Charles David Ostrenga

Post date: Nov 27, 2010 4:03:01 AM

Well, it was a long couple of days! Thanksgiving morning, Dana woke up at 4:30 having contractions. By the time I left to play football, the contractions were about 10 minutes apart. Thankfully, that's about as close as they got for a while. We had 2 awesome Thanksgiving dinners, and had a great time seeing our families. As we were getting ready to leave Dana's parents' house, Dana realized that her contractions had been about 5 to 6 minutes apart and lasting about a minute. We talked about it on the way home, and decided to call the on-call hotline. They paged the on-call doctor (Dr. Hellman), who called and talked to Dana. She recommended that we make a trip to the hospital.

We got to St. Mary's Ozaukee at about 8:30, filled out a few forms, and got a room. The nurses checked, and Dana was only dilated a fingertip (about 1 cm). The contractions were staying pretty consistent, and the baby's heart rate was looking good. So, they sent us home, and said to come back if the contractions were 3 minutes apart, and more intense. And of course, as soon as we got home, the intensity of the contractions picked up, and they also became more frequent (about 4 minutes apart). So Dana tried laying in bed, walking around the living room, and sitting on an exercise ball. It didn't take long for the contractions to get to 3 minutes apart, but we waited about 45 minutes to make sure that they stayed that way. By 11:30, we were back at the hospital, checking in again!

Much to Dana's dismay, the increase in frequency and intensity of the contractions hadn't done much for her cervix - she was still dilated only 1 cm. But this time, Dana was given the option of taking morphine and Ambien and staying in the hospital, to try to get some sleep. Well, that worked, and was a huge help, and Dana slept from about 2:30 am to 6:45 am, only getting up twice in between. Checking out the monitors, I noticed that her contractions were now much further apart - about 10 to 15 minutes. That was pretty discouraging, and the nurses said we would wait until we saw the doctor between 8 and 8:30 to determine if we should stay or go home again. It was just about 7:30 when the nurses left the room. They were gone literally 2 minutes, when Dana tells me "I think my water just broke!" We called the nurses back, and sure enough, it was true. Now we knew we the next time we went home, there would be 3 of us.

Dana was officially admitted to the hospital (we had been there on "short stay"), and once the IV was placed, they started giving her Pitocin to help increase the frequency of the contractions. And it worked. They were coming hard and fast, and Dana was in extreme pain. By this time, she was 3 cm dilated. We finally decided on getting an epidural, and once that was in place Dana felt MUCH better. She was even able to doze off for a bit, and all the while the contractions kept coming. I used this opportunity to go to McDonald's and get a McRib meal (delicious!).

Contractions kept coming, and Dana wasn't even feeling them. This went on for a couple hours, and then the nurse checked for dilation. We were shocked to find out it was 9+ cm! This was awesome news, and we were ready for the next stage - pushing! Pushing was tough. Two hours of non-stop work for Dana, and you could tell she was exhausted. But she powered through to the end, and at 4:52 pm, we first saw our baby boy. Charles David Ostrenga came out 20 inches long, and weighing 8 pounds 6 ounces. I know everyone says it, but it's so true. You just can't imagine the experience until it's your child being born. Absolutely amazing!

After almost two full days without much sleep, Dana is still going strong. She has been a champ through the whole process, I am so proud of her. I can't wait to spend the next few weeks just hanging out with my wonderful wife and baby boy!