Introducing Carter Griffin Leib

This is just going to be a brief introduction to our son, Carter Griffin Leib, as today is my first day out of the hospital after a semi-emergent cesarean section and I am exhausted. Like his sister, Carter decided that he wanted to be delivered early. The way he entered, the world, however, was completely different than Claire. I had an OB appointment Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving). I got the scary news that I was dilated to 1 cm despite being only 32 2/7 weeks pregnant. They sent me straight over to the perinatology office where I got a dose of steroids to mature the baby's lungs just in case I went into labor. Thanksgiving morning I woke up early and was having some mild contractions, certainly nothing painful. I decided to take it easy and take a quick shower. Well after the shower, my water broke. Here we go again, I thought. Claire was born just an hour and 50 minutes after my water broke so we quickly threw some things together and left Claire with Papa Pope and Grandma Lily and headed to the hospital.
At the hospital, our first nurse and resident did not make a good impression. They asked me why I had come in and when I said it was because my water broke and I was in labor, they asked if I was sure. Well, let's see, I am a doctor and I have been through this before so yes I am sure that I am in labor. They acted surprised when this was confirmed on the monitors and exam. Seriously?! After that, my doc came in and said that we were going to try to stop my labor since I was only 2-3 cm dilated and that would allow us to get another dose of steroids in. He wasn't sure it would work given my history, but thought it was worth a try. As it turns out, they were successful in stopping my labor for 24 hours. What a horrible 24 hours, though. I was NPO (no food) and bored, scared, and intermittently contracting. They had mercy on me late that night and gave me some processed food to eat which I was sooo grateful for. I am not joking, when you have not eaten for 25 hours, anything tastes good!
So the next morning, they stopped the meds that were slowing my labor and guess what, I didn't contract! Ha! So then they gave me pitocin to start the contractions. I hadn't slept at all so I was pretty irritable. Unfortunately, the baby did NOT like the pitocin and started having late decelerations in his heart rate when I would contract. Despite not wanting an epidural, my OB talked me into getting the catheter put in just in case a c-section became necessary. So the catheter was put in without medicine and the baby continued to not be happy with the contractions and I was only 5 cm dilated. Within 30 minutes of all this becoming clear, I was in the OR getting a semi-emergent cesarean section. Let me tell you, it is so strange to be awake while you are being cut open. Thankfully, they were able to get the baby (a boy!) out, he was stuck face up in the canal, and that little rock star had apgars of 9 and 9.

So much for brevity! More on our little man soon.