And, we're back!

First of all, it is pretty funny to read my last post. After all that fretting, my water broke Sunday morning and I went into the hospital. Gramma came over to hang with M, and R and I took off (no traffic! it was the weekend!). When I got there my water was really coming out, so I was a little teary-eyed looking for the right place to go, embarrassingly holding a towel down below. Plus, I had not felt E move in a while so I was anxious to get on a machine to check his heart rate. This all passed without incident. I was admitted lickety split due to the water breakage, his heart rate was fine, and they wheeled me into a delivery room. I saw the little warmer table and my heart melted. Hooray, E was finally coming out.

I was a little worried about this though: my labor pains were not that painful. So I think I would not have been at the hospital had my water not broken. The short version of my labor is this. I walked around for an hour and I was only to about a 3. They did not want to check me too often, since my water had broken and it can increase the rate of infection. So I laid down and they took my vitals and I had a slight fever. Then my fever went up and I did not feel so well. Instead of walking around I just laid there and slept until my contractions got worse. I got my epidural (not fun, but worth it), and my blood pressure dropped really low. They gave me epinephrine to get it back up again (not sure how I feel about this). I also got Pitocin to get things moving along (I was only a 6). I recovered, but then my fever went up as high as 103.2. I got antibiotics. They figured I had an infection after all. I got checked and was only a 6 again. I got threatened with a C-section by 8:15 that night if I didn't get to a 10 by then. I was not too happy at this point.

But then! I felt like I had to push. And then I REALLY wanted to push. They checked me an I was a 10! It was 7:45. That little E, toying with my emotions. So I pushed, but he was big. I had to get help from the vacuum and he finally popped out at 8:21pm. Whew. He also promptly pooped on the floor on the way over to the table. He yelled a lot louder than M. He weighed in at 8 pounds 3.8 ounces, 20 inches long. I got to hold him, but since he had a fever and a little trouble breathing, they took him to the nursery and watched him. He got shots and came back after a few hours. Our fevers broke, and they said they were mistaken about the infection. I guess the fever was just one of those things. Double whew! I could get that damn IV out of my arm.

There is more to the story after that, mostly involving E being a champ with the special bottle, me crying at the drop of a hat, or me fretting about pumping enough milk/E getting enough per feeding, or the testing of the kidneys*. However, we came home Tuesday night and E and I are rooming together for the next while. We have met with the pediatrician and the craniofacial surgeon. Both say he is eating well and should be fine. Onward and upward.

*E does NOT have horseshoe kidney, but does have one polycystic kidney. His labs are not in the danger zone for kidney function, but are off enough that we may need to consider having the one kidney taken out. We go to a pediatric nephrologist next week to have another blood test to see how it is going. If it functions well enough, then he keeps it. If it functions marginally, then he may have an operation to help it function better. If it functions poorly, then it comes out. We are waiting and seeing on this. Hopefully not another surgery (fingers crossed.)