My giant baby's birth.

Before I begin with Duncans birth story lets rewind and review Madelines. I had gestational diabetes with Madeline. I was told they'd let me go to me due date but not past. At 36 weeks we thought she was still breach. They sent me for an ultra sound to check and they wanted to check her weight also since I was measuring big. Madeline was not breach and she was an average size but I had a lot of fluid. I was making steady progress with dilation. At 38 weeks I was fully effaced and 2 cm dilated. That night right as Lost started my water broke. We headed to the hospital. Not much happened all night so I was induced in the morning. Madeline was born at 5:15 pm. She was 7lbs 6oz (this is important).

Duncans story: At 31 weeks I had a bleeding scare at church. We rushed to the hospital. He was fine. His head was really low already though and he was measuring 33 weeks. I was not dilated or anything yet. At 36 weeks I was not dilated at all yet. This was a huge bummer cause with Madeline I was already dilated. I had thought for sure Duncan would be born by 37 weeks because of how early Madeline was. I should have known. I felt so much worse with Duncan then with Madeline. He just felt so big and everything hurt. If I only knew then what I know now I would have known the reason.

37 weeks came and I had started to efface. At 38 weeks I was 3cm and almost completely effaced. 39 weeks came and there was no change. I should have asked the doctor if I was measuring big but I though nah he'd send me for an u/s if he thought baby was big. At my 39 week appointment doc asked if I wanted to be induced. He didn't have to ask me twice. I could barely wait for him to get the words out of his mouth before I took him up on his offer.

So at 7am Monday morning, the 19th of July we were to arrive at the hospital. It took a while to get things started. I was finally all hooked up to the meds at around 9am. I arrived already having regular contractions. The nurse was very surprised that they weren't bothering me. Over the next couple of hours the contractions got stronger and stronger. They were about 1.5 -2 minutes apart lasting about a minute. They weren't really bothering me though. Finally at around noon the nurse decided to check me. I think I was about 4 or 5cm with a bulging bag of water. She then suggested I get an epidural because if my water broke it would be instant pain.

Even though I was feeling ok I took her up on her offer. The anesthesiologist came and got me hooked up. It took a while. While he was trying to insert it my OB came in but left because it was taking so long. I was really bummed cause I figured that if he would have just broken my water then the baby would arrive quickly.

I labored all afternoon...feeling no pain. I snoozed a little bit but not much. We ended up watching the Family Feud marathon, Cash Cap, and then Dirty Jobs. We joked around with the nurse (now the 2nd one of the day). Finally 5pm arrived and the doc came in (office hours were over) and broke my water. I was about 5cm I think at this point.. maybe 6. So he left. Around 7pm the nurse called him back (maybe it was a bit earlier it's all a blur). I was making steady progress at that point. At one point the doc and 2 nurses were all in the room with us watching Dirty Jobs as we waited for the little man.

Finally at about 8:15 it was time to push. I started pushing and he came down right away. I was pushing really hard and wondering what the heck was taking so long. I figured he'd just fall out since he was my 2nd. I was pulling my legs back while the nurses pushed my feet. My knees were all the way to my ears I think. Luckily I had the epidural cause it didn't really hurt. It was tiring but not really painful. On my last set of pushes I yelled out "he better be 10 pounds". On the next push he was out.

All I heard was "that's a BIG baby". I asked if he was indeed a he and they said yes. They took him right over to the warmer. I didn't get to see him so I had to ask Eric if he was ok. (I was terribly worried he'd be born with Down Syndrome for some reason... probably because we never got to see his face on the ultrasound). He was fine and HUGE!

He weighed in at a whopping 9lbs 13 ounces. Although after being weighed I think he peed 2 of those ounces out all over the nurse. haha!

His official stats were born at 8:41pm, 9lbs 13 ounces and 21 inches.

After they were all done with his assessments they brought him over to me to nurse. He hasn't stopped eating since.

At 7 weeks old he is now about 25 inches tall and 12+ pounds (I'm thinking close to 13 now).