He is here (September 24 2007)

He is here!! He is HERE!!!!!
Joseph William H. is finally here! Or as my husband, exhausted as he was, anounced on a messageboard to some friends of ours:"Joseph William H (aka BabyH, aka the stubborn little guy) was born at 5:18 AM this morning. Details and pictures to follow!"
Be advised, the following is the story of the birthing, it may be a bit of a vivid picture, so please stop here if you'ld rather not read any details.

The stuborn one is right. I really wanted natural labour all the way through, but when the baby did not come out and each day became harder as I went further over due, the doctors decided to induce. On wednesday evening, I was given Cervadil as a first step with the hope that this would be enough to get the show on the road and that things would progress naturally from there...
The Cervadil helped a bit, but only just enough for them to start up the process with pitocyn. I went for about eight hours of induced labour without an epidural, interchanging bedrest with walking, but then decided to get one as not to be exhausted by the time the pushing started. By the way, I really recommend everyone to make a birthplan. The fact that I was allowed off the monitors and wandring the hallways was a direct result from having it in writing in advance.
After the epidural of course that was a thing of the past and I had to stay in bed. While it helped and let me rest a bit, giving tremendous relief, contractions remained too low to actually get the baby out, and I needed to be redosed after a while. Something went wrong there, because it 'didn't take' the way it should. My legs and behind were completely numb, I couldn't feel anything, but my stomach where the contractions were, was not affected at all. That way we went into the pushing stage.
After four or more hours of unsuccessful pushing (by now more than 30 hours in the process), it became clear that I wouldn't be able to do it on my own. We needed forceps to bring the baby into the world (luckily the doctors were just as reluctant for a C section as I was). In the end the baby came out, but unfortunately there was a LOT of tearing, and I was utterly zoned out. My hands and feet were numb, and I went into shivers and shakes so badly I couldn't even hold or breastfeed my baby... just ask for him to be brought to me and stroke his cheek for a moment while he was in daddies arms.
He went down to the nursery with daddy for all the necessary tests and when he came back up I could at least hold him a bit and make a first, unsuccessful attempt at breastfeeding. The second attempt went much better though, and before he was 6 hours old, my little Joseph was feeding like a champ. He latches on, and stays on the breast for 40 minutes to an hour easily. Even though he is a bit jaundiced we were released from the hospital on sunday morning. I will be honest and admit that the pain from the tearing and the stitches is the worst of it. Still... when you see my little boy, you know that it was all worth it. Have a look http://www.totsites.com/tot/hauk.