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

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

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.

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

"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

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

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 --