For Leslie (and everyone else I guess)

Jacob Zane Gishi
5 lbs 13 oz
18 1/2 inches
Born at 34 weeks 5 days

Yesterday morning I woke up around 5, had to pee as usual, but there was more urgency to it. I was also cramping a little. A couple of minutes later, I had to go again, which was weird. I was still cramping too. I also had a little bit of blood in my urine. After about an hour of this happening, I figured I had a urinary tract infection and called my doctors office when they opened at 8. I told them what was going on and the cramping had gotten worse and they called in some UTI meds for me. I stayed home from work because the cramping had gotten pretty bad by now and I had to get up and walk around a lot to go to the bathroom and walk off the cramps. Bryan left to go to school and I got bored and noticed the cramps were coming pretty regularly, so I timed them. Every 5 minutes. "Oh, weird" I thought. "Just like contractions". NOBODY TOLD ME that contractions happen around the bladder/groin area - I heard some people said they felt like menstrual cramps, but thought that was a person-to-person thing and you could still feel contractions around the uterus around your stomach. I was a little worried about the baby because I was in a lot of pain, but I could still feel him moving around, so I wasn't that worried. I was taking tylenol too and the cramps were manageable, but seemed to be getting worse, even though I was taking the medication the doctor had prescribed. Bryan got home around 4, took my blood pressure and said it was high, then checked my symptoms online. He got mad when I told him I had blood in my urine and said we needed to go to the hospital, which I was ok with at this point because I figured they could give me some better pain medication. So we go to the hospital, I tell them what's up and they take me a little exam room that Bryan called the "kiddie room" where they take the crazy pregnant ladies that are overly worried and just need reassurance. The nurse is pretty young, super nice and asks me what's going on, then calls my doctor and asks him if he wants her to do some tests. He said yes, and she tells me the tests are like the yearly female exam type tests (don't worry, I won't explain). So she starts doing it and it hurts worse than ANYTHING I've ever felt before in my life. I start crying and pulling away and all of a sudden the nurse gets this look on her face like "Uhhhh" and says "You're 7 cm dilated and I can feel your baby's head". I start bawling. I know he's early and will probably have to go to the NICU, and I just didn't want that to happen. Bryan stays calm and we head up to labor and delivery. Before we go up I asked the nurse if I could go to the bathroom and she says no, she doesn't want to catch the baby in the toilet. Are You Kidding?? So we get up to labor and delivery, I go from a 7 to a 9 in about an hour and a half, two hours. Apparently, I'd done most of the work all day by having "cramps" and "urinating" which were really contractions and my water leaking - who knew. I really wanted to do this naturally, but when I was given the information that I was going to be delivering a baby in a couple of hours I mentally and emotionally gave up, plus the whole reason I had come to the hospital was to get pain medication and what's better than an epidural? I got the epidural right in time, the guy was super fast and it felt great - I don't know if I'll be able to do it naturally ever :) I stalled at a 9 for a couple of hours, which was fine because I hadn't had a strep test done yet and the doctor wanted to get drugs in me in case I did have an infection so it wouldn't pass to the baby, and it takes 4 hours for those to go through. I got some Pitocin at 11 and was ready by 12, delivered the baby at 12:27. His color was off, so they took him to the NICU to get his color better and make sure he was breathing right, his blood sugar levels were good, just making sure he was developed enough. He's right on the border for everything - if babies are born at 35 weeks and over 6 lbs, they usually don't rush them to the NICU unless they show signs they need to be there, but because he was 34 weeks 5 days, and 5 lbs 13 oz they took him up there right away. They also usually admit the baby if he's been in the NICU for more than 6 hours, but because Jacob would do great then barely fall below the line of "acceptable" for breathing, they kept him there and monitored him, but didn't admit him. Finally, they decided if he could eat they'd let him go and not admit him and after a couple of tries he did pretty good, but they felt like he needed some time in the NICU and admitted him at 12 this afternoon. Because I had been up walking around without help since the epidural wore off at 3 this morning and had proven I was pretty much fine except for soreness, they let me leave at 2 this afternoon, 18 hours after I got there. I keep getting calls from staff at the hospital who need to talk to me about stuff and keep asking why I got discharged so fast :) I think they figured I'd be back at least 2 times a day to feed Jacob that I couldn't go very far if they needed me, so they figured they'd let me go. Since he was 5 weeks early, I was glad to be able to come home and get some sleep, and get some stuff done that I wanted to do in the next 5 weeks.
Hopefully, because other than feeding Jacob's doing great, so as soon as he learns to suck they'll let him come home and he won't take too long to do it. You can't see it in the picture, but he has TONS of dark dark hair, super long fingers and toes and he's a little lighter than we expected, but I think once he gets a little older he'll get more of an olive tint to his skin like his daddy. He pretty much looks like him - I'm thinking there's not much he got from me. I keep thinking if he had stayed in me till his original due date, he'd be 9 lbs, 24 inches by the time I delivered...ugh. Bringing it full circle, the doctor did tell me he was probably premature BECAUSE I have an UTI - weird.