Hospital: The big arrival

Wow, how quickly plans change! One minute we are preparing for an all-night, drawn out labor, and the next minute we are trying to mentally get ready for a C-section. Shortly after last night's post, the doctor came in to do another check on Shannon. About 9 hours after her water broke and almost 24 hours of pitocin, Shannon had not progressed far enough along for the doctor's liking. For a few hours prior, she had been on the maximum amount of pitocin that the doctor felt was safe and even though she was getting stronger contractions, she was not ready to go into active labor. The doctor felt that Shannon had given it a great effort but that it was time for a C-section. Even though it was an option that we were hoping we wouldn't have to consider, we knew that it was the best thing to do.

From that point until about 2 in the morning was a blur, and I wasn't the one on meds! First, Shannon was prepped for the delivery operating room and taken there about 30 minutes after we discussed it with the doctor. I had to gown up and wait outside while she went in and got an epidural. About 10 minutes later the docs went in and scrubed in, and they made sure that she couldn't feel anything. I was finally allowed to go in and sit next to Shannon's head behind a curtain so that she couldn't see anything. In what seemed like less than 5 minutes later (to me, but definately not Shannon) at 10:51pm, Grant Patrick Scrivner was born and taken out of her belly. He was then moved over to a baby cart to get some initial measurements. I didn't see them take him out but I did make the mistake of standing up and seeing them take the placenta out. It was quite disturbing, especially when they took the rest of her organs out temporarily and placed them on her stomach.

After cleaning him up and swaddling, the nurses let me hold Grant next to Shannon for a few minutes. Then Grant and I went back to our room while Shannon was stitched up. Before she got back, they gave him a bath and did all of the measurements. He ended up weighing 8 lbs 5 oz, was 20 inches long, and had a head circumference of 37 cm (he's got a big head, around the 90th percentile). After making sure that everyone was alright, we moved over to the post partum room. By the time we got settled in and everybody checked again, it was after 2am. The whole process went by so quickly.

Today Grant has been very laid back. So far we've just tried to catch up on our rest. I've only had about 8 hours of uninterupted sleep for the last 2 nights but Shannon is the one being poked and proded. Here's a couple more pics: