
Well, he's been here more than two weeks now. But Bill and I have been so busy and sleep deprived that this is my first opportunity to update our blog. I love you all, but lately I've been taking the age old advice about "sleeping when the baby sleeps" to heart. Which means I've been getting random blocks of two to three hours of sleep at a time. Since Nolan's birth, time seems to have run together into an indecipherable clump of night and day.
But it is all worth it. Besides the fact Bill and I love being parents, Nolan had his two week appointment with the pediatrician today and let's just say our kid has inherited an overachiever gene. When
Nolan was born he weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces, and when we left the hospital he had dropped down to 7 pounds, 3 ounces. Today he weighed in at 8 pounds, 4 ounces! He also grew a half an inch, and is now 21.5 inches long! My breasts are magical! (We've been breastfeeding, and news like this makes those exhausting feedings in the wee hours of the morning all worth it.)
But back to our originally scheduled broadcast.
PICTURESFirst things first: pictures. Posting a lot of pictures to this blog is time-consuming and a pain in the rear. So here is
a link to our Shutterfly Share site where you can view pictures from Nolan's first two weeks. I will make this a permanent link on the blog shortly, so check back often. Also, I had a talented young photographer come to the house a couple of days ago to take some newborn photos of Nolan, and I will be posting a link to those photos as soon as she notifies me they are ready for viewing.
BIRTH STORYWe arrived at the hospital on Easter Sunday around 9 p.m. Doctor H began the induction process about 10 p.m. We quickly learned that Nolan disliked Pitocin. His heart rate often dropped when a contraction hit its peak, so we spent about 15 hours of labor turning the Pitocin on and off, while Dr. H and/or my L&D nurse kept coming into the room to make me switch positions. They broke my water at
4 a.m. By
8:30 a.m. I still hadn’t dilated past 3 cm and I was ready for an epidural. (
And yes, it was h.e.a.v.en. Loved it. That big ol’ needle didn’t hurt at all!)
Dr. H really wanted me to be able to deliver the natural way, but warned me that if things didn’t start to progress soon and the heart rate issue continued,
we’d have to think about “other options.” (Read: C-section).
By noon on 4/13 I hadn’t dilated any further past 3 cm, and we were still dealing with the constant on/off of Pitocin and the heart rate issue. Finally, around 1:30 p.m., Dr. H came into my room, checked me, looked at my chart, slammed it shut and said, “Aw, screw it!” and stormed out of the room. At which point my super sweet L&D nurse Ginny cheerily said, “Okay! Let’s get you ready for a c-section!”
Me: “Wait, that’s his big motivational, ‘it’s going to be okay!’ speech? ‘Aw, screw it?!’ “)
But that’s just Dr. H and I trusted him. Having never had surgery before, I was scared out of my mind. The combo of fear and exhaustion caused the tears to flow. (Apparently, I was so pitiful that Nurse Ginny came to see me in the Pediatric After Care Unit afterwards and told me that she started to cry when she handed me off to the folks in the operating room!)
Everyone at Rex was wonderful though, especially Ginny, Dr. H. and all of the nurses and doctors in the operating room. At 2:10 p.m. all of the fear and anxiety I had about surgery just melted away as soon as I heard Nolan’s first squeak and then his beautiful cry! I may have been lying on a table with nothing but a thin blue sheet separating me from my exposed guts, but all was right with the world. All of a sudden my future as a mother became very clear to me, and it was the most amazing, joyful feeling I’ve ever experienced.
They showed me Nolan’s sweet face before bringing him back to be weighed and measured, and then they let DH bring him back to me in the OR for a few minutes so I could see him for a little while longer. I finally got to hold him for a bit in the PACU where I was visited by our neighbor, Brandi, who is a nurse in the special care nursery. It was so nice and comforting to see a friendly face! Thank you, Brandi!
Well, Smalls is waking up from a nap, and pretty soon his little “meh” and “eh” rumblings will erupt into a full-fledged volcanic wail, which is his way of saying, “Yo Mom, do we have anything to eat up in this joint?” I’ll do my best to post again soon.