Happy One Week Birthday, Newbie!
I can't believe it has been one week since we met our sweet little boy. Giving birth and coming home to a newborn is like a time warp- my days blend together, my nights tumble one over the other, and more than a few mama meltdowns and dirty diapers later, here we are, with a sweet one week old baby boy who we couldn't love more!
Being his mama has been such an incredible journey so far...I can only imagine what the weeks to come will look like. He is such a good little baby- only crying when he's got a dirty diaper or when Mama is a little slow on the draw at breakfast, 2nd breakfast, lunch, 2nd lunch, dinner, 3rd dinner, dessert, 3rd dessert, and 4th dessert. Poor baby. I never knew how much I could love something so tiny until 9:20 am hit last week Wednesday. What a blessing. We are head over heels for this sweet boy, and can't believe we've been entrusted with the gift and privilege of raising him. So sweet.
Heads-Up:
The following is an encounter that is almost certainly too much information, but as a mama, I have life chronicling obligations and cannot escape the necessity to write about my son's birth story. So if you're not interested, or don't have 89 minutes to read through the following, skip down to the adorable pictures at the end, and forgive me for being too lazy to put this in a scrapbook and insisting to post it to my family blog instead. Also, medical words are hard to spell...and its possible I even made some up. =)Newbie's Birth StoryA week ago last night I was sitting at the computer trying to watch a smorgasbord of tv and time what I thought might be contractions at the same time. I had been up since 3:45 Monday morning with some cramping, but figured it was just the Mexican food we pounded down over the weekend- ha! The Hubs was gone Tuesday night, so I sat alone at the computer clicking a button when the pain started and hitting it again when it stopped. For a while I had a hard time even deciding when they stopped or started, but figured I would try to time them just in case. We were waiting to go to the hospital until the contractions were 5 minutes apart and 1 minute long for one hour. At about 2 hours I called the Hubs crying asking him to please come home because
what was happening to me?!? He came home, and we sat timing the little buggers until I started to have a hard time walking/standing/breathing/living and then called the doctor. Looking back at the timing of those contractions, I am surprised we didn't have Newbie on the living room floor...after 4 hours, my contractions had gone from one minute long and seven minutes apart to being one minute long and two minutes apart. I have no idea why we waited so long other than to say I was in my pj's and didn't want to end up going up to the hospital only to be sent back home. That, and Parenthood was on NBC...I didn't want to miss it. Ha! But eventually I was begging the Hubs to take me to the hospital in the middle of each contraction, and he happily agreed.
So the Hubs threw all of our bags into the car and drug me out the door as I threw the last load of laundry into the washing machine. I remember thinking it was really important that those jeans got washed. And now I have no idea where they are.
When we got to the hospital, I was still walking OK, but they wheeled us up to triage to measure contractions and check all my vitals. We were told it would take 20 minutes for them to decide whether they would keep me there or send me home, but we ended up waiting an hour and half because Newbie wasn't moving and shaking like they wanted him to, and his mama had a high blood pressure reading. During the course of that hour and a half, my contractions got stronger, and we moved from 1 cm to 4. Whoa. This kiddo was
ready to roll. The Hubs was wonderful and sweet and supportive and truly a
hero while I sat there breathing through contractions. The whole time I remember feeling really mellow. We had waited for so long to meet our little man, and I was completely filled with anticipation of his arrival and the gift of peace that surpasses understanding. After the hour and a half, the nurse said they were keeping us (woohoo!) and asked if I'd rather go upstairs to get my epidural or if I would like to soak in the whirlpool bath.
WHAT?!? I told her I would have taken the epidural last week if they had let me and
please get me upstairs right now. She did.
To make a long story even longer, it took 7 nurses to find a vein for my iv. At this point, I was shaking out of exhaustion- both physically and mentally thinking, "What on earth am I gonna do if they can't get an iv in, and I have to go all noble and have this baby without an epidural?!?" One nurse got for real on my right hand, and I still have the bruise to show for it. I still testify that the Great IV Hunt of April 14th was the most painful part of my labor and delivery. I was a legend among the nurses- even in my recovery room they had heard of my dilemma. Ouch. Finally, the anesthesiologist (bless his heart) came in there like he owned the place, popped an iv in and got started on the epidural. While he placed the epidural in my back, he kept going on with all this scientific mumbo jumbo about what he was doing and how it worked, and you just don't do that to a lady who is in the middle of some 5 cm contractions. I had no idea what he was talking about and seriously thought he was giving me some run-around explanation about why the epidural wasn't working. Soon, however, he left the room and my legs turned to jello and the Hubs and I crashed around 4:30 hoping to catch a few Z's.
My family showed up to say hello, and my mom and sister stayed in the room- designated photographers and cheerleaders for our big event. The time passed quickly, and by 7:45 am, my OB had come in to check me and broke my water at 6+ centimeters. This is when she said Newbie was facing the ceiling and needed to be facing the floor, and this is also when I heard her whisper to the nurse that it was going to be a difficult delivery and maybe require a C-section. Dear doctors:
please whisper quieter. I was running on 48 hours with no sleep and did not want to hear that I had a long day ahead of me. By now Newbie and I both had fevers and they decided to start a petocin drip to move things along. Despite everything going on around me, I was still wrapped in a peace I can't explain, praise the Lord, because everything was starting to get intense. I sent word out to several prayer warriors asking them to pray my baby would flip and get ready for take off. The nurse did some fancy footwork and left the room. In 5 minutes she came back and I asked her if it was normal to feel like my baby was ready to go. She told me to just press the epidural button. To which I replied, "No- I mean, it doesn't hurt, it just feels like he is
right there." She explained that petocin rarely works that quickly, and that I probably just needed another hit on the epidural button, but that she'd check me anyway. So she did. And I was 10 cm dilated, 100% effaced, and Newbie was at a +2...meaning: he was
right there. So she flew around the room getting ready for delivery while the rest of us freaked out and praised God for such a swift answer to prayer. Newbie had flipped and was ready to roll within 10 minutes of an "its going to be a difficult delivery" diagnosis- praise the Lord!
We were all set and ready, literally only waiting for my OB. When she came back to the room (she had left to go to her office down the street, convinced I wasn't going to have this baby til mid afternoon) we started getting down to business. My mom stood in the room taking pictures, my sister stood behind the curtain trying not to pass out, and the Hubs stood next to me- also trying not to pass out. =) I pushed for 10 minutes and delivered our sweet little baby at 9:20 am on April 14, 2010. I could not have asked for a larger answer to prayer that his quick and safe delivery following the evaluation of my doctors. We were so excited to meet him! After a little snuggle time, he was whisked away to the bassinet where he sat for 2 hours being tested and pricked and prodded due to his fever and high respiratory rate. The story that follows is the true miracle, as within the first 28 hours of his life, we were not able to hold our sweet boy longer than half an hour, we couldn't feed him, and he spent the day getting tested and the evening in the intermediate NICU after much debate over what was best for him. Very hard on a new mama and daddy, and certainly no fun for our sweet little boy. We prayed and asked others to join us in prayer over and over again that day and into the next. After 9 hours in the NICU, we went to visit our little one and were told his respiratory rate had completely stabilized over night and that he had been fed several bottles and could go back to the room with us! At this news, we were overwhelmed with gratitude and gratefulness for our God who never leaves us and is always faithful. We took our little bundle back to our room that afternoon, and have been loving on him and praising God for his sweet goodness and provision ever since.
The week since that day has flown by, and I can only guess how much more quickly the days to come will pass. In the meantime, we are continuing to look to the Lord as parents and we are praising Him from whom all blessings flow for his endless goodness and grace. God is good all the time, and we know that now in a way we didn't fully understand until last Wednesday. Praise the Lord!
Here are the pictures I promised =) We've been snuggling this little bundle like there's nothing else to do in the world:
