Hi Junior,
Right now you're asleep in the bassinet in our room, snoozing away until your next feeding at 10pm. You're sleep-inverted, which means our nights are your days--and Daddy doesn't get a whole lot of sleep at night. You are almost an entire week old now.
One day you may wonder about the events leading to your arrival in this world. We waited more than a week past your due date to meet you, and grew increasingly worried that we would have to induce you. Lots of people recommended that I go on long walks, but the problem is that throughout my pregnancy--all the way to week 41--I walked at least 3 miles per day, every day. So additional long walks weren't going to do a whole lot. We tried accupressure, and I tend to think that my hour at the Chinese massage place is probably what provoked your ultimate journey out of the womb.
I started feeling contractions during the early morning hours on Monday, but ignored them in favor of falling back asleep, knowing that I would need as much sleep as possible if they were real contractions. Finally, around 9am, I couldn't ignore the contractions anymore. I started timing them as I hit the gym one last time. It's at the gym that I realized that this was the real deal -- when the contractions hit, I couldn't focus on anything, much less staying on the treadmill. I crawled my way through a pitiful 2-mile workout, and headed back home.
There was not much to do except pass the time (and do lots of Google research as different things were happening), so Mr. Squire and I hit the grocery store and bought ingredients for potato and leek soup so we could try out our new immersion blender. As I hobbled through the grocery store during contractions, it occurred to me that maybe trying a new recipe was kind of an ambitious project for early labor.
But we did it anyway (and the soup was very good). We spent the afternoon distracting ourselves with Friday Night Lights, but come early evening I couldn't focus on much of anything anymore. We went out for a walk by the river, but I ended up keeling over or hanging desperately onto Mr. Squire every 4 or 5 minutes. Undoubtedly, the passersby had questions. But by then I was already in "I don't care" mode.
I continued to labor at home until 1am on Tuesday, at which time we finally headed to the hospital because I just couldn't stand the pain anymore and my contractions were finally 3-4 minutes apart. I closed my eyes when I gingerly clambered into the cab, and did not open my eyes again for another 3 hours.
During those three hours, the cab driver sped us through the Lincoln Tunnel at 50 mph, we made it through triage (although the triage lady totally rammed my birthing ball into me WHILE I was experiencing a contraction, which made me burst into tears for the first time), I found out that I had dilated to 7cm, and decided to get an epidural upon learning that I had another several hours to go. By then, I had labored for at least 19 hours, and I knew that if I didn't get pain management, I wouldn't have anything left to push at the end. The epidural was its own nightmare -- I was shivering madly because of the labor, and I continued to experience 60-90 second contractions every 3 minutes, and they had to do the epidural twice because there were problems with the first administration.
Finally, at 4am, when the epidural kicked in, I opened my eyes for the first time since leaving home. The sudden absence of contractions was such a relief, and I actually cracked a couple jokes with the nurses who were in the room (whose voices I had heard but whose faces I had not yet seen). I was still shivering like crazy, though, so Mr. Squire climbed into bed with me and we slept on and off for a couple hours.
Around 9am, it was finally time to push. This was the part that surprised me the most -- how uneventful the pushing phase is compared to what I've seen on television. Within 40 minutes, you were here. And...life hasn't been the same ever since. We're so delighted with you!
Love,
Mommy
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