Sam's birth

Welcome to info central for Sammy Eug (Samuel Eugene Pieroni), born on November 3, 2008. Sam was born at 6:32pm PDT at Torrance Memorial Hospital. He weighed 7 pounds, 12.6 oz, and was 20 inches long. He is still 20 inches long, but probably weighs a tiny bit less right now.

Marne started having contractions at about 2am on Monday morning, but was quiet as a mouse while she paced around the house trying to calm her excitement and figure out whether these new aches were the real thing. Jake didn't have a clue anything was going on until about 5:00am when the shower came on and the dog was running around the house, and in and out of his dog door...something was afoot, said Jake. When he pressed Marne on the reason for the early morning shower, she said she was having some pains (they had progressed from aches to pains), and that she heard a warm shower would make them feel better.

Knowing that Marne was beginning labor, and that his son was likely to be born today, Jake had no problem going back to sleep. Except not so much. Jake got up and started timing contractions, and by 7:00, we were right where we needed to be to ensure they wouldn't send us home from the hospital. Actually, we were a little bit shy of that, but Marne told Jake that she was going to die while he was in the shower, so it was pretty much time to go.

We got to the hospital at 7:15...right at shift change...DOH!. This was actually a blessing in disguise, because although it was a bit hectic at the nurse's station, we got our nurse at the beginning of her shift. And not just any nurse...she was awesome. She is what I imagine my cousin Danica is like as a nurse. Her attitude was perfect, and she was so dedicated to seeing us through what turned out to be a long day.

Marne had a couple of contractions that looked VERY unpleasant before she got her epidural. But once it kicked in, she was all smiles. It was just a waiting game from there. I watched the contraction monitor and saw things that told me epidurals are miraculous, given that Marne barely even felt pressure, let alone pain, during what looked on the monitor to be some serious contractions.

By 3pm, Marne was at 10cm, but the nurse wanted to give Sam's head about an hour to descend a bit on his own. So at about 3:45 or so, Marne started pushing. Now here's where the surprise kicked in. Our prepared child birth class focused primarily on labor, not delivery. In fact, our teacher said she enjoyed pushing. It made her "feel in control" and "as though she was contributing". I see what she's saying, but here's the thing. Marne and I sat through 10 total hours of this woman teaching us every possible way to deal with labor which, she failed to mention, was useless information if you have an epidural. You literally lay there doing nothing for hours when you have an epidural. Or at least Marne did. But no warning, let alone bona fide educational information, regarding the pushing part.

Marne was not expecting the Medieval torture that delivery ended up being. 2 hours and 45 minutes of what I imagine to be the absolute max the human body can endure and not be considered medical trauma. Or maybe it is...seriously, it was impressive. And oh my, this nurse was right up in the mix. Just getting down to business like Marne was her closest friend, or mother...I mean this is a very personal and intimate process.

Anyhoo, it actually didn't take too long to see Sam's head. But it took a long while to get him that last inch. Unfortunately, in that time period, our doctor had to leave, so we weren't able to page her for the final portion. But, we ended up getting our doctor's doctor! So that was awesome. Our doctor is pregnant with twins, and this is the doctor that she has chosen to deliver her babies. So that was a really nice thing to know. After all this journey, to have it end with a strange doctor of whose credentials we were completely unaware, would have been a bit sad, but we felt great about the fill-in.

Marne finally got Sam's head as far as the nurse would allow without the doctor. So she called her in. She was there in less than a minute, because she just down the hall doing a Cesarean, which she left to come deliver Sam. This was amazing...after 2.75 hours of pushing, the doc comes in, had Marne push twice, and otu comes Same. Whoa. It was real.

Marne was beside herself with every emotion possible, and I was so thrilled to see Sam get skin-to-skin contact with her right away. After only a few minutes, everyone left the room, and Marne and I got to spend the first hour of his life alone with him. He was so alert and just absorbing everything. Then the grandfolks came in to see him for a little bit before he was taken to the nursery, which was really great to see all of them there. I realized I hadn't had a moment to fill them in on any progress once the pushing started. So they were outside for a few hours with no answers...sorry about that guys!

Well, I could write a tome about everything after that too, but I think that's all the good stuff above. I am going to post a buch of pics here. I am going to end this post here, and put the pics up as a separate post, which I guess will appear either directly above or below this post. Thanks to everyone for thinking of us, and we look forward to see you all soon. Love,

Jake and Marne