Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Austin Tyler Bankhead is Here!

I'm officially the worst blogger ever, but I finally have something important to blog about! Our son, Austin Tyler Bankhead, was born on Feb. 1st. He weighed 7 lbs 2 oz and was 20 inches long. He's completely healthy and absolutely perfect. We are enjoying every minute of this. Here is the story of how he came into the world. This is pretty detailed, so sorry if it's TMI. :) For those of you who requested details, here they are.

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.





10 comments:

Aimee said...

Wow, he is adorable. Congratulations you guys! I'm glad you posted your story, they're fun to read and I'm glad everything went so well.

The Blasucci's said...

He's adorable. I'm so glad everything went great! I wish I could be there to meet him. Hopefully we'll see you guys soon!

JamesnMeagan said...

He's so handsome Kara! Yay so exciting to have a little boy. We love our little man too. Congrats! We wish you guys the best!

Dayna said...

kara so cute! I know I haven't talked to you forever but I just happened upon your blog and I think Austin is adorable! How fun for you to be parents and he really is super cute! You are going to be a great mom!

Paige Turnbow said...

Congrats! He is too cute. I'm a little jealous on how easy the birth was. I'm only hoping mine is that easy. You will be a great mom. Enjoy it while it lasts, they stay little for only a little bit.

Amy said...

Hooray! Glad you posted the birth story, because I love those. Can't wait to meet little Bean.

Curtis, Crystal, Vance, Kael, and Merek Birdno said...

Congratulations he is adorable. I am so excited for you guys. It is always fun adjusting to having a baby in the house. Enjoy each and every minute. How is school going? Almost done with year 1 Hurray!!

Laura said...

Yah! Congratulations. You're going to be wonderful parents!

Lindsey said...

yay for kara finally blogging! little austin is so adorable! keep taking lots of pictures and blogging about everything because they really do grow up so fast and it is so fun to look back at the first few months when they are so tiny and helpless. congrats again! i love you guys!

Jake and Mekelle said...

Oooh he's so cute! Congrats!