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Baby Delcan has arrived!
Baby Declan was born "naturally" (but with an epidural - does that
still count as "natural"? ;-) on 5/14 at 4:33AM weighing 6 pounds and 6 ounces. Missed Mother's Day by a few hours! lol. Some of you *may* recall my threads here a month or so ago about DW having gestational diabetes. Well, on top of the concerns with that, she also had 4 trips to the hospital all of which were false alarms (2 we thought her water broke which it didn't, which we found out many other women have these kinds of false alarms - but you just never know! better to be safe than sorry - it ended up being normal discharge Another false alarm where she felt the baby not moving as much - which is something they monitor with the gest. diabetes, but that ended up to be nothing too). The drama of this pregnancy was reaching it's peak! She was due the 15th, the weekend before her OB ruptured her membranes, which didn't help! So we're a few days before her due date, we're concerned if she doesn't go naturally she'll have a c-section which isn't a bad thing (don't get me wrong) but we were just hoping to go as natural as possible and also like "is this ever going to happen!?" lol! Well, FINALLY "it" happened! Her water broke at around 3AM on the 13th! We thought it would just never happen! She woke up out of bed with gushing, woke me up, i was like "finally!!" and she got to the bathroom to sit down and she started BALLING! The relief, the joy and the reality of it all just completely overwhelmed her! I was thrilled and nervous too, but under control and calm and helped her through it all as best I could (even through labor of course). Got to the hospital and 7 hours later 11AM rolled around and she was still 1 centimeter (same 1 centimeter from her final OB checkup a week before) and no contractions! So the doctor's plan was to give her Cervadil first ("the fish on a string" as one nurse called it) to ease her body into labor instead of first giving her Pitocin which they say starts her labor off in a BANG! So that was at 11AM and at 6PM her contractions finally started! 4 hours after that, around 10PM on the 13th, she was 4 centimeters and her contractions were BRUTAL!!!!! DW is petite - 4'10" and was ~ 140 pounds with baby. But she has child bearing hips, luckily!, so she isn't THAT tiny. But the contractions were just unbearable for her. Before giving her an epidural they tried this other drug (forget the name) which was supposed to help her sleep and take the edge off the contractions. Well it sure made her drowsy and put her in la-la land but she never slept and still felt the contractions! So after about 20 minutes of that nonsense the anisthesiologist did his magic and gave her an epidural. He was great, she had no problems and no side affects! I'm not a man of prayer but thank god! Having been awake now for about 18 hours (plus/minus time for short periods of rest) we finally got some decent rest but it didn't last long! 2AM, about 3 hours later, the nurse comes in to wake the DW Nancy and say she's 9 centimeters! WOW! We were both awake now! This was it! She started pushing at 3AM and 1.5 hours later Declan was born! But it wasn't that easy! Oh her pushing went OK, he was faced correctly, after his head came out his shoulders and the rest followed. But.... she had an episiotomy - on an angle (they didn't have to cut near her rectum, thank god) and Declan had the cord around his neck, AND they also used a Kiwi suction/vacuum to help him come out (it's like a suction cup with a tube attached to a syringe which they press to apply suction, from what it looked like to me). That and the episiotomy seemed to do the trick. I don't think they used the Kiwi for more than 5 minutes. But instead of me being happy and everything, he came out looking a bit blue (not deep blue though - a light blue/ purplish color) and the top of his head where the Kiwi was attached was extended/distended, not extreme, but enough where there was like a bump/raised area from the use of the suction - you could tell it was suctioned. So i was concerned and didn't cry and wasn't completely happy as i wanted/thought i would be. But moments later DS was crying and DW was doing ok. I am concerned about the Kiwi suction causing brain damage! However, he appears to be normal - feeds fine, gaining weight, on belly time he raises his head to move it from left to right and vice versa, his eyes react to things, and all that. So he appears normal - *knock on wood*. I have no idea what brain damaged infants act like, but all I can do is hope - this is my last big worry - that the effects of the Kiwi device are minimal. This is one of the better hospitals in the area so i would assume they wouldn't do anything that would cause harm, at least they wouldn't try to. The only thing they said about the Kiwi suction device was that it could cause bruising (but there wasn't much) and the swelling from the suction would go away, which it did. His head looks fine. His crowning is almost gone and his head looks as normal as it might get maybe some more crowning to go away but so far so good. So i have a question - when this Kiwi suction/vacuum is applied - is his brain being sucked as well? Boy I sure hope not. only time will tell, all i can do is hope/pray and knock-on-wood. Were in the hospital for 48 hours after delivery, staff was great, DW lost a lot of blood and the first night her hemaglobin was low, but she did much better the next day! Her OB recommended R-something iron prescription which her system couldn't tolerate because it gave her diarhea. OB said try an over-the-counter iron supplement, same thing - diarhea. 2.5 weeks later, she's chillier than me in the bedroom with the air conditioner on i hope she doesn't get anemia, but i think she's doing OK. She's not weak, she goes for walks fine and she seems her old self. Declan lost a pound and went down to 5.5 pounds during the first week after labor, but gained the 1 pound back in 3 days and as of the end of last week weighed 7.5 pounds. He is probably now 8 pounds. He feeds well - on demand! At first we were doing the 3-4 hours thing and freaking out when he was hungry in between (thinking there must be something wrong) and freaking out somewhat over his spitting up, but we've sinced learned spit-up is OK it's projectile vomit which is not (which he hasn't had). So that was a relief to know and learn. And now DW feeds him side lying (likes it better than cross cradle and football hold) and he eats better and they both get to doze and nap together afterwards often. He looks up at her more too in this position. So he eats whenever he's hungry which we like because it's more 'natural' than watching the clock and timing feedings. at least for us. Last night he gave us about 5 hours of sleep! May have been close to 6! That was nice. She feeds and I wake up and do my part and change him. I now am back to work and she's home for 3 months and I hate it! heheheh but we'll be fine of course. Well that's about it, we can't wait for him to start to react to us, roll over, crawl, and just... everything! Right now it's mostly feed and sleep, I feel angry at times because i get to see him less now and i keep thinking he won't know who i am but they say it's early yet for him to really start recognizing beyond voice and i think i am just being overly paranoid heheh. Well thanks for reading sorry it was so long but with something like this i can't help but gush! lol. Paul |
#2
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Baby Delcan has arrived!
And here's the "Kiwi Omnicup" which is what looks like they used, they
referred to it as "the Kiwi" so i think this is it, from what i remember. http://www.clinicalinnovations.com/kiwi.htm |
#3
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Baby Delcan has arrived!
Oh and 2 more things lol - the Doctor apologized that i couldn't cut
the cord because it was around his neck but i was like that's perfectly fine do what you have to do ! cutting the cord was the last thing on my mind. Also - we co-sleep! We spent a week looking for co-sleeping devices, ended up ditching that idea, bought a crib, and he hasn't yet slept in it! Everyone says we will regret it, he'll get attached to us, not want to use the crib but I say so what. Deal with that bridge when we need to cross it. We have a queen bed, we put about a quarter of our pillows off the edge and sleep near the edges more so he has plenty of room right in the middle of the bed. I am a deep sleeper, and only 2 occasions when i slept on my back was there worry about my elbows smacking him but i since have slept on my stomach (which is normally what i do anyway). Also DW loves having him in bed. I love it too. We tried the crib but he cried and she doesn't like hearing him cry heheh. |
#4
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Baby Delcan has arrived!
LOL everyone told us we'd regret co-sleeping. But when I went back to
work partial time and the baby reverse scheduled, it was awesome to not have to do much more then roll myself and the baby over to nurse every two hours. I LOVE co sleeping I love waking up to my little one looking at me in the face laughing and smiling |
#5
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Baby Delcan has arrived!
"Snugglemonster" wrote in message ups.com... Baby Declan was born "naturally" (but with an epidural - does that still count as "natural"? ;-) on 5/14 at 4:33AM weighing 6 pounds and 6 ounces. Missed Mother's Day by a few hours! lol. Congratulations! Debbie |
#6
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Baby Delcan has arrived!
Snugglemonster wrote:
Baby Declan was born "naturally" (but with an epidural - does that still count as "natural"? ;-) on 5/14 at 4:33AM weighing 6 pounds and 6 ounces. Missed Mother's Day by a few hours! lol. snip Well thanks for reading sorry it was so long but with something like this i can't help but gush! lol. Paul Congratulations to you all, you are entitled to gush, your story is fabulous, I hope you print it out and keep it somewhere for Declan to read when he is older. We co-slept for 13 months, yes it was difficult to get him into his own bed but we both work full time and the early morning snuggles were too hard for us to give up! He still comes in for an early morning snuggle now. Best of luck to you in the coming months and years, céad míle fáilte to Declan óg. Bó xx |
#7
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Baby Delcan has arrived!
Snugglemonster wrote:
Baby Declan was born "naturally" (but with an epidural - does that still count as "natural"? ;-) on 5/14 at 4:33AM weighing 6 pounds and 6 ounces. Missed Mother's Day by a few hours! lol. Congratulations, Paul! Great story. A few thoughts... (1) The chill that DW felt a couple of weeks later was most likely a hormonal reaction to the birth. I've never found it in books, but I've had it myself (shivering and freezing cold in the middle of summer!) and I've heard about it. (2) Co-sleeping is something most cultures in the world, other than the U.S., do. I've had so many Chinese relatives horrified that I put DS#1 in a crib. I did start cosleeping with him within a few months for my own sanity. With DS#2, I coslept from the get-go and right now at 2yo, we are still doing so and I love it! -- Anita -- |
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