Philip (Phill, Phillian)

 Things we forgot:

-Headphones

-Nursing Bra

-Slip-on shoes for me

-Advil for me

-My deodorant

-Enough underwear

-Enough Socks

-Extra pj bottoms

-A nursing top for me

But probably more things we brought but won't need. 

Yesterday Shelly and I had a long conversation about whether or not she should get her covid vaccine before or after Philip was born. She was worried the second one might result in a fever that would interrupt her plan to have natural labor. We decided to do it the next day and did a tarot reading for more insight. The tarot deck basically said, "Choose whatever you want, it won't matter anyway." We didn't get the joke until the next day when Shelly's water broke.

Day 0:

Shelly woke up at 6:30am and thought maybe her water was leaking just a little bit, we weren't sure so we went about our day as normal. She had a couple more small leaks and we drove out for the vaccine. When we got home around 10:30am, I headed back to work and around 12pm she came in to tell me she was pretty sure her water was leaking and the midwife recommended we go to the birthing center.

2pm - Megan arrived at our house to hang out with the kids and we headed to Rogue.

3:30pm - Tests confirmed that the leaking was amniotic fluid or as our doctor put it "Welcome to Rogue"

6pm - Finally managed to get some coffee and dinner, Shelly was hungry and ate her entire burger!

6:45pm - Gentle contractions but no pain

8pm - Started minimal Pitocin (level 1 and 2) - contractions intensified but still no pain

9:45pm - Shelly got in a quick nap (15 min at most) and I got a minute to rest my eyes

10:30pm - Managed to pump a little collostrum for Philip since he's coming early, he might need some right away so it's good to have (and might help stimulate contractions).

12:17am - After two hours of "period cramps," Shelly had her first painful contraction. 

NICU here is filled up, all the birthing rooms are filled and there is no more room for babies to move from the birthing rooms to the Maternal Child rooms where babies and moms go after birth (there’s two babies here that are just waiting their turn for a room). Ashland and Grants Pass are filled too and are diverting to the nearest open hospitals. It’s lucky we came in earlier today I guess.

2AM - We both napped a bit (Shelly even napped through some contractions that made her moan in her sleep). When she got up to go to the bathroom, we saw she’d been bleeding. Our nurse, Trish, tells us that indicates cervix change and is a good sign.

4:30AM - Shelly had some very consistent and intense contractions and then proceeded to sleep for an hour through very consistent contractions she didn’t feel at all. I slept for about 20 mins too and then we both woke up to an intense contraction and another vital checks from the nurse.

9:00AM - Shelly has been alternating sleeping through contractions and getting up to try out different positions. We are at pitocin 5 right now and contractions are consistent every three minutes. As the intensity and pain increases, Shelly has so far managed to adapt and is still able to breath through them (and sleep through them when lying down - very impressive). Our daytime midwife has arrived and we will be doing a cervix exam soon to see where we are in the process. (We are hoping Shelly can at least have a black coffee to stave of caffeine migraines later).

10:30AM - Midwife says Shelly is 50% effaced and 1cm dilated. She said this is a normal amount of progress and we are good to keep progressing with pitocin as we have been. She said we might have a long road ahead of us.

10:55AM - The midwife checking seems to have made the contractions much more painful. We went and labored in the shower for a bit which helped but Shelly has decided she doesn't want to take anymore pain so we've requested an epidural.

12:30 - Epidural finally got set up and kicked in. That was a very long 1.5 hours while we sat and waited. She is feeling 100% better and is resting comfortably and now we up the pitocin and wait for the contractions to get stronger.

2:15 - I had some lunch and Shelly relaxed with a hot coffee. The midwife came in when Shelly pushed the button to up her pitocin (coincidence?) and checked her cervix. She is 80% effaced, 4cm dilated, and at station zero. Everyone is very excited with the progress and saying that Philip is showing he is agreeable to our plan for a VBAC. Pitocin's at 8.

3:45pm - Shelly can't sleep anymore because of intense pressure, the midwives checked and she's 9.5 cm and they are saying she will be ready to push in about 30 min. They are very surprised and delighted that it's moving so fast now. Baby pushing time soon.

4:20pm - the midwife pushed the last lip aside and Shelly started pushing. She pushed for about 20 minutes on hands and knees and then about 10 minutes on her side. 

4:45pm - Now she's switching to the birthing bar with legs up and a sheet to pull.

6:23pm - Finally pushed him out after 2 hours of actual pushing. His head pushed in and out a lot before he actually arrived.

He immediately went skin to skin with Shelly and made faces like he wanted to nurse. He didn't eat though, instead he just snuggled with her boob. He started looking dusty so they put a oxygen monitor on him and his oxygen levels were low so they spend an hour holding a cpap on him with various levels of oxygen hoping he would level out. He didn't and ended up transferring to the NICU. 

He is know in the NICU on antibiotics because Shelly had a progressively increasing fever during the last 2 hours of labor and he had a small fever when he was born. He will be on antibiotics for 24 hours and hopefully that will be all he needs and he'll come off the CPAP in that time too.