My Baby Smiles

So, baby Max is really starting to smile a lot. It used to be that we would have to play with his face in order to get him to smile, but now we just have to talk to him and he'll do it. He especially likes Grandma Phister and smiles at her the most! Now we are just trying to get a giggle out of him. Maybe next week.

Baby Max on mothers day. Don't you just love his hat?

The Birth Story, cont'd....

So the baby was finally here. Like I was saying before, the actual labor and delivery was not that bad. It was the stuff that happened after that and the pains from healing from labor that were the worst.

Right after the baby was born the nurses did their thing and then they gave me my baby to hold. We took pictures and then after about 5-10 minutes the nurse told me that they needed to take the baby away from me to hook him up to a breathing tube. They said that he had swallowed some fluid in delivery and they needed to clear it out. They scared me by telling me all the things that could possible be wrong with him. So, they took him away and got him all hooked up to the machines to help get him better. Here is his picture:

All of our family and friends (including Daniel) who were waiting at the hospital were all standing at the nursery window watching the baby and I was in my room all by myself. It was kinda sad. I was scared about what was happening and nobody was there with me.

About an hour after the delivery, they got me moved to my recovery room. They let me stop at the nursery to see the baby and try to feed him. It broke my heart to see him like that. He hated the breathing tube and just cried and cried. He had a hard time eating with all the tubes in him. After a few minutes they took me to my room.

The first thing I wanted to do was get up and go to the bathroom. The nurse helped me in there and you all really don't need/want to hear the details, but I nearly passed out. Everytime I tried to get up after that I got really dizzy so from there I just decided to stop trying to get up. It was sad because I couldn't even go over to the nursery to feed the baby.

After about 6 hours they finally brought the baby back to me!!! And good news, I was finally able to get up out of bed without getting sick!! Things were definately looking up from then on. We stayed in the hospital until Friday morning and then finally got to go home. It was a VERY long week!

Baby is now 7 weeks old. He is 11 lbs, 12 oz. The doctor is surprised at how alert he is. He still has a "snort" from having fluid in his lungs but the doctor says he will grow out of it after 5 or 6 months.

I have been back at work for about a week now and Daniel is being the stay at home dad. He is such a good daddy!

The Birth Story.... Finally

On March 15th I went in for my normal weekly appointment. I was really hoping that the doctor would just keep me and induce me but I knew that there was really no chance of that happening. When we got there, the doctor did a Non Stress Test and we found that the baby's heart rate was at about 180 beats per minute. He sent us to go on a walk for 20 minutes and then we were to come back and test his heart again. It was still up in the 180's when we got back. The doctor said that he would feel better if he induced me that night. He wasn't super worried about the baby, but worried enough that he didn't want me to wait until my due date. Also, he was going out of town that weekend and didn't want me to have any problems and not have him there. I was so happy that I didn't have to go home with the baby still inside me!! I was miserable at this point.

So Daniel and I go home to pack up some things for our hospital stay and head back up to the hospital. I got checked in at 6:15 PM on Tuesday night and got hooked up to the pitocin. WE DID NOT SLEEP THE WHOLE ENTIRE NIGHT!!! Every hour or so the nurse would come in and raise my pitocin level until I was at the maximum amount. I wasn't in horrible pain, but still we didn't sleep. I don't know if I was just uncomfortable or nervous or what.

At 5:15 the next morning the doctor came in and broke my water. I had stayed dilated at a 3 ALL NIGHT LONG. That is when the fun began.... After that point I decided to finally get my epidural. I got it at 6:15. Earlier that morning I heard the girl in the next room just SCREAMING! I thought she was at the pushing part, but no, she was getting her epidural. She started screaming BEFORE the needle was even anywhere near her. That kinda freaked me out, but I knew I didn't want to try to push the baby out without one. Honestly though, the epidural was no big deal. It didn't hurt it just felt weird. Like an electric shock. My contractions were getting pretty fun at that point so I was glad that the epidural started working pretty quick.

After that, I went from a 3 to a 10 in about 5 hours which isn't normal at all for a first time mom. Also, I only had to push for a half hour! It really was not as bad as I was expecting (I'm sure the epidural helped more than I will ever know though).

To be Continued... with the After Birth Story/Hospital Experience!