Wow! What a week... I haven't even had a spare moment to blog to let everyone know what's going on or give any birth stories... I'm sitting here right now, Collin is finally asleep (although it sounds like he may be starting to wake up so I may need to come back to this again later..)
I'll start at the very beginning...
Monday during the day I stayed super busy. We went for our doctor's appointment, then came home and I sat outside with my mom while she planted flowers in the yard. We went down to Rice Village to look for this thing called a Moby Wrap that I've heard are awesome to carry the baby in and the only store in Houston that carries them pretty much is there. So we went down there and met up with Pat to get dinner since he works at a law firm not too far from there. Everyone kept telling me to eat Italian food to make the baby come, but we had just had Italian, so we went for Chinese (which probably isn't too healthy for the baby, but oh well..) I guess it was a great idea! Because Collin decided to start making his way out later that night!!
I woke up around 4am on Tuesday morning (2/24/09). I had woken up a couple times earlier that night with minor cramps, but nothing worse than I had been feeling for about a week already. Then around 4 I woke up to go to the restroom and thought my water started leaking, but instead I had some slight bleeding that wouldn't stop so I knew this would probably be the start. I figured I'd lay back down for awhile and see what happens, since everyone says it can still be awhile from that point until true labor actually starts.... NOPE!! Only about 10 minutes later I started feeling worse cramps/contractions. They started coming about every 10-12 minutes. So again, I figured it'd be awhile. I called my doctor to let them know and they said to go ahead and go in to labor and delivery to get checked. I figured if this was it though I didn't want to look like a total slob so I took a few minutes to straighten my hair! hahah... So I woke up my mom around 4:25 am to let her know that it was possibly time and we needed to go in. We all got our stuff together and left. Poor Stoli knew something was up... she was shivering when we left the house :(
Anyways, we got to the hospital and I was sure they were going to tell me it wasn't time. Then again, these contractions (still not too painful, but noticeable) were coming about every 5-6 minutes. We checked in around 5:15 and the nurse checked me and said I was definitely in labor and said "YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BABY TODAY!" Wooww! I can't even begin to describe what it felt like to hear that.... VERY VERY VERY soon after that point the contractions started getting painful!!!!! I walked in at 4cm and went to 6cm within an hour. Great news since I knew I was already more than halfway there!! I was like "When can I get the epidural???" They said I could get it already at 4cm, so I was like "okkk bring it on!" But I kept waiting and waiting and they had a shift change so it took even longer! They finally came in to give me the epidural around 7:45 I think. Thank God!! Those contractions were really starting to hurt, but I think I handled them OK. I wasn't screaming or anything! I just laid my head back and tried to breathe. The epidural was the BEST!!! I couldn't even feel the contractions anymore! I could kind of tell when I was having one, but no pain at all. Anyways, I got to 10 cm pretty fast, Umm...maybe around 12?? Not quite sure... but they wouldn't let me start pushing because Collin was kind of stuck in the birth canal I guess because he wasn't pushing down. They kept having me turn on my sides to see if it would help. Finally around 1:55 I started the pushing. It went for an entire hour!!! It was really really really hard!! But the nurses were laughing saying they had never seen a patient laugh in between contractions. I think we were making fun of something on TV or watching comedy central or something. Anyways.. I had 2 labor and delivery nurses, who actually end up doing pretty much everything. They help you until the very end when the doctor pretty much walks in and takes the baby out. I'll save the gory details, but in the end.. Collin Brody Daniel made his way into the world at exactly 3pm on Februrary 24, 2009.
Pat ended up cutting the umbilical cord, even though he said he wouldn't. Actually, we forgot to mention it to everyone in the big commotion, but there was a big knot in the cord. The nurses/doctor said they were surprised there was no trouble with that during the labor. I remember Pat turning to me and telling me at the time, but I was so wrapped up in seeing Collin that I kind of put it out of my mind until I remembered later and Pat reminded me. It wasn't a tight knot though so I guess that's why his heart rate never dropped.
Right after delivery they put him on my chest and I got to hold him for a little bit, then I handed him to Pat and he got to hold his son, the first baby ever. It was such a special moment for both of us.
Then they had to take Collin to the nursery to get cleaned up and do some tests. Pat got to go with him so I stayed in the room and got cleaned up and everything. I think post-delivery is more painful than during!! They had told me they would bring him right back, but it felt like forever. They moved us to a post delivery room and soon after that was when Pat and Collin finally showed back up!!
Actually around the same time, a nurse came in and was asking if we had taken a few vials of Collin's blood from the delivery room. We were like "Whaaatt???" She said they couldn't find them. What the heck?? She said "ok well we'll try looking for them, but the other nurse said you may have picked them up when you got all of your belongings." I was like "okk are they labeled??" Who knows who's blood they would have assumed was his!?! She said they were. Then another nurse came in and told us they found it because it had already been sent to the lab. What kind of hospital just misplaces blood vials??? Ohh well...crisis averted quickly.
Wow! I just realized how long this post is! Collin is starting to wake up. Time to go feed him...AGAIN! I'll post some more when I get another free moment. I'm gonna go ahead and put the slideshows up of the pictures we have from our camera. There are tons more to come when I get them all from everyone else. Let me know what ya'll think!!!
FYI... if you want to post comments on here, you just have to create a google account. Then you can post. Or just email me with comments :)
You can click on the slideshow and it will take you to a website where you can look at the pictures individually instead of in the slideshow.
Here are pictures from the hospital:
Here are some pictures from Collin's first few days at home:
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