Well he's nearly one month old already! Where does the time go? Things are finally settling down enough for me to get some time to get the details down before my memory completely evaporates.
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| Walking with Avalon |
Dr. Brunel called us on Monday afternoon (Oct 29th) and said that the birth center had openings on Tuesday for our induction. We scheduled the induction for 7:30am the next day. I did start to freak out a little bit and was glad that the induction hadn't been scheduled for weeks, giving me more time to stress out. My mom came and picked up the big boys to stay overnight at my parents' house since we had to be at the hospital so early. With the house so quiet, Kris and I didn't quite know what to do with ourselves on our last night as a family of 4. He suggested talking a walk in the fields behind our subdivision. So just before sundown we took the dogs and ended up walking for almost 2 hours around a makeshift motocross track- it was all dirt and rocks with some hilly parts. I started having stronger contractions almost immediately, at times even having to stop and wait until they passed before continuing our walk. We were hoping that with the walking I might show up at the hospital in the morning and be far enough along that we could skip the pitocin. As we rounded the bend for home, I caught a whiff from the local pizza place and that's all it took. I HAD to have pizza for dinner. Nevermind that I'd already cooked a porkloin and it was waiting for us at home.
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| The last supper before baby |
Thankfully Kris was willing to indulge this last pregnancy craving, provided that we walked across the street to the grocery store (I had a coupon for a free pizza.. see it was just meant to be, lol). We hit up the grocery store for my frozen pizza and an ice cream treat (Kris insisted that since I would be going through labor in less than 12 hours I totally deserved it. I love that man!).
I wish I could say that I drifted off peacefully and enjoyed a restful night's sleep, but that simply wasn't the case. I didn't end up eating my much desired pizza until after 8pm, and then ate way too much, so the heartburn and indigestion were a given. I slept upright in the living room chair all night long and probably got about 2 hours of sleep.
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| 39 weeks 1 day, Let's get this party started! |
In the morning we were up and on our way, running late though which stressed me out. We arrived at the birth center and ended up waiting around (isn't that what always happens when I'm running late and freaking out about it? Hurry up and wait I guess.). Turned out another one of Dr. Brunel's patients had come in and might be in active labor and that they couldn't work with both of us at the same time. The time in limbo was short lived though, about 5 min later, Dr. came in and said that the other lady wasn't in active labor they were sending her home and I would get to stay and have my baby. YIPPEE!! Turns out all that walking the night before had dilated me to 4cm, but I wasn't having regular contractions so I still needed the pitocin to get the contractions going. Dr. said that he figured things would move quickly and that we'd have our baby by lunchtime. Honestly I had some apprehension about the delivery... would I know what to do... could I do it?
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| He's here!! |
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| Corban & Daddy |
So the time line went as follows:
8am arrived at hospital, dilated to 4cm
9am Pitocin started, water broken, still at 4cm
11:30am Dilated to 6cm, got my spinal pain relief!
11:40am Dilated to 10cm, doctor paged
12:11am Corban born!!
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| Corban & Dr. Brunel |
This was the best labor and delivery ever! With JJ and AJ I was on a heavy muscle relaxer to keep my blood pressure in check and I was pretty much useless. I had no idea what was going on, I was lethargic, pretty much a zombie, I couldn't feel anything. This time though, I was breathing through the contractions pretty well. Then the nurse turned up the pitocin and after 3 contractions at the new dosage, I was nearly in tears and telling Kris to page the anesthesiologist! I was excited to find out that I'd gotten to 6cm before getting the medication! Once the spinal went in I was a much happier camper. I could still feel the contractions, but the pain was gone. The nurse warned me that I'd probably be fully dilated pretty quickly, but I didn't believe her. Sure enough though 3 contractions later I was telling Kris to page the nurse because I felt the urge to push, in fact I'd already pushed a little!
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| Snuggling with Mommy! |
Dr. arrived and 3-4 contractions later Corban was out. He was red and hair. Dr. said we might need to name him Esau! The best part was that Dr. Brunel put Corban on my chest and he stayed there for the longest time! Dr. Brunel and the nurses knew our story of having 2 babies whisked away to the NICU after delivery so they made sure that Corban stayed close to us! It was amazing. Corban was crying, I was crying... what a wonderful gift!! After lots of cuddle time, the nurses weighed him and got him cleaned off. His official weight was 7lbs 15.4ozs. and he ws 21 1/2 inches long. His Apgar scores were 8 and then 9, taken at birth and then 5 minutes later(we've never had a baby who's Apgar's went up!! Both JJ and AJ's scores went down). After getting his picture taken with Dr. and getting loved on by Daddy, Corban was able to nurse (another first for us).
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| Tipping the scale at nearly 8lbs!!! A full 2 lbs bigger than J!! |
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| Celebratory Raspberry Cheesecake! YUM! |
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| Having our hearing test- passed with flying colors |
The rest of the day was spent just staring at our beautiful boy! I felt pretty good at first, then got very nauseous and was itchy all over... apparently normal side effects from the spinal. I couldn't hold any food down which was disappointing because I was hungry! After some anti-spinal medication I finally started feeling better around 11pm and then I devoured most of what was in our hospital snack bag before falling asleep.
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| 1st bath- not too crazy about it. |
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| Sweet Sleeper |
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| Daddy changing a poopy diaper- ICK!! |
My mom brought the big brothers to meet Corban and they were so excited!
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| Corban & Grandma |
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| Jonathan meets Corban |
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| Aaron's first picture as a Big Brother! |
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| Ready to go home!! 2 days old! |
We were discharged on Thursday afternoon and our baby actually came home with us! We had such a wonderful experience! Thanks so much to our fantastic doctor, Dr. Brunel and our excellent nurses: Patty, Renee, Mindy, Stacie, and Sally.
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| Corban & Stacie |
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| Corban & Renee |
"Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!"
2 Corinthians 9:15
