Austin was supposed to come on February 5th. My maternity leave started on Feb. 1st so I was all excited about having a week off work. I was going to get a pedicure, get my hair done, read some books. Well Austin had other plans. On Monday morning around 6:15 a.m. my water broke on may way to go to the bathroom. It was NOT like the movies, so I wasn't even 100% sure it was my water breaking. We called the hospital and they told us to come in in a couple of hours if I still thought it was my water that had broken. Well, I wasn't having any contractions, so we ate breakfast, I took a shower, it was a very relaxing morning.
We got to the hospital and were admitted around 8:30 a.m. They put me on a mild dose of Pitocin to get my contractions going. The contractions started up around 9:30 a.m. and started out pretty mild. After a few hours they were getting pretty intense. I was only dilated to a 4 at that point, but the anesthesiologist was on the floor giving couple of other girls epidurals, so I decided I may as well get one then instead of wait. The epidural was really scary, but not that painful. The anesthesiologist was REALLY cool and talked me through the whole thing. She was actually about 8 months pregnant herself! So I just held onto Alan and counted while she did her thing. The moment the medicine went in, I was in heaven. Not only did the contraction pain go away, but my hips didn't hurt, NOTHING hurt! I felt better than I'd felt in MONTHS! So I pretty much just laid there and laughed for a while.
For the next few hours, Alan and I watched Arrested Development and played cards. Right in the middle of a game of War, the Dr. came in to check on my progress. When she checked me a couple of hours earlier, I was only a 5, so I wasn't optimistic that I had progressed much. So we were both shocked when she said, "it's time to have a baby!" So they got all their stuff ready and I started pushing around 5:00 p.m. It was just Alan on one leg, the nurse on the other leg, and the Dr. catching. Just like I wanted it, very private. It was very strange, because I couldn't really feel whether I was pushing correctly. It didn't hurt AT ALL thanks to the epidural. But it was still exhausting. During the pushing, his heartrate started dropping a little bit because his umbilical cord was really short so when I was trying to push him out, he was pulling the placenta out with him and not getting far enough. So they used the little vacuum thing for just a couple of pushes and he came out, no problem. He was born at 5:35 p.m.
When they laid him on my chest immediately, I couldn't believe he was real. He wasn't that yucky like I was expecting. His skin already felt soft and his cry was so sweet. I sat there and touched his head and hands and just cried for a few minutes before they took him away to be cleaned up.
We are home from the hospital now and things are going pretty well. Austin is a wonderful sleeper and he gets cuter every day. He has perfect skin and adorable baby features. I think he looks like Alan. He's absolutely beautiful. He's a very calm baby, but he's not a great eater just yet. Breastfeeding has been really challenging for us both. Neither of us knows what we're doing, but we're slowly getting the hang of it. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not going to starve my baby. He has good feedings about half the time and the other half he gets frustrated and fusses a lot and won't latch on. That has made for some long, sleepless nights, but we're getting better.
It has been a pretty crazy, eventful, wonderful week. We are loving being parents and can't believe how much we love this little person who came to live with us. Here are some pictures of our little Bean.
