Announcing William "Will" Zain Imran

Will is now 12 days old and I'm finally getting around to updating the blog. Two kids is definitely more than twice the work of one...and Will still sleeps most of the day, so I imagine that's not changing any time soon.

Here's the recap of the last 12 days:

On Thursday, May 6 I started to get "real" contractions around 3 a.m. I timed them for an hour and they were pretty consistently 12 minutes apart, then 11, then 10. I called my OB's after hours number and got Dr. Schweitzer. He told me to come on in to the hospital rather than waiting for my contractions to get closer together since sometimes 2nd kids come quickly. I called Jackie, the babysitter, and asked her to come out. She was expecting the call to come at some point, so she wasted no time in getting ready and hopping a car service to our place - she arrived about 4:40 a.m. We had her cab wait for us and take us to NYU. The timing worked out great, as Shafi and I had time to get ready without rushing and we were at the hospital around 5 a.m.

I was admitted right away but was only about 3 cm dilated and about 80% effaced. Still, that was progress from just a few days before, so at least I was right that I was actually in labor. Dr. Schweitzer suggested that I go ahead and get the epidural and once it was working he would break my water. I got the epidural around 6 a.m. Unfortunately I had almost as much trouble as last time. The anesthesiologist said my vertebrae are close together so they kept hitting bone when trying to get through to the epidural space. They stuck me 3 times before finally getting in. Not fun at all! But eventually it was working and I was numb. Dr. Schweitzer broke my water just after 7 a.m.

Things progressed fairly slowly for awhile after that. My contractions were a bit irregular and not getting much stronger. Then suddenly we started to run into some complications. The baby's heart rate kept dropping during contractions. It didn't happen every time and as soon as the contraction was over his heart rate went back up. But it was very scary to see the heart rate go from 140 or so down to 50-60. Every time it happened the nurses and doctors came running in - suddenly there would be 5 people in the room. I would be asked to turn over and get on all fours.

After awhile they decided to monitor the baby's heartbeat by putting a monitor on the top of his head and also to monitor my contractions internally. Dr. Ho took over for Dr. Schweitzer just before all of this began. She was very calm and said that this seemed like an umbilical cord issue - either it was kinked or it was wrapped around an arm or leg or something. They tried adding fluid to see if that would relieve the pressure but it did not seem to make a difference. Dr. Ho told us she would give me some time to see if my labor began to progress on its own but that we couldn't use Pitocin to speed it up because of the umbilical cord issue and we couldn't keep going for more than a few hours - at some point we'd have to move on to a cesarean section.

Dr. Ho suggested that I stop the epidural meds to see if my labor would speed up. At around 11 a.m. I still had very irregular contractions and was only 4-5 cm dilated. Shortly thereafter my contractions started to get stronger and closer together - every 2 minutes and then even more frequent than that. I was starting to have a lot of pain but we were still seeing a drop in the baby's heart rate several times an hour, so I opted to continue without the epidural meds. At about 11:40 a.m. his heart rate dropped down very low again and everyone came running in. At that point I felt the pressure and the urge to push. Dr. Ho checked and sure enough I was fully dilated. Everyone was shocked that I had progressed so quickly at that point.

Dr. Ho scrambled a bit to get her gear on. The nurse scrambled to get everything ready. And a few minutes later I was ready to push. Two sets of pushes - about 4 minutes - and Will was born at 11:59 a.m. The umbilical cord was wrapped twice around his neck. Luckily everyone was prepared and it did not cause any complications at that point. He cried after only a few seconds and his APGAR was 8/9. Because of the wrapped cord, Shafi did not get to be the one to cut it, but of course we were just happy that Will was healthy.

He weighed in at 7 pounds 6 ounces and measured 21 inches. He's long and skinny - and he has a fairly thick head of black hair. From the moment I held him he was ready to nurse - and it seems like he hasn't stopped since.

Since Will and I were both healthy and I was recovering well, we only stayed 1 day in the hospital - we were discharged 24 hours after he was born. His discharge weight was 7 pounds 4 ounces. We had his first pediatrician appointment on Monday the 10th. He had only lost another ounce and was doing great overall.

Last week already seems a bit of a blur. He ate well and slept well. We had his bris on Thursday and that went well. Friday we went in for a weight check and he was already up to 7 pounds 9 ounces. The doctor was thrilled with that and we don't have to go back until his one month check-up.

Leah has had her ups and downs since Will was born. She is very sweet with him...but she's very jealous and has been acting out with Shafi and I a lot more than usual. I've been making an effort to spend some good quality time with her to try to help get past this stage. Shafi took a week and a half off of work, but while usually she would be thrilled by that, what she really wants is time with me. Obviously the 3 or so hours a day I spend nursing Will is quite noticeable to her.

She was very excited and sweet when we first came home from the hospital. But about an hour later she told us to go put Will in his crib. Smart girl. Luckily he has been a great sleeper so far, so we've been able to tote him around with us.

My parents have been here since last Wednesday and Leah has definitely enjoyed the extra attention and time with them. My father left this morning and my mother leaves late Thursday, so after that we will see how it goes.

You can see lots of pictures of the last couple weeks on my Picasa site. And hopefully I'll be able to blog a bit more over the next few days/weeks/months so that I can document more about Will.