Matteo Meets the World

After much waiting, Matteo finally made his arrival on Tuesday, August 3 at 12:33am, weighing 8lbs 5oz and measuring 21.5 inches long. The experience was not exactly what I expected but for those of you have been through it, you're probably not surprised. Since this will be my last and only time, I want to record, to the best of memory, how Matteo made his way into this world.

8:00am - We started the pitocin. I got comfortable and not much happened for a while. I could feel contractions, but they were more like menstrual cramps than anything else.

12/1:00pmish - My water broke. Or I thought it did. Turned out to just be a leak but it sure felt like more than that. After that, the contractions started to get much stronger. Billy was great at helping my breathe and relax through them.

4:00pm - My OB arrived and by that point, my contractions were 2 minutes apart but I had not progressed much - still at 2cm. Contractions were beyond manageable so I agreed to the epidural.

5:00pm - Got epidural and everything was immediately better. They reduced the pitocin so the contractions slowed down a bit but, either way, I couldn't feel it. I took the opportunity to get lots of sleep.

8/9:00pm - The checked my progress and I was 8cm dilated. Finally, some progress!!

10/10:30pm - They checked me again and I was 10cm! OB told me I would start pushing soon but the nurse told me otherwise as soon as she left the room. (I love the nurses vs. doctors thing. Very entertaining to a layperson like me). She told me I would push when I felt like I had to and that I should ignore the doctor. She spent some time trying to keep her out of the room. so as not to interfere with nature. :)

11:00pm - I declared that I felt the need to push. My doctor had sneaked into the room somehow and helped intruct me through my first few pushes. Then she told me average length of time to push out a first baby was 2 hours. I tried really hard not to believe her.

The nurse came in and took over the coaching along with Billy. There was lots of moving positions but, because of the epidural, I could do much more than lie down. I stayed mostly side lying which was much more comfortable for me and seemed to work for the baby, too.

Pushing was hard and not really what I expected. Both people who gave me advice on pushing said that you do it like you're having a #2. I would now agree with them. What I didn't expect was how hard it would be on my abs! It was like every push was the hardest crunch I ever did in my whole life. And I did them for 10 seconds at a time, 3 or 4 times in a row with a 30-60 second break in between "sets." It was a workout like nothing I've ever done and I played 4 years of rugby in college. To help me push, they brought in an extra nurse so I had a nurse on each side for me to push off against and Billy helped me hold me head up to do the crunches.

12:15am - They called the OB in and then I knew that we were truly getting close. They had the mirror set up for me to see what was happening but I couldn't really make out what I was seeing. At some point, I got an episiotomy but couldn't feel it. About 15 more minutes of pushing as hard as I could and Matteo finally made his way out at 12:33am.


I couldn't hold him immediately because he had swallowed something and they had to check him out. The pedis declared him 100% fine, I got stitched up and by 1am, I got to hold him and nurse him for the first time.


All in all, I am so happy that I got to have this experience. And, above all else, so happy to finally meet our littlest boy.