A Son is Born!

Well, so much for having two weeks! The morning of May 9th, James and I decided to go back to Stacks for breakfast. As he was putting our names on the waiting list, I felt something strange. Since my legs/feet were really swollen, I thought I had just suffered from another third trimester possibilty albeit not a pretty one - loss of bladder control - but as it didn't dissipate over time, and actually got worse, we agreed it was time to call the doctor. He directed us to make our way to the hospital.


Luckily, James had already started packing the bag after my fall, so off to Sequoia we went! I was admitted immediately (just after 4pm) as my water had indeed broken at 10am that morning outside of Stacks (mental note: refrain from eating at Stacks in Menlo Park for a while). Baby boy Stafford was on his way just in time for Mother's Day! Or not... It took a while for things to start moving. I was "stuck" at 2cm from 7pm Saturday until 3pm Sunday.

The pitocin drip was started at 11pm Saturday night, and we all thought he'd come some time during the night. The anesthesiologist had to start my IV as my veins weren't cooperating and, since we thought it would only be hours, I agreed to have him start the line for the epidural. This would make it easier and faster to get the epidural when the time came. Well, the time came at 4pm Sunday afternoon when I was 2.9cm dilated. (After three shots of fentanyl which stopped working quickly.)


Everyone hoped the epidural would speed things along. I was 4cm at 6pm. Then 7cm (!) at 9pm. The baby was head down but was posterior (facing up towards my belly rather than my back). The doctor hoped I would progress at the same rate (1 cm/hour) and called for another check at 11pm at which point he would try to turn the baby. 11pm rolled around and voilà! I was finally 10cm dilated and the baby had turned himself. Okay, the hard part's over, right? Now it's time to start pushing. There was a chance he could still be a Mother's Day baby.

Well, it was not easier and it took two additional hours, but with the help of the vacuum, little Peyton August was born at 1:10am on Monday, May 11th! he was a healthy 7 pounds, 1 ounce and 19.25 inches long. He was born with a full head of hair and was alert and beautiful from the beginning!








James was an absolute champ during delivery. He had planned to "focus on my face" throughout the delivery, but when the time came he was right there holding my legs, counting my push lengths, and he cut the cord! He was just amazing. I'm a very lucky woman.






We agreed on the name later that morning. We had already picked his middle name, August, after my maternal grandmother, Agustina. We had decided to "meet" the little guy before picking his first name. We had a list of 8 names (another thing I was supposed to do during those two weeks off - narrow the list down to three or four names), but it didn't take long. Peyton was a long time favorite, and yes, he's named after our favorite quarterback.







He was early but right on time, really, as we can't imagine not having him with us over the past almost four weeks!