy who was a master at trying different labor positions to get things moving and to get my comfort under control. At a bit after 1am, we started to push and ended up pushing for well over 4 hours. It was exhausting but I couldn’t have done it without Daddy and Nurse Cindy finally at after 5:15am, Dr. Gallagher arrived and helped ensure things were progressing. She indicated there was a need to try forceps and prepared to get a pair of forceps ready. She asked if I wanted to try to push hard a few more times. I pushed 4 times and Baby Boy Doran made his entrance into the World. He was crying out and very upset - he also had a bit of a cone head. Dad got to announce “it’s a boy” and also was able to cut the umbilical cord. They laid Dylan on Mommy, for a bit, but we needed to transfer Dylan to Daddy while additional procedures were involved including manual expulsion of my uterus. Dr. Gallagher was truly amazing through the whole process. We were overjoyed to have Baby Dylan join our family. Dylan immediately fed well and slept very well even the first night - and every night since! The next day, we were all well rested and watched football before heading home so that Scarlett and Nana could meet him! It was exciting the next morning to make the phone call to Scarlett and let her know that she had a baby brother!
