Lochlan Cloud Fletcher makes his grand entrance

I decided to start our family blog with the story of Lochlan's birth. It seems that life really seemed to have hit fast-forward once he was born, since we went from zero children to two children in less than two weeks. Gavin Alexander came to live with us on the 4th of July, 2009, and Lochlan was born on July 17th, 2009. We were just getting used to life with a toddler (Gavin is 21 months old), when Lochlan Cloud the infant was born. Here is the timultuous story of how Lochlan came to be born.

On Tuesday, July 14th/early Wednesday morning the 15th (midnight), I made three contractions that were about fifteen minutes apart. After that, the rest were coming every four minutes and would last for a minute to two minutes. The contractions stayed like that for forty-eight hours! I never had the pre-labor part where I was able to sleep to keep up strength for active labor, as I was in active labor from the start. We went to the hospital at 6 am on Wednesday and Jan (my midwife) checked me and I was only one cm dilated! We went home and I labored here through Wednesday and all through the night. On Thursday morning, we went back to the hospital and Kirstin (my other midwife) checked me again, and I was finally at four cm! We were admitted and by noon-ish I was at six cm! At 6pm, I was still at six cm. At 9pm, I was still at six cm. At 10pm, I was still at six cm. At this point, I had been in extremely active labor for forty six hours and hadn't slept in seventy two hours. I couldn't even moan or say my name anymore. We finally had to throw in the towel and I got an epidural because I was so exhausted. They started pitocin right after that, and I dilated to ten cm by 1am! The epidural started wearing off, so I started pushing at 1am. I pushed on & off until 8 am (for seven hours!!!), and baby stayed in the exact same spot for the last five hours of it. It was horrible, because they put a mirror up for me and I could see his head/hair, and everytime I pushed, he just sat there and wouldn't move. My mom, sister and aunt all had the same problem I found out afterwards. They have all had C-sections after trying naturally for long periods of time. Our pelvic areas just never expand like they are supposed to. Baby started showing signs of distress and my blood pressure was up, so by 8:30 am, we had to throw in the towel once again and go for an emergency C-section. I bawled my eyes out, because this was the completely opposite "plan" that we had in mind. I was telling Matt the other day that I don't feel cheated, though, as I didn't go straight to a C-section and actually felt baby in my birth canal for seven hours and I'm so glad I know what that feels like at least.

Lochlan Cloud Fletcher was born via C-section by Dr. Scherr at 10:05 am on Friday, July 17th (my midwife, Kirstin, was there for the entire thirty hours I labored at the hospital, then she stayed for the C-section. She was so awesome to have help me through the entire process). He weighed in at 8 lbs, 11 oz, 22 inches long and his head is 14"!!! We were at the hospital until Monday, the 20th, as he had slight jaundice and his biliruben numbers were being watched carefully. He had tons of bruises all over his body, a HUGE red bruise that takes up most of his head and a big blister on the back of his head where he was stuck in the birth canal for so long. Baby lost a pound and a half within four days after his birth, and we couldn't figure out why. He was nursing properly, but we noticed he didn't have any stool diapers for about thirty hours at one point. We went to the lactation consultants at the hospital twice, and they noticed at the first appointment that he wasn't swallowing!!! He sucks and sucks and leaves it at that (uses my nipples as pacifiers, but doesn't actually extract any milk). So basically, he wasn't eating for four days and that was really scary to realize and I was a wreck thinking that I had been starving him to death without knowing it. I have been pumping around the clock now and feeding him with a small bottle every two to three hours and still trying to get him to nurse a few times a day.

Through the entire birth, Matt was my rock star. We had been through weeks and weeks of childbirth classes called The Bradley Method, which is husband-coaching. There is no way that I could've labored naturally for forty eight hours that intense and with no sleep if he wasn't there to coach me through it all and had we not done the Bradley Method. He said he would've thrown in the towel about twenty hours before I did, and he cried a few times because he was so upset at seeing me in pain. Kirstin and the nurse on duty for the first twelve hours I was at the hospital, were really impressed by him as well. I definitely fell more in love with him that week than ever before, especially when he walked over to me with Lochlan in his arms.