Labor Day

In honor of Labor Day (in the United States)...

How long were your labors?

Kid #1, 7 hours

Kid #2, 0 Hours  :-)

Where did you deliver?

At Memorial City Hospital in Houston.

Drugs?

Yes, many and all kinds.  After Levi was born and they had taken him away to the nursery, I started to have such incredible pain in my chest that I could hardly breathe.  The anesthesiologist said it was referral pain from the stitching up they were doing, so he pumped some pain meds into me.  Those pain meds made me incredibly sick a few hours later, and when they handed me my child for the very first time, I had to hand him right back and use the "catch tray."  It was a lovely and appropriate end to my pregnancy with Levi (in which I lost 25 pounds from consistently losing my breakfast, lunch and dinner).

C-section?

Yes for both.  Caleb was delivered by emergency c-section after 7 hours of labor.  Levi got a scheduled c-section one day after his brother's 2nd birthday!

Who delivered?

         My fabulous OB in Houston delivered both of the boys.  When it became apparent that Caleb was going into stress, she calmly sat by my bed and said she regretted that she was going to have to do a c-section, then promptly walked out the door and started yelling at all the nurses to cancel all elective c-sections and get her patient into the operating room!

When I got pregnant with Levi and my due date was one day later than I was due with Caleb (September 25 and 26), she asked me if we had planned that.  Actually everyone asks us that, and I always wonder how people thought we would be able to pull that off.

Things I'll Never Forget

Caleb was born almost a month after Hurricane Katrina had ravaged Louisiana and two days before the entire city of Houston was evacuating the city for Hurricane Rita.  My hospital stay was incredibly stressful with my mom and Justin driving around the city trying to find bottled water and batteries.  I came home with my newborn baby to a house where the windows were taped up, everything had been taken off the walls, and all his little baby clothes had been put into plastic bags and stored in the hallway.  Thankfully all we got from that hurricane was a good rain.  Other people to the east of Houston did not have the same outcome.  

How about you? What are your numbers?  [Did you adopt? (how long did you wait?) Not a mom yet (how long were your mom's numbers)?]