I'm here to see my son

As you can see, we very recently had a baby boy. I haven't had any time to actually write about the birth and afterward. So here goes...

On Thursday, April 9th I was set to be induced to have Cooper. I had been sort of hoping that he might come early so that I wouldn't have to be induced. We chose to be induced for a couple reasons, but the main one was that I wanted to have my doctor deliver the baby, as one of her partners delivered Savannah, and there were complications that we felt could have been avoided. So all morning Thursday I was awaiting a call for when to come in. This was incredibly frustrating to me and I was worried that the later it got, the more tired I'd get or that my doctor would go off "on call" status. I was told to call by noon if I hadn't heard anything. I hadn't, so I called and they said it shouldn't be much longer, but that they were trying to clear out rooms. They were busy. Dang Utah County. So maybe 25 minutes later I get the call to come in. We headed straight down, making a last minute stop at Arby's for some curly fries and a farewell to Dr. Pepper for awhile. I needed SOMETHING on my stomach, as I didn't want to eat anything all morning. I was anxious and feeling nauseous. We got to the hospital around 1:20 pm and I was hooked up immediately, and my doctor came in at 1:30pm. She checked me and said I was already at a 4, so she just wanted to break my water right then. OKKKKAAAYYY. She broke it and they started pitocin. Within 30 minutes I was feeling contractions and they kept coming and were pretty close together for awhile. A little before 5pm they came to check on me and I was a 5. I was ready for an epidural at that point. I was proud of myself for going that long, because with Savannah I had it at like a 2. Anyway, so the nurses say that the anesthesiologist is on the floor and it will be a little bit, but they'll put me on a list. A LIST! My contractions were getting stronger and closer together and I was getting very antsy to get that epidural. I think I only waited maybe 15-20 minutes, but that feels like forever. Once that baby kicked in though, OHHHH, sweet relief. I was so numb it was unbelievable. So between 5-6:30, I went from a 5 to a 10. Luckily I was able to rest during that time. With Savannah I wasn't able to rest at all. The nurses wouldn't leave me alone ever! Anyway, my nurse came in to tell me she was leaving, which was disappointing because I liked her, and she decided to check me real quick. She's like, "Oh, you're done." So, I'm ready, the nurses are in the middle of shift changes and it's really busy. A bunch of new nurses come in and my doctor. Everything was moving so fast. I couldn't believe that everything had progressed sooo fast. At that point it had only been 5 hours. I started to push, but I could not feel a darn thing. A good and bad thing. I had no idea how hard I was pushing or when contractions were coming. The nurses had to tell me. That was kind of weird. With Savannah I could at least feel a little bit of the contractions. I was just beyond numb this time. It took about 40 minutes of pushing. The doctor kept telling us that he had lots of hair. What!? Really?! So, at 7:23 pm he made his debut. The cord was wrapped around his neck twice. Wasn't expecting that one. He wasn't in any kind of distress thank goodness. He seemed small to me when I first saw him and he was up next to me. He weighted 7lbs. 15 oz. (What?! I was so sure that he would not be over 7 lbs. ), and 18 inches long. And he did have tons of hair. He was pretty purple though. Rather than crying, he was grunting. He was having a little bit of a hard time catching a breath. After a few minutes they decided they wanted to take him downstairs to the nursery to see what was up. At this point, I was thinking (and I'm sure Carter was too), not again. Carter went with him, while I rested in labor and delivery. He came back to give me updates and they thought he'd gotten some fluid in his lungs so they put him on a c-pap machine to help him breath. After awhile, I got to come down to mother and baby and see him in the nursery. We weren't really sure what was going on, but we couldn't hold him. After a couple hours, they moved him to the level 2 nursery (sort of like a nicu, but nothing like what Savannah had been in). They wanted to monitor him. We talked with the pediatrician and he said that he'd gotten some fluid in his lungs and that as a pre-caution, they wanted to give him antibiotics for 48 hours, to avoid any infection or pneumonia from possibly occurring. What a bummer. But the doctor was very reassuring and said he would be just fine and that some babies just need a little help sometimes. We were finally able to hold him and Carter helped give him a bath. He really looked nothing like we had expected. We expected a boy version of Savannah. And especially not all that hair. He was pretty swollen too, so he looked like this little sumo wrestler chunk. But he was obviously just adorable and we were relieved that he was going to be just fine.

The next couple days were extremely hectic and tiring. I checked out after about 36 hours; I could have stayed a couple hours longer, but new at that point that I'd be going back and forth to feed him, so we had to make some adjustments to our plan. Carter's brother Taylor was very nice to let us stay at his place, which is 5 minutes away from the hospital, so that we could go back and forth every few hours for feedings. That was rough. After about a day and a half of Cooper being in Level 2, he got jaundice. They started him on lights. His lungs were fine and he was in the clear, but that darn jaundice had to pop up. They aggressively put him under two lights and a bili-blanket to try to knock it out of his system fast. He was changing a lot in appearance too. He wasn't so swollen anymore, so he didn't look that chunky. Every time we went to see Cooper, before we could enter the Mother/Baby area we had to pick up a phone and give a code. Most of the time Carter would do this. He would say, "I'm here to see my son.", and give them the code. It was weird to hear him say that. One day I decided to pick up the phone, and I said, "I'm here to see my son." Weird. Reality set in for sure. So rather than Cooper coming home on Saturday night when he should have, he didn't get to come home until late Monday night. He came home with a bili-blanket to wear and the next morning (Tuesday) we went and had his bilirubin checked at the hospital. A couple hours later they called and said that he didn't have to be on the blanket anymore. He ended up using it for less than 24 hours. Kind of annoying.

Cooper is now 10 days old. He is a pretty good little baby. He only gets mad when he's hungry. And he can get really mad. He gets so frustrated and can't focus on eating that sometimes it takes awhile to get him started. He loves to fall asleep when he's eating, which in turn makes our eating experience around an hour. He's not chunky at all. He has a little bit of a double chin, but that's all. His hair is awesome! Little faux hawk's are so cute. We're still trying to place who he looks like, but we're not sure. He looks nothing like Savannah did, and Savannah looked like Carter, so maybe he'll look more like me. We'll see in time. We know he doesn't have my lips, that's for sure. He loves his bouncer. He's starting to spit up just like Savannah did. I'm hoping that doesn't stick. He doesn't sleep well between the hours of 2:30 am - 6:30 am. And he gets the hiccups during those hours too. And they are loud and last for awhile. He's pretty calm and easy going. He recognizes his Daddy's voice really well. He is just so sweet and we love him so much. Savannah is pretty cute with him, but she either ignores him or is a little too in his face. She calls him Baby Cooper. She loves rubbing his hair. It's still kind of strange that we have 2 kids. Thank goodness Carter has been home during this time. He's been able to spend time with Savannah, when I've been busy. He goes back to work tomorrow, (Monday) so the real test starts. We shall see.

I do have one regret about everything. The day after I gave birth, one of my nurses came in and asked if I wanted to get a tetanus shot. I actually think it was a couple shots all in one, but can't remember. Anyway, I said yes. I wasn't really sure, but they said if I hadn't gotten one in 10 years that I probably should. I knew it had been longer than 10 years. So they gave me the shot. Horrible decision in my mind. Within a couple hours, my arm was killing me. I could barely move it. My whole body was already very sore, and in areas that I wouldn't expect, but then that shot made it much worse. I wish they would have told me realistically that it was going to hurt so much. And for days!