Oliver Neil is Born!

Saturday, March 15, 2008It was another crazy experience that already will take several posts to cover. But for now, let me start here with the sequence of events.If you remember from my previous post, we scheduled an OB appointment for midday on Wednesday, 3/12, to check in with Dr. Finegan and to discuss the option of inducing labor. So that morning Julie took two vigorous walks (probably about 4 miles worth) and by the time we had our appointment, Dr. Finegan was giddy with joy by how far Julie had progressed through her “cascade of events.” She described her as “soft” and “open” and expected Julie to deliver that same day.We were, of course, a little skeptical since we had been expecting “today is the day” for over a week now. So we scheduled an induction for Friday morning at the hospital at 8:00am.We wouldn’t need that appointment.When we got home, everyone hung out with Grandma B and I went to my evening class. By the time I left campus around 8:15pm, Julie could tell things were happening and Operation Push was a go. Earlier that day, after the OB appointment, we had Nana come pick Lola up so it was just a matter of getting our last minute packing done and loading up. I paged the doctor at 8:46pm and her answering service told me they had directions to send us straight to the hospital so off we went.We reached the hospital by 9:15pm and then the real fun began. After a few minutes of passing through the bureaucracy - and it was amazing how many forms they wanted Julie to sign while she was having contractions - we were moved into a Labor and Delivery room. Earlier in the day, Dr. Finegan thought Julie was dilated to about 4 centimeters. By now she was up to 7. But those last three didn’t come easy.Afterwards, Julie commented that the early labor was much easier this time compared to Lola but the hard labor was much...harder. The contractions were not coming on top of one another this time which was good because she really took the time in between to relax and gather herself. But the down side was that he wasn’t being pushed down as fast so the whole process from “bed to head” was almost twice as long. This is especially noteworthy because, once again, Julie did not have an epidural or receive other significant pain relief besides a mild sedative given through her IV.After 30 minutes of pushing on her back and another 30 pushing from her side, at exactly 12:23am on March 13th, Oliver’s smooshed little head popped right out, sunny side up and just as quickly out came the rest of him too. (“Sunny side up” refers to his face looking up as he came out thus you may notice the red/purple marks he has on his forehead, nose, and left eye that look like he got into a fight with momma’s pelvis.)And now we are a family of four.Oliver Neil O’DonnellMarch 13th, 2008 12:23am8 pounds, 1 ounce20 inches longStay tuned for more posts as we deal with the ER, bring Ollie home, and introduce him to his big sister. And check out My Albums for some pictures, too.