More Pictures of Quincy

Myra doesn't quite know what to think about her new baby brother.  

 

Alice is completely enamored with him.  She keeps on saying, "Do we really have a new baby or am I dreaming?"  Bruce told her to pinch herself to figure out if she was dreaming or not.  After that she kept on asking me, "So, if I'm dreaming does the pinch hurt or does it not hurt?"

 

Memaw left on Saturday morning, after spending a week with us.

 

GramME arrived Saturday afternoon, and will spend this upcoming week with us.

 

A few of you asked if I had the VBAC I wanted, and yes I did!  The foley bulb was put in at 9am and fell out at 3pm, at which point I was 4cm dilated and was having mild, consistent contractions.  At that point, they put me on a Pitocin drip at half the dosage of a normal Pitocin induction, increasing the dosage every hour.  At around 11pm, the contractions were at the point where they weren't ever ending.  I think Pitocin does that--there's not really a break in-between, just one on top of the other.  I was still 4cm dilated at that point and the Bradley Method of relaxing was just not working.  I decided to stick it out for one more hour, figuring I could do anything for one more hour and decided to ditch the Bradley and just try to cope.  Well, at 11:45pm my water broke on it's own and without that natural cushioning, the contractions were at a whole new level of intensity.  At 11:50 I said to Bruce, "Epidural--now!   Now, now, now, now, now," as he was rushing out the door.  I didn't actually get any relief until 12:30am, so I did technically make it an hour:)  

There was also a very sharp stabbing pain in my lower left abdomen after the epidural, that I thought for sure was my uterus rupturing, but it was only a 'hot spot' or 'window' in the epidural.  I told the anesthesiologist that I could deal with it, but he said I might as well have complete relief if I was getting the epidural, and shot me up with some extra strong stuff before I even had the chance to ask more about it or make the decision on my own.  The nurse checked me, and again I was only at 4cm, and she also put in an internal monitor to check for contraction strength and said that they were very strong (really, I didn't know that!).  She told me to call her when I felt pressure.  Around 4:10am I felt something, but wasn't sure if it really was pressure, I was so numb.  I decided to call the nurse just in case and the little goober was practically crowning.  The doctor came in and I pushed a few times and was making some good progress but Quincy's heart rate started dropping to the point where the doctor was getting concerned, so he asked if he could do an episiotomy to get the baby out more quickly.  We went ahead and did that and then I tore some more beyond the cut.  

I have to say, it wasn't all that I'd hoped for--I'd hoped to go completely natural and feel the urge to push and have more of a connection with it all, but I feel like I really did the best I could.  I didn't have any nausea with the epidural like I had with the spinals on my c-sections, so that was nice.  It was really awesome that as soon as Quincy came out they sat him right on my chest.  However, it only lasted a couple of minutes because I lost a lot of blood and my blood pressure started dropping and that made me nauseated.  I had to throw up a couple of times and the heat of the baby on me was just making everything worse, so they took him away and started cleaning him up.  Because of the blood loss, I had to get tested a few times over the course of our stay to determine if I would need a blood transfusion, but my levels stayed high enough not to warrant one.

We were moved to a new room and once the epidural wore off, I headed off to the bathroom with the nurse at my side, only to figure out all was not right.  I passed out in the bathroom and came to with five or six nurses around me and putting smelling salts under my nose and having this overwhelming urge to throw up.  I felt like I was in hell.  I did throw up and they did eventually find a way to get me back into the bed using this little cart.  We tried again a few hours later and again, I start to pass out--another trip on the cart.  But really, there was no reason to walk to the bathroom because I wasn't able to go anyways,  They emptied me with a catheter a few times and then I was finally able to go small amounts at a time on my own.  I also had these unbelievable pains in my abdomen and back, like I'd pulled every muscle in my torso and also the muscle that is used to lift up my left leg was completely useless.  Anyways, the reason I'm mentioning all these things, is I've decided that c-sections aren't all that bad compared to my experience with a VBAC.  I know other people have had much better goes with a VBAC, but for me, I've decided it's a toss up!

 

Quincy is here!

Well, we checked into the hospital on Fri at 8 am, and had the baby by 4:30 am Saturday.  He was 10 lbs 6 oz, and 22 inches long.  The first thing I said to Faith when I saw him was "He looks like your Dad!"  So he fits the name we had already chosen, Quincy Fearing Parkinson.  See our blog post from October titled "Pepaw Photo Shoot" to see for yourself whether there is any resemblance with Pepaw Fearing.   I'm sure Faith will add more details later, when she feels up to it, but here are a few pictures.

Getting his hair done.  

Stretching. 

Nice cheeks.

The Race is On!

My good friend Kari (who's due March 5th) is one of those lucky souls who goes into labor without really knowing it and has the baby so quickly, getting to the hospital in time is quite the feat.  In fact, with her second, she delivered in their master bathroom.  Anyways, she's feeling ready to go any day now, so the race is on to see who gets their baby first.  My money is on Kari!

Fashionably Late

For those of you thinking to yourselves, exactly when was Faith's due date?  Shouldn't she have had that baby by now?  Wonder no longer--I thought I'd give everyone an update, since it seems like my children enjoy being fashionably late. 

My due date was on February 4th--that's right, 12 days ago.  Maybe this is my just desserts, since, according to my mom, I came almost a month later than my scheduled due date.  I'm assuming due dates are a little more accurate these days, but still, I was obviously not being very cooperative. 

But the baby does need to come out eventually, and one cannot wait forever, especially someone who has had two previous c-sections and the added risk of a uterine rupture the larger the baby gets.  So, the plan is to go in for an induction on Friday morning if the baby has not come by then.  What?  an induction?  you might be thinking, for those of you who have heard me explain over and over again that I can't be induced because I've had a previous c-section.  Well, I can't have a normal Pitocin induction, but I can try a mechanical induction, which involves using a Foley balloon method to mechanically force my cervix to open and hopefully induce labor.  I'd never heard of it until a few weeks ago, but my doctor introduced it to me as something he often uses as a more natural way to induce women so they do not experience the hard contractions that Pitocin brings on.  I am excited to give it a try and see how it goes.  If it doesn't work, I'll stay in the hospital and have a c-section.  So, definitely a baby by the 18th or 19th.  I did mention to Bruce that the 20th sounds so much nicer because it used to be my basketball number, but let's hope that if I do go into labor it will not last that long!!!!

Myra is usually the one I have to drag to appointments, which have been frequent recently now that I'm past my due date.  The last few appointments I have had to be hooked up to a monitor to do a non-stress test.  This requires that the baby be awake and moving, which of course means the baby is asleep most of the time when they're trying to do this test.  A couple of times, I've asked Myra to try to talk to the baby to wake him up so the doctor can collect the data he needs.  Well, this last appointment, both Myra and Alice were with me and I'd been hooked up to the monitor for probably half an hour.  The girls were doing pretty well, but getting antsy, when I overheard Myra whisper to Alice, "If we wake that baby up, then we can get outta here!"  They proceeded to concoct a plan to get up close to my belly and yell, "wake up, Quincy!"  It was fun to see them working together, though their brother was still uncooperative.

Birthday & Crafting

Happy birthday to me!  The girls had fun counting out 32 candles, putting them in the cake and then licking each and every one after I'd blown them out.  

Since we haven't had much scheduled lately in anticipation of the baby, the girls and I have had some extra time to be crafty!  Here is what Myra chose as her valentines to take to school.  I bought the kit at Micheal's and before I had a chance to help her or even give her instructions, she'd started putting them together based on the picture on the box.  She even found a pen and started drawing the mouths without help.  We were very impressed!

I found this idea online and Alice and I thought it was pretty neat.  We got the photo cards for free--just had to pay $2.49 for shipping.

I couldn't find the right color changing pad cover, so I made this one out of minky, using an old cover as my pattern.

Last night the girls and I made heart shaped crayons using old candy molds.  This is the PERFECT craft for kids to do, at least mine.  What kid isn't excited about taking the paper off of crayons and breaking them?  It's what they would do normally, if I didn't stop them, so they thought it was great that I was asking them to do it.  Alice slept with hers--I found them next to her bed.  She thought the most amazing thing was that they actually worked like real crayons. 

I've been getting rather bored at night, so I started making these flannel burp clothes for friends who are having babies soon.  So, some of you might be seeing these in the next few days!  I think next on my list are binky clips...  All I know is this baby better come soon--they're starting to get to know me at Jo-Ann's!