It's a.......

BOY!!!

We welcomed our newest addition on 1/8/13 at 8:40am, weighing in at a whopping 8 pounds, 9 ounces, and 20 1/4 inches long!  We are SO excited, and a bit sleep deprived :-)

Wanna hear the birth story?

Well, it all started last Monday, when I went in for my 40 week check up.  I hadn't changed from my prior check up, so was hanging out at about 4 cm dilated.  I was exhausted.  She stripped my membranes again, but I went to work afterwords and had no inkling that labor might be coming on it's own.  At the appointment she wanted to schedule my induction, and I oddly gave in and let her.  I'm not even sure why, maybe just from being exhausted, maybe a little gut instinct, I'm not sure.  I didn't let them push me so much with bug, so it surprised me that I did with K20.

Well, we scheduled the induction for the next day, Tuesday the 8th, at 4am.  Yep, 4am.  So after work I went home and we finished getting everything ready to go.  My mom came over and stayed the night to take care of bug.  We got up about 2:45 and ran by dunkin donuts for some breakfast on our way to the hospital.  We got there exactly at 4:00.

They took us back, did all the paperwork, asked the myriad of questions, got my IV going, started fluids.  At 5:00am they started the dreaded pitocin.  I felt it strengthen my contractions pretty quick, but handled them well at that time.

As a side note here, those of you that go epidural free, you are my hero's.  I like to think I have a high tolerance for pain, but I don't know that I could do it.  Of course, both of my labors have been fueled by pitocin, so maybe it would be different if that weren't the case.  (Shan - you're amazing!)

So around 6:00 they had upped the pitocin twice, and the contractions were getting worse.  The nurse asked if I planned on a epidural, and I said yes.  She let me know that since I was already a 4, I could get it at any time, so she'd have anesthesia come in to just go over everything so that I could get it when ready.  They came in maybe just before 6:30, went over everything and told me to let them know when I was ready.  By now, the contractions were just plain evil, so I let them know I was ready.  It took them a WHILE to get the epidural in, and K finally got to come back in the room around 7:15.  The epidural had worked on my left side, but I was still feeling everything on my right side, so we were trying to get it to spread to the right leg.

The OB from my office that does rounds came in around 7:30 to break my water.  She checked me and quickly advised she wasn't going to break my water as I was fully dilated, and if she did, my doc wouldn't make it to deliver the baby.

Huh?  Fully dilated?  Already?  Not sure if any of you remember Bug's birth story, but I labored for around 29 hours.  I've only been at the hospital in labor at this point for 2 1/2, what do you mean I'm full dilated??

I was still at 0 station, so I was good with laboring down while waiting for the doc.  I didn't have the urge to bear down yet, so I was good.  So we wait for the doc, the nurse gets the room all ready, and suddenly I realize that it doesn't feel like the epidural is working much anymore.  Yikes.  OK, deep breathing through the contractions, K is helping me get through.  My doc gets there, they finish everything up, and she breaks my water (it was clear).

I immediately need to bear down.  They didn't even get to clean up the mess from breaking my water and I was trying to crawl myself up the bed because I needed to push.  People were trying to come in my room and my OB was kicking them out saying she was about to deliver a baby.  She was great, she let me follow my body's natural instinct to push.  There was no counting, no 'here's a contraction, time to push' none of that.  I pushed with the natural rythym of my body telling me when.  And I felt every bit of it.  4 pushes, less than 10 minutes, and my sweet baby boy was born.  From the start of the pitocin through delivery, my labor was a mere 3 hours and 40 minutes.

They put him up on my chest and K cut the cord.  I honestly don't remember delivering the placenta, nor the stitches from the second degree tear.  He had the cord wrapped twice, but came out SCREAMING (and boy does he have a set of lungs on him!!!)  They immediately placed him on my chest and we did skin to skin.  He latched on and nursed within 20 minutes of birth, and did an amazing job!!

He came out with some bruising on his face that came from his speedy trip down the birth canal.  It was gone by that night.

Afterwards, K asked if I had known it was only going to take an hour after the epi if I would have tried to make it, I said yes, and I really would have.

We are so in love.  Bug just wants to hold him all the time.  She walks around the house saying 'baby, baby' it is SO adorable.  He continues to nurse like a champ, which is such a different experience than what I had with Bug in the beginning.  It's cute though, as I have an amazing supply again this time, and he sometimes has a hard time keeping up with it.  Especially as he likes to comfort nurse, so he does some spitting up.  I still can't fathom that my 5 ft 106 pound frame carried and delivered an 8 1/2 pound baby.  No wonder I was so uncomfortable at the end!!

We are trying to get into good sleeping habits.  His witching hours tend to start around 1:00am.  Last night we were up until about 5:00.  He's got some seriously explosive gas that doesn't help his awake time as it is usually because of that.  Once he lets out a fart that is fitting for a full grown male he usually calms down and can make it back to sleep.  He doesn't like laying flat though, so right now he's sleeping in his car seat instead of the bassinet.  It is exhausting, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.