Ryan & Christine Walker: Little Dunc

Sorry it's taken so long for me to get some pictures posted. I've been a little busy. There are a lot of words in this post but the following is my birth story.

Ryan and I welcomed our little boy, Duncan Ryan Walker, into the world on Saturday June 11, 2011 at 3:42 in the afternoon.

The day started with me checking into to Deaconess Labor and Delivery at 7am on Saturday morning. I was all hooked up to the pitocin drip by 8am. They only had me at 3mu or something. I'm not sure what the measurement was in but apparently it goes from like 0-20 and I was only on a 3. I started feeling the contractions right away but they weren't very bad. It really was like bad menstrual cramps. At 9:15 my doc came in and broke my water. At this point I was measuring 3-4cm. By the way, I was 3 when I checked in. The doc said that I could have an epidural whenever I felt like it at this point because I was far enough along. I decided to wait just a little since the contractions were not that bad yet. I lasted about an hour before I was telling my nurse that, yes, I would like my epidural as soon as possible. So, around 11am, Tom, the most amazing guy at the hospital, came in and started the process of putting in my epidural. By 11:30 I had my epidural in and almost instantly I couldn't feel the contractions on my left side at all. I was still feeling them on the right side but they were slowly fading. I just had to lay on my right side for about 20 minutes and then it was magic. I couldn't feel anything. I was able to sleep and rest. I had set an silly goal of wanting to have the baby by noon. My nurse kind of laughed at me and said that it's probably going to take a little longer than that. I knew that it would by a girl can dream, right? So, for about and hour and a half I was able to just watch my contractions on the monitor and not feel a thing. Around 1 in the afternoon Ryan and his dad went down to the cafeteria to grab some food and at that point I had asked for my nurse to see how far along I was. I was feeling a little bit of pressure in my bottom so I wonder if I had progressed very much yet. So, the nurse came in and checked me and she looked very surprised when she looks at me and says, "Your ready to push!" I couldn't believe it. Ryan's mom then calls him on his phone and says, you better get back up here she's ready to push! My doctor wasn't on call that day so he wasn't at the hospital. He's actually a friend of my families so he had been talking to my mom earlier and had told her that he was going to go to Costco and run some errands that then he'd be back later this afternoon. So, we told the nurse that the doc was at Costco and someone should call him soon then. So she went and called him and in the meantime some more nurses came in and started getting everything set up for the baby; the little heat lamp table where they clean him and weigh him and all the blankets and tools and everything. At this point I was almost in tears. I was so emotional just thinking that I was about to actually have a baby! It still seemed unbelievable. So, the doc finally got there and they got me all ready to start pushing! I started pushing around 2 in the afternoon. I made my parents and Ryan's parents wait outside so it was just Ryan and I in the delivery room. My mom was so cute though, she stood right next to the door the whole time. The doc was great too. He would go out and give them all updates every 20 or so minutes. My dad and Ryan's mom couldn't really handle listening to me push so they were way down the hall with their heads between their knees, trying not to get light headed!

I had great nurses but it was funny because on multiple contractions I had to tell them that I was having a contraction and should probably push. I think they were distracted sometimes and wouldn't notice that I had started a contraction on the monitor. They contractions weren't painful, I could just feel pressure and knew that I should push. I pushed for quite some time and finally the doc said the baby was sunny side up. At one point he tried to turn the baby so that he was facing the right way. That by far was the most painful part of having a baby. That was also the time when I believe I tore a little from the doc trying to turn him. The baby also decided that he didn't like being turned so he flipped right back. I continued to push for another hour and forty two minutes. Then, he just came right out! I couldn't believe I'd just had a baby! I guess I just kept repeating over and over, "oh my baby, my baby." I don't really remember that part. Once he was out the doc plopped him down next to my leg and Ryan cut the cord. They wiped him off a little then put him right up on my chest! He was so adorable even though he had an awful cone head! He checked in at 6lbs 13oz and 20.5in long. At his first check up he had shrunk down to 20in because his cone head had gone down. He still has a big bump on his head. He has whats called a cephalohematoma. This is a pool of blood on top of the skull. They can take up to 3-4 months to go down sometimes. His has started to go down but it's so big that it's still very noticeable.