Monday, March 9th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY HENDRIX FINNIAN BOSTON!!!

The day my 2nd baby was born. This is mostly going to be pictures because I've had a lot of requests for them. :)

Just to catch you up to current though:

We were discharged from the hospital Tuesday evening. After spending Monday night in the hospital and having the AC go out,I was ready to get outta there asap! Buzz, as you already know is the best doctor ever, helped get us out of there in record time! He preformed Hendrix's circ. right after we talked and then the paperwork was all taken care of. We decided to stay for dinner because they did a special Mommy/Daddy dinner that evening. I had steak and Ryan had fish. It was actually pretty good! They had a heaping side of broccoli on my plate, and if you know anything about m broccoli incident with Elijah, then you know I left my brocs untouched! My advice to all those soon-to-be-Moms out there, when the hospital tries to feed you broccoli, PASS ON IT!! Really, I can try to blame our wanting to leave on the AC, but this is the real reason for our wanting to get home:

We missed our big baby boy. :)

Oh, it was so nice to sleep in our own bed! Since then we've been doing great! Hendrix had his first check up Thursday and his pedi gave him an excellent review! My milk came in Wednesday night, so since then we've been changing diapers nonstop it seems like! And, thank God for friends and family who have kept us fed since we got home. Mary Liz brought us dinner Wednesday and Thursday night, Kim brought us dinner Friday night (tonight), and Randy is bringing us dinner tomorrow night. Our neighbors Ryan, Allie, and Audrey came to visit and our friends Ryan and Stacy Lambert dropped by, too! When you're stuck in the house (especially for a social butterfly like me) visitors are the highlight of my day! My cousins Chuck and Angie are coming by tomorrow to visit. I look forward to seeing them as they live in San Antonio. My friend Marianne might try to stop by, too. I think that's all for the lineup. ;)

On to the good stuff:

L to R: Dr. Moreno, Penny, Ryan, Hendrix, Me.

The one, the only, Buzz; Ryan cutting the cord.

My little dude saying Hi!

Conked out. See that square thing on the white thing sticking out of his diaper? They tagged my kid! It's great! It's like a clothes sensor that sets off alarms if the baby goes beyond a certain point. The tag is attached the clamp on his umbilical cord.

Angie holding H.

Cute, cute, cute, cute, cute!!!!!!!!

More Cuteness.

Family shot.

One of my very best friends, Erin (who's 5 months prego), William, and Neal

Kit, my bestie, with H.

Mother-Son photo opp.

Big Yawn!


Bitter Beer Face...

Awww....

Happy Meesh, Stoic Ryan, Slumberin' Hendrix

The Hospital

Sunday, March 8th:

Dr. Moreno was the doctor on call. We got to the hospital and I stripped down and put on one of those awful hospital gowns. Dr. Moreno came in and checked me. I was dilated to 5 cm and 80% effaced! She put me around -2 or -1 dissent, too (how far down in my pelvis the baby is, going from -4 to +4 which is crowning). She said since I was at a 5 I was staying in the hospital!! She was so impressed and surprised because I wasn't huffing and puffing! She was coming back in like an hour to check on my progress. After that check up I was at 6 cm!! She said that we had a couple options since me and baby were healthy and my water hadn't broken yet. She could either break my water then and see what happened or we could wait and see what happened and try to get some sleep through the night and then break my water in the morning if things hadn't progressed. After her initial exam my contractions had started getting more regular so I decided to wait through the night to see what happened and see if we could get some sleep. They always ask you on a scale of 1 to 10 how the pain is. So I ranked my contractions through the night from like a 1 or 2 to 3. Not painful just there.

I tried sleeping on my own first, but I just couldn't drift off, so they gave me the lowest dose Ambien and I was out for the count!! I should mention, Penny had met me at the hospital and she was with me the whole time at this point! Kit and Travis had come up, too, but left after I made the decision to sleep. Mary Liz, or course, came up, as did my father-in-law, Randy, but they also left after I made my decision.

Monday, March 9th:

When I woke up in the morning things hadn't really changed. Kit came back around 6ish with breakfast for my troops. There's a reason why she's my bestie. ;) Mary Liz came back, but I'm not sure exactly what time that was. Dr. Moreno came in around 7:30 to check me and confirmed that nothing had really changed since last night, so we decided to break my water! Luckily, my doctor chose this time to make his appearance because things went pretty fast after that! Leave it to Buzz to come bursting through the doors complaining that they hadn't called him until this morning to let him know I was there! lol. So, he left to go put some scrubs on, and I decided I should go to the bahroom, before my contractions got too bad. If your bladder gets full it can make your contractions feel worse, and if you have anything in the other end it can come out when you're pushing, so I obviously wanted to avoid both issues if I could!!

I got into the bathroom and almost instantly my contractions started getting real rough and real close together. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to make it out if the bathoom! Everytime I tried to time it between contractions and stand up to get out of there, another one came rolling on. In the end, I got a sensation to bear down and knew I had to get out of there now! Of course, everyone was asking if I was ok during this time, and I had said yes, so please don't think that I was abandoned or anything. I just didn't realize I needed to get out of there so fast until I felt the urge to push all of a sudden! 30 min after I had entered the bathroom, I came barreling out of there saying I had to make it to the bed quick!

Everything had happened so fast and some of it's a blur, but after I got into bed, it felt like almost immediately they were slapping an oxygen mask on me and getting me to move onto my left side. Keep in mind moving is no easy thing when you're having intense contractions. Apparently, the baby had slipped further down into the birth canal and his cord was wrapped around his neck (which they say 1 in 4 babies have the cord around their necks. It's usually not a problem), and the cord was being pinched. That is a problem. So the oxygen was actually for Hendrix and once they got me on my left side things seemed to be ok. Ryan quickly asked Buzz if he had time to go the bathroom, too, before the baby was born and Buzz said yeah, that we were probably looking at another 30 to 45 min at least. (I didn't know this conversation was happening until a couple hours later.) Ryan had considerately used a bathroom in the hall in case I needed mine again. Anyways, I remember them getting me to my left side and everything calming down for a contraction (Ladies, at this stage that's how time is counted. In contractions.) then all hell breaking out again! They're screaming, "She's pushing! She's pushing!!", I'm screaming, "Where's Ryan?! Where's Ryan!!?". Buzz goes banging on the bathroom door telling Ryan, "Baby's coming!!" while they're moving me to the end of the bed to deliver. Buzz is there making sure my cervix is all the way dialated. Ryan's there holding a leg and my hand and Penny is there holding my other leg and my other hand and I push and apparently the head is out. It all happened so fast that I'm asking Buzz what he's doing to me not realizing Hendrix was already coming!! Push number 2 and here comes the rest of him! All of a sudden I have this floppy slimy beatiful baby boy on my chest just eyeballing me and blaming me for disrupting his beauty sleep and I just can't believe Mr. Hendrix has already made his debut!! He was born at 8:29 AM. That's right. About an hour after my water was broken. FAST. I deliver the placenta, which I feel it's delivery this time and they check me over and clean me up. Mary Liz was in tears and as happy as can be with her beautiful new grandson and her amazing and talented daughter-in-law. :D Everything was great. I didn't even tear!! And then my body starts shaking slightly. Penny tells me that I'm just in shock because everything happened so fast and they give me an Ibuprofen to help.

So everything is great! Randy and my brother-in-law, Zach, were in the waiting room and got to see little Hendrix and Kit was, too. Mr. Hendrix Finnian Boston weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs. 8 ozs and was 20 1/2 inches long!! He has the chubbiest little cheeks and a double chin, but tiny skinny little arms and legs and body! lol...too cute!

Going back a little in time...

The last post I wrote was March 2nd and a lot has happened since then, so I thought I'd start at the beginning. Sort of...

Saturday, March 7th:

Ryan, Elijah, and I went over to our friends, Travis and Kit's, house to celebrate one of my very best friends, Erin's, birthday. Her mama, Penny, was there and we started talking about my going into labor. She told me that since my body was so ready for labor that I could get some contractions going, even if it wasn't true labor, and they could break my water and it would send me into labor for sure! As I'm sure you've already guessed, I jumped at the opportunity. :)

Sunday, March 8th:

So...what can I do to get some contractions going??? I know!!! I'll sing at church! Nothing like some good old fashioned adrenaline to jump start my uterus! I had previously decided to not get on stage for that very reason. Anyways, that helped a little bit.

We went and had Taco Bell for lunch with my family. That helped a little bit.

Went home and took a nap and Ryan contributed to the uterus contracting. ;) That helped, a lot!

We headed over to Mary Liz's for our routine Sunday night dinner. Ryan, Elijah , and I walked to the playground in her neighborhood and had some fun playtime! That 1 mile walk there and back was awesome! We made a new friend at the playground and her daddy said they were expecting again, too! They were pretty much just like us just 2 months behind. We had fun talking about the kiddos and comparing notes! :)

After we got home and put Elijah to sleep, I called the on-call nurse to see if I passed the test to go to the hospital. I got a call from Penny saying they had just called her and said they had me down to come in!! So, I passed! (In case I didn't mention this before, Penny is a L&D (Labor and Delivery) nurse there at Seton)

I called my Aunt, who came to stay with Elijah, and she was here in in a jiffy! Ryan and I finished up some last minute things (I washed dishes and Ryan updated my labor mix on the iPod.), we packed up or things in the car and we were off!! Yay!

Yup...still waiting.

I have thankfully made it through the weekend without giving birth, so now that my doc is back I'm on the rampage again to induce labor. My first adventure? I got pulled over tonight on our way home from marriage group.

It's not really as bad as it sounds. :) Our right headlight had burned out, so that was his reason for pulling me over. The poor cop didn't really have a chance. Luckily, I left my purse in the trunk of the car, so I got to get out and show off my very rounded preggy belly. Then when I pulled my license out and showed him my brand new license, I'm sure he noticed that my birthday was YESTERDAY. On top of that, we didn't know the light was out, my oh-so-adorable kiddo was talking in the backseat at him, and as I got out of the car to get my purse, I'm sure he noticed my puppy pad. How can you give a woman who's so obviously close to labor with a miserable looking husband, a loud but cute toddler, and she just celebrated her bday, a ticket??? Answer? You can't. Off with a warning. :D

So, I'm going to try everything I know to try to get these contractions started. While I get started, do any of you have any advise of your own to achieve this goal??