Saturday, February 9, 2002 (Birthday!)
Apparently a good night's sleep in the hospital was just the ticket. If we'd known that, we'd have put her in there LAST Saturday!7:00A: Got a call that she's at 6cm so we're making the 13 minute dash to the hospital. Looks like Baby Byrne will be here today! Watch this space!
7:30A: Arrived at the hospital to find Kristyn walking the halls (towing her IV pole). She'd gotten about 3 hours of sleep and was pretty pooped.
But labor was progressing nicely (6cm and managing the pain) as she did laps of the maternity floor.
Walking, as we all know, can be tiring. The nurses asked if she'd like some juice; she asked, instead, for a martini. Everyone laughed (she such a funny girl). Then they brought her this:
..I know what you're thinking...but it's apple juice (with an olive)!
9:27AM: She's progressed to 7cm and is still managing the pain...but things are about to get ugly.
10:07AM: Another half-centimeter and it's epidural time.
The midwife called for an anesthesiologist; in a small town, they don't have those guys just hangin' around the hospital on Saturday mornings. But he came in about an hour and the she started to feel a little happier:
Left to right, that's Jennifer, Stacy, Nancy (the midwife), Kristyn (duh!) and Matt.
12:00PM: For the next six hours, things were good, OK, and deteriorated rapidly. She began pushing at 3PM and made virtually no progress. The epidural wore off (they do that) at about 4:15.
They called the anestheseologist back in to refresh the epidural -- he was in surgery. Another hour of REAL pain before he was able to top off her IV.
After nearly three hours of constant pushing (pains a minute apart), the decision was made to call in the on-call OB. Her diagnosis said, "Prep the OR; we're doing a C-Section!"
And that's what happened. They took her into the OR at 5:45PM; Spencer (that is, "Charlie"..) was born at 6:04PM. Kristyn had a full day of constant pain that could have been avoided if the decision to do the C-Section had been made at 1PM (when Gael said it should have been done)!
Here are series of pictures of the youngest Byrne on Planet Earth:
Charlie's first non-family visitor is "Auntie" Kate..
When the little mother returned from post-op we showed her the video (yes, of course there's video) of little Charlie...
Spencer's room is ready; note the soccer ball (there'll be a quiz later..)
Well, friends, we're ALL pooped; more pix tomorrow!