Welcome to the World Declan!!

My miracle baby is finally here! Declan (Deck-lun) arrived on Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 8:19pm.  He weighed 5 lbs 8.9 oz and was 17 ½ in.

It has been an amazing journey to get him into this world and it seems utterly surreal that he is actually here and I can hold him in my arms.  I love starring at his beautiful face and probably too many times I have cried (tears of joy) for how grateful I am to be his Momma. I already know that he is going to give me a run for my money because let’s face it, he is going to be his father’s son all the way.  He already is with his hatred to sleep at night, just like his Dad.  However, even with sleep deprivation I am so entirely grateful to have him in my life.  I prayed and prayed for this opportunity and it has finally come!

My labor and delivery story wasn’t the one I thought I would have.  On March 26th I went in for my weekly appointment (37 weeks along) to see my doctor.  At the appointment, she had to run to the hospital to check on a patient and I got stuck waiting 2 hours in the room while in my gown to get checked.  Before all the waiting, I had an ultrasound.  I wasn’t suppose to have this ultrasound, but I felt very impressed that I needed it and had asked my doctor and she agreed that we should have one to check baby’s growth.  We weren’t certain how big he was.  I’m so very glad that we did the ultrasound.  We found from the ultrasound that I had elevated umbilical doppler, which means that my blood flow was too great through the umbilical cord and could shut off supply to my baby at any moment.  My doctor when she finally returned said that I needed to be induced because the risk was far too great to wait for him to go to term.  That meant that he would be 3 weeks early.

The nice thing about being induced is it is then scheduled for when you will start labor.  The unfortunate and fortunate thing is I didn’t get to experience labor starting on its own and missed the whole “Oh my water broke!” and the whole rush to the hospital.

We went into the hospital the next night and I was started on pictocin to start my contractions.  The pictocin was at a really low level to just get my body started and to mainly monitor baby to see how he was doing with it.  Hubby and I didn’t get any sleep that night because we were both too nervous and anxious for the baby to come.  We also didn’t know if I would start getting bigger contractions on my own or if I would need the aid of the medicine.

Well, it turns out I needed the aid of the medicine.  The next morning, my nurses turned my dose up and the contractions were a little stronger.  I still could hardly feel them as they kept turning up the dosage on the pictocin.  Finally at 11am (I think?) they came in and broke my water.  It was not a great feeling.  Then very shortly after that my contractions were extremely intense.  I felt like I went from a level 2 on the pain scale to an 8.  I asked for an epidural at that time.

After the epidural, I labored not really feeling contractions for 6 hours.  By the way, epidural is totally the way to go.  I couldn’t really get up and move anyways because of all the IVs and monitoring they had to do so I was already stuck in bed.  The epidural made it so I was more comfortable during the whole procedure.  I know I couldn’t have lasted 6 hours without it.

After 6 hours, I finally got the urge to push and with the help of my nurse I started.  I pushed and pushed and pushed and the baby’s head was down, I was fully dilated, but I wasn’t getting any traction.  My contractions were very inconsistent and were all over the place.  Some would be really close together, but majority of them were too far apart and the baby would slide back up into my pelvis.  Finally after 3 hours of pushing, my doctor said that they were going to use the vacuum to help in getting him here.  If that didn’t work, then they would have to move to a C-Section.  I was determined to get my baby here and pushed my freakin’ hardest and with the help of the vacuum, my baby finally came!

It was such a joyous and emotional roller coaster to hold him in my arms for the first time. The first look I had of him was true love.  I knew instantly I would do anything and everything for my baby boy.  The other truly amazing thing was the transformation with Nate.  I saw him become a father before my eyes and saw how he too was instantly changed.  I was so worried that he would pass out during the delivery, but Nate was as strong as ever and even cut the umbilical cord!

I am so grateful to my dear husband! He has stood by me through all of our infertility struggle and taught me to never give up.  Because of our faith and willingness to not stop until we had our dream come true, we are able to say that we are parents.  Forever our lives will be changed, and how true it is that our world has turned upside down.

We thought we would have another 3 weeks to prepare for our son, but to our surprise we got to meet him early! We got to welcome our baby boy Declan to the world.