That sounds do rough :-(. Sending good thoughts.

Doctor wants to induce wife on Monday, the 20th, which is his due date anyway. My last weekend of freeeeeeedom. How shall I spend it!?

Bleh. I'm about 6 weeks away and every night that I go out my wife says "make sure you have fun because in a few weeks you won't be going out anymore".

It reminds me of when my father would call from work letting me know he was going to beat me when he got home for something I did that day.

My wife and I got home from the poker room at 2 am. Her water broke at 4:30 am. Child #1 was born 30 hours later.

That's how I went out.

In all seriousness, does anyone have any input in c-sections? Knowing when the baby will arrive is something that would be very very convenient, considering our work situation.

Well have you talked to your OBGYN about the possibility of doing a scheduled C-section?

A cesarean is major abdominal surgery and is riskier for mom than a vaginal delivery under normal circumstances. It isn't recommended to have an elective c-section. Also, the recovery time will be much longer than with a normal vaginal birth. Mom might not be able to do much baby care for a while.

It's also note greatest idea to force baby's birthdate into you schedule. For the most part, they come when they are ready. If you deliver too early, you risk having a baby with immature lung function and might end up with a stay in the NICU. Ultrasound dating is not an exact science, and due dates are approximate. A woman is considered full term for a five week period.

A-Rod, yes, it was recommended we not do it because of what pongo said, its' a major surgery.

My issue is that if we have complications during a normal birth, we could be forced into a c-section anyway. Why not just go for it in the first place? Is there really that much risk?

In the end, it'll be her decision...which has been the way it's been since she got pregnant anyway. In everything.

From what they explained to us, the feasibility of a scheduled C-section depends wayyy on who the doctor is or the "hospital culture" in general. Some are fine with it - others aren't. It sounds like yours is on the conservative side. You can switch your doctor to one who is fine with it, but that seems a terrible idea at this point for obvious reasons.

Oh I guess I should add my wife is in early labor right now. lol. She's been having contractions all day long. THe first ones started 24 hours ago.

You're kidding right? It's a way worse outcome for the mother but your argument is "well there's a 30% chance we end up having to do it so eff it let's just make that 100%" ?

wil318466 is fading in the "Post if your wife is pregnant" poster power rankings lol.

Why on earth are you wanting a C-section?

Why are you assuming there will be complications? Crazy. Also, generally even though emergency cesareans seem scarier than planned ones I think you come out ahead because you know that the baby was ready to be born if mom went into labor naturally. And anecdata, but I've heard from multiple women that recovery is actually easier from an emergency c-section than from a scheduled one.

I think, maybe because they're so common, a lot of people just don't get the "C-section is major surgery" thing. Most people I know with really busy lives would probably rather the fact that mom can get around on her own a whole lot sooner after most vaginal deliveries.

Also, the margin of error in early ultrasounds is really surprisingly low. Later on, the margin of error gets a lot bigger. My understanding is that a lot of the historical margin of error on due dates comes from trying to time things based on last menstrual period, but I could be wrong about that.

LMP is still used to date a lot of pregnancies. I actually had an ultrasound tech tell me that my LMP was more accurate than my known ovulation date.

Oops! Sorry if that wasn't clear. LMP is definitely better than some things. Early ultrasound is better than LMP, but obviously now everyone gets an early ultrasound.

I've had people act like c-sections are no big deal, I've had some say it was. Recovery is a week or so, my best friend said his wife had a c-section and was fine within a 2-3 days.

Like I said, it's up to her.

Prayers sent Josh. Can't even imagine.

We're being moved back stateside in s couple weeks once our little man is stable enough tj fly. The army ur putting us as close to home as possible which is nice although we would love to stay in Korea one more year

Wife gave birth to Cameron Donovan, our first child, Saturday at 6am. He's healthy, she's healthy, and everything went very smoothly, thank God. Especially since we chose not to do any testing for downs or whatever else they can discover during the first tri. We got home today around noon.

He was 6lb. 9oz. and 19.75". Full head of straight black hair. We actually left for the hospital about 45 minutes after my last post itt. Got up there at 11:30pm Friday night and almost 7 hours later he was here. What a whirlwind weekend!

Got ~1 hour sleep Friday night
~4 hours Saturday night
~2 hours last night.
~2 hours earlier today nap when I got home and got into my BED finally. And...I'm about to go lay down and see if I can't catch up a bit!

Good luck to all those fixin' to have kids. It was a really neat experience and it goes by so fast. You don't even have time to think you just react. lol.

Congratulations!

Reading your post took me right back to the overwhelming incredible day. Thanks.

Awesome. He showed up at a good time, eh? 6am. I better prepare for something like that.

6 weeks to go.

It was as good a time as any. Honestly it was nice to get up there at nearly midnight and just hand the bored valet dude our keys. It was really dead and barely any visitors walking around the hospital so it was pretty calm heading up to the L&D room. Also felt kind of intimate going through the whole thing during the night hours - I dunno.

Just glad we didn't have to induce. Wife was really bummed when she heard they wanted to induce her yesterday. She wanted the process to just happen as it would naturally so she'd get "the whole experience" or whatever. I kept telling her there was a chance he'd be here sooner, and he was. But she was really glad about that. The induction would have been due to a minor precaution anyway it wasn't anything serious.

Also wil, you will be prepared because early labor can last hours and they strongly recommend you stay at home during early labor. So you'll be seeing her progress and whatnot and it gives you time for it to all hit you. I think she was in a bit of denial that it was happening, even while on the floor weeping in pain. I was having to work to convince her it was time to go to the hospital. Once her contractions were 5 mins. apart for about 45 minutes (and her last two came with some blood - yikes) I called the nurse and she told us calmly to come on in. Wife wanted me to wait until it had been an hour. I was like "I'm driving - you're bleeding - it's time to go." She actually wanted to hop in the shower. I was like "uhhh, no. Let's go have a baby."

The hardest part for me honestly was trying to not strangle my wife's mother during labor & delivery. It was the 2 of us in there the entire time helping and we don't exactly get along smoothly as it is and this was her first grandkid. There were times she was being way overbearing (and reading numbers off the monitor out loud - getting us worried over nothing) but I just remembered my wife telling me she wanted us both there and for me to be patient. It was tough though. lol.

Congrats!

I dunno man. I'm scared the kid will just pop out and we'll have it in the back of the car.

My wife already agreed no one in the room except me. I asked if she minded if I wasn't there but she insists. She said her mom is annoying and she doesnt' want her in there, I just said "whatever you think is best", with a smile.

Man. I'm getting anxious. hahah

Nah he won't pop out in the car. Wife's contractions had been happening off and on for 25 hours before we left. And even when she got there they said she was only 2cm, but after evaluating her the doc said "I think that you are in labor so we're going to get started". She didn't get the epidural for a couple hours b/c the pain was too much and probably within an hour after the epidural they checked her again and she was already at 8cm so it was like whoa game is definitely on.

As far as I could tell, 1 helper in the room is enough. The nurse will have you holding a leg and stuff while she holds the other. For a portion of it all, the nurse was busy "down there" so her mom was holding her other leg - I think that was the only time it was noticeably beneficial to have the extra helper in the room.

Once baby crowned and remained exposed, nurse let out a loud happy scream then called in the delivery doc and she arrived with 4 other helpers (1 of which was the anesthesiologist) so the room was full and he came out shortly after. Cord was around his neck but she got in there quickly and fixed that issue. I remained stoic and calm until I saw her pull him out completely then I just started insta-crying and smiling. Wife was instantly doing the same. It was neat. It was like I was concerned and reserved even while his head was out but once I saw him come out entirely the floodgates opened as if it was all OK now.