Benjamin Jan Peterson

Our second son was born 11/6/13, at 8 lb 3 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. That made him a whole pound heavier than Luke and a little bit shorter. He even came 2 weeks early. We named him Benjamin because we liked it (well, I liked it and convinced Jason to be okay with it) and Jan for my dad. We'll call him Ben for short. Or Benny. Or Benji. Or Ben-Jammin' because that makes him sound like a baller.

I love this picture of him

I think he looks more like me than Luke did, but there are definitely similarities between the 2 babies. For comparison's sake:

Ben

Luke

And if you dislike reading birth stories with medical terms, I recommend you stop reading the rest of this post. Also, be warned that it's long.

At about 11:00 pm on the night of 11/5, we were getting into bed. As soon as I got into bed, I had a contraction. That wasn’t a new thing, because I had been having contractions over the last few months. But our conversation kept being interrupted by contractions. By 11:20, I had had 4 contractions, which was about as often as my OB had said they should be if I was going into labor. So we waited over the next 40 minutes to see if they would go away. By about midnight, I had decided that while they weren’t quite as frequent as they should be, they were getting stronger. We called my sister and asked if we could bring Luke over to sleep at her house while we went to the hospital.

Jason and I got to the hospital at about 12:30. My contractions were every 5-8 minutes, but were pretty strong when they happened. Getting checked in, changed into my hospital gown, etc. took about 30 minutes and then the nurse checked my cervix at 1:00 am. I was a “loose” 4 cm, which she said meant that because I had had a baby before, my cervix wasn’t as tight as it used to be and so it was a bit "floppy." Or something like that. Anyway, she went and consulted with the doctor and I kept contracting regularly. I was really glad we had decided to come to the hospital.

At about 1:15, a different nurse came back and said that the doctor didn’t think my labor was advancing enough to keep me in the hospital, partially because my contractions weren’t close enough together and partly because women can walk around at 4 cm for a week and not be in labor. So they weren’t going to admit me. That was not the answer I wanted to hear. My contractions were like what I had when I was in labor with Luke, in terms of intensity. The nurse then said that I could stay for 2 hours (without being admitted) but that if I hadn’t progressed at all after 2 hours, I would have to go home. The nurse tried to talk me into going home.

At 1:20, I told the nurse that I had decided to stay at the hospital. Jason went to sleep because it was late and one of us needed to sleep. I started carefully timing my contractions at 1:20 so that I could be armed with good data at the end of 2 hours. For the next 30 minutes, my contractions were 5-6 minutes apart. At 1:50, they were suddenly about 4 minutes apart. At 2:05, I got really nauseous and threw up.

From the time I decided to stay in the hospital (again, not as an admitted patient), I was not monitored by the nurses. But since I threw up, I decided to let a nurse know because it stunk and they would need to clean it up. A third nurse showed up. I told her that I had thrown up several times and that my contractions were now 3-4 minutes apart. She told me that my nurse (the very first one who checked me) was on her break, but that she planned to check me when she got off her break in an hour. The third nurse must have seen the look on my face because by this time my contractions were every 3 minutes. The nurse then said she could check me in 15 minutes if I wanted her to. This meant that I had to labor on my own until 2:30 am.

I semi-patiently waited until then, contracting every 2-3 minutes with minute-long contractions. They were painful and I was practically hyper-ventilating during each contraction. I finally made it and paged the nurse. The third nurse and a fourth nurse came in. The fourth nurse checked me and said, “Um, I can’t feel her cervix. She’s complete. Oh wait, I feel a little tiny bit of her cervix. She’s at 9 ½ cm.” About then, they woke Jason up, who I had let sleep because I didn’t think I was that far along. He ran out to get our cameras.

After that, in between my painful, frequent contractions, I alternated between anger and relief. I was irritated that no one had believed I was in labor, and relieved that I hadn’t been suffering so much for nothing. At least my labor had progressed and they weren’t sending me home. But because they waited so long, I was at 10 cm while they were trying to admit me, get an IV into my arm, and get the doctor there in time. Did I mention that I have difficult veins for IVs? Basically, what that means is that by the time I was admitted and had an IV, it was time to push and there was no time for any sort of anesthetic.

The doctor got there, broke the bed and then I started pushing. Luckily, I only pushed for less than 5 minutes. Ben was born at 3:03 am and I did it entirely the natural, old-fashioned way, which I never had any ambitions to do.  I don’t know how women push for 3 hours without any pain medication. Because delivering a baby hurts. A lot.

I was pretty irritated at how my delivery had gone and felt like I could have been better taken care of and/or taken more seriously when I said I was in labor. I did have excellent post-partum care for which I was grateful. I also sent a complaint letter to the hospital, but I doubt anything will come of it.

Jason brought Luke over to see us at about lunchtime. Luke gets nervous in places he doesn’t know and the hospital room might have seemed a bit scary. He reacted very tentatively around Ben and would shy away from him and hug Jason tightly. By the time he left, he at least tentatively reached out to touch Ben. Later that night, Luke touched Ben a few times and every time I would ask “where is the baby?”, Luke would glance over at Ben. He still hasn't really warmed up to Ben, but he is getting more and more comfortable with him.