On Wednesday September 24, 2008 at 12:44 am Oliver Cole Novoa was born...4 weeks early! It all started with Monday night football with the Jets vs. Charges game. It was 11 pm and Bret Favre had just made a really bad play when Jennifer turned to me and said "I feel a little strange" and then woooooosh, her water broke. She went running for the bathroom and quickly realized that this was not a joke...it was the real thing.
We called the hospital and they said to come in ASAP. At this point Jennifer wasn't having any contractions so we tried not to panic and pack our things. We hadn't packed for the hospital yet (we thought we had a couple of more weeks to get ready) so there was lots of scrambling bur fortunately I had a list printed of all the necessary items we would need at the hospital.
We hopped in the car and we were off. Fortunately because it was so late we didn't have to worry about Red Sox traffic so that helped me put my mind at ease.
At around 11:30 pm we checked in the labor and delivery floor at Beth Israel hospital and were admitted. Jennifer was still not having any contractions so the staff let us sleep through the night hoping that some contractions would start by 6 am. Well 6 am rolled by with no contractions. This posed a little bit of concern because after ones water breaks the doctors sort of want the baby to come out relatively soon because there is a chance of infection so they put a small pill on Jennifer's cervix to help it soften and help some contractions and dilation start. Light contractions did start within the hour but still no dilation. So a second pill was put in place but still no dilation. Finally at around 11 am we decided to step it up a little and go for the Petosin. We knew this was going to make the contractions even stronger but we were comfortable with this choice.
Jennifer was doing really fantastically dealing with the contractions. She used her hypnobirthing techniques which really helped her stay "in the zone." But by 12 pm when she still had not dilated and the contractions were just too strong for her to keep going we decided to go for the epidural. We really wanted to try and do this naturally but it got to be very challenging when Jennifer was in that much discomfort without any progress. Perhaps had the contractions started before her water broke we would be telling a very different story. But either way, we were happy with the choices we made.
So after the epidural was given Jennifer felt a lot better and concentrated on letting he cervix open. By 4 pm she was 7 cm dilated and by 8 pm she was 8 cm dilated. At 10:30 pm the doctor determined that she was 9 cm dialated with just a little more to go. Jennifer really concentrated with each contraction on opening her cervix and by 11:15 pm she gave the signal that she was ready to start pushing. By the time the doctors got ready and set everything up it was 11:45 pm and the pushing began.
Jennifer did an amazing job at pushing and within one hour pushed our little baby boy out and into this world. 5 lbs 3oz, 19 inches long. It was the most surreal experience I have had ever had and I have never been so proud of anyone in my whole life as I was of Jennifer. Seeing the birth of our son will go down as one of the best singular moments of our lives.
As if delivery wasn't exciting enough...because Oliver was under 36 weeks old (35 weeks and 5 days to be exact) he had to be observed by the NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit) for at least 24 hours. After he was born the NICU staff took Oliver for observation. All in all, he was doing really well for being born pre-term. He was breathing on his own and very responsive. All they needed him to do was hit some major milestones: eat consistently, maintain his body temperature, pass the jaundice test, and pass the car seat test. It took him about a day and a half to get acclimated and to finally start eating consistently but he was having trouble maintaining his body temp. By today he is able to eat very well, and his body temp maintenance is looking good. He did have slightly elevated test results for jaundice so he will be spending a few more days in the NICU and hopefully we will be taking him home by Tuesday.
So, it's been quite an eventful week! We really have to thank all our family and friends for all the great support they gave us while we were going through this. A special thank you to Katie for being the disseminator of info and for buying us groceries to help stock our fridge. And another special thank you to Jeff and Shawn for running to Babies R Us to pick up some last minute items that we hadn't purchased yet and for picking up some preemie cloths for our little boy to wear. Also, thank you to Danielle and Patri for taking care of the puppies during this entire week of baby drama. We appreciate everyone's help and it is a tremendous relief to know that Oliver will be surrounded by such loving and giving people. We feel very lucky and can't wait to introduce Oliver to everyone!
