He’s a boy! Miles was born at 2:56 a.m. on Tuesday, September 22. He weighed 7 lb., 1 oz. and was 19.25 inches long. And of course G. and I think he’s just the cutest baby ever.

Miles at 12 hours old
So I was expecting Miles’ birth to take a couple of days, because of what the doctors had told me due to this being my first and me not being dilated. What actually happened was a super fast labor and delivery.
I was admitted to the hospital at 6:00 on Monday night and we waited for the doctor to come by to insert the cervidil. She was in the middle of a delivery, so it was 9:00 by the time she stopped by and the cervidil was inserted. They told me to expect some mild cramping and gave me an Ambien to help me sleep through the night. The doctor on call on Tuesday would then stop by the next morning to remove the cervidil and see how things were going.
“Mild cramping” is a major understatement. The cervidil sent me into full-on labor. Within 20 minutes, my contractions were a minute and a half apart and I was throwing up and having diarrhea. Finally around 11:00 the doctor stopped by and said that she’d been watching my monitor and that she wanted to remove the cervidil to try to slow down the contractions. She checked me and found that I was 2 cm dilated. At this point I was just trying to remember to breathe through the contractions, and it was so hard. Only having that minute and a half made it nearly impossible to get on top of them or to do anything.
Around midnight they decided to give me a half of a dose of Stadol to try to slow down the contractions because they hadn’t slowed at all. The Stadol caused the baby’s heart rate to drop slightly and it also caused me to be super loopy. I guess my eyes were rolling around in my head. And it did slow my contractions to two whole minutes apart. I’m not sure that the Stadol did much for the pain though it did cause me to relax through the contractions more, which is good, I guess. Around 12:30 my water broke and I was checked and told I was 3 cm dilated.
At this point, I have no idea what I did for the next two hours other than try to get through the pain. The Stadol only lasted about an hour and my contractions were getting more and more painful. I wasn’t really watching the clock, I was just trying to get through each contraction, but it was around 2:30 a.m. that I finally decided I needed more pain medication. The nurse went to get the doctor to have me checked to see if I was to 5 cm yet so I could have an intrathecal. I was apparently apologizing to G. a lot about being a wimp because I was still thinking that I had hours and hours left to go and I couldn’t imagine how the contractions could get any more painful.
The doctor came in to check me and said, “You won’t believe this, but you’re at 8 cm. These contractions are the most painful that you’ll have.” She told me I couldn’t have an intrathecal since I was so close, but that I could have another half-dose of Stadol. I was ok with that, thinking I could deal if they didn’t get worse, but as she was leaving the room I had another contraction and told the nurse that I needed to push. The nurse decided to check me and said, “You’re at 10!” and she literally ran from the room to get the doctor.
I remember telling G. at this point that I had to push and I started to, pushing through the contractions even though one of the nurses was telling me to wait for the doctor. She came back into the room with three or four other nurses and told me that it was fine to push through my contractions while they got things set up.
After 10 minutes or less of pushing, Miles was brought into the world. I got to feel his head and they were telling me how they could see his hair. One of the nurses said, “It’s a boy!” I’d forgotten that we didn’t know what we were having, and really at that point I didn’t even care.
Almost immediately after he was born, as my system started to relax, the full effect of the Ambien hit me and I was pretty out of it. I barely remember calling my parents and I kept falling asleep watching Miles being given his bath, though I kept trying to watch. By the time he was placed in the bassinet next to me it was 5:30 in the morning. We were able to sleep about an hour and a half before the nurses were back in, checking vitals and all of that. I think G. and I each only got that hour and a half of sleep the entire day.
We finally chose the name Miles somewhere around early afternoon. I read off the list of names we’d liked and Miles just seemed to fit him the best. He’s such a cutie and I already can’t believe that he’s only been with us for 5 days.






