1 week old!

Even though I should "technically" be on bedrest right now. I know a lot of you would like to have an update on Zack and how things are going.

I'd like that thank Little Miss for updating my blog while we were in the hospital. I wish we would have had a laptop so I could keep up with everyone but we are so old school.

The story (with pictures)

Warning... this is going to be a long post, you may want to just skip to the pictures... LOL

Tuesday (7/9) night I had Bunco with the girls in my neighborhood. My sister Deanna is also part of the bunco group. I originally wasn't going to go because I was suppose to be on bedrest but my sub had cancelled and I was BORED, and I love Bunco! Well Deanna insisted we walk to bunco to get things "started" with labor since I was officially two days overdue. So we walked to Tiffany's house which isn't a huge walk but for a 40 week pregnant women it was exhausting. We also walked home. She wouldn't even let me cut across the grass at my own house.

Wednesday morning I woke up with a little bit of back pain. I figured it was how I was sleeping. But as the day progressed I realized the pain was actually contractions. I started timing them around 3 o'clock, just to see how far apart they were. The came every 7 minutes . My doctor told me that when they were 5 minutes apart then I should go to the hospital. So I waited. Bob got home around 4:30 and we kind of milled around the idea of going to hospital. I didn't want them to send us home because I wasn't far enough along so we continued to wait. About 5:30 the contractions were every 5 minutes on the dot. So we headed to the hospital.

They got us into a room pretty quickly and checked me to see how dilated I was. I was at a 2+ and 90% effaced. They debated about having us walk around the hospital for an hour to see if I would dilate to at least a 3 before admitting us. But one of the nurses noticed how high the babies heart rate was and we were officially admitted. On a side note.... if you are nurse and going to check a women vaginally CUT YOUR NAILS! We were officially admitted and given a room in labor and delivery. From here I'm not sure exactly how long we waited or at what time things happened. All I know is I layed in that delivery room from about 6:00 pm to 10:00 am waiting to dilate to a 10. At one point they tried patocin (sp?) but the baby's heart rate would spike and/or lower during most of the contractions. At one point his heart rate was all over the chart. The nurses ran in and gave me a quick shot to stop the contractions. They immediately called the doctor on call (my doctor was out of town) and he came to check my progress. The nurses still thought I was at a 4 but when Dr. Roth checked me I was dilated to a 6. So we continued to wait. The contractions were still every 5 minutes apart. Throughout this time Bob tried to sleep as much as he could and I know that I dozed off a few times. I'd like to thank my friend the Epidural for helping me not feel any of the contractions. My mom was there with us also and I'm not sure she slept at all.

About 4 or 5 hours after Dr. Roth checked me last he made his rounds to see how much I had progressed. Nothing was happening. I was still dilated to a 6 and the baby's heart rate was still high. So we/the doctor decided that we should do a c-section. Luckily a few times throughout this ordeal we were told there was a chance we would have to do a c-section so we prepared, and at this point ready to see our little guy.

This is a picture of Bob and I just before I was wheeled into the operation room.

It didn't take them long to strap me to the table and inject more of the epidural into my system. They did a test to make sure I didn't feel anything and they were on their way. Bob stayed behind the screen that was set up. Only looking once and saw that one of the doctors had blood sprayed on her face. After that he was by my side the entire time. I saw the NICU nurse rush our little guy to a corner of the room. The doctors knew that he had a bowel movement already and the nurses were there to get all the stuff out as quickly as possible. Bob didn't see them rush by so I let him know so he didn't miss anything. It was scary to not hear my baby crying. It took them about a 1 1/2 minutes to get him crying but I loved hearing that sound. They continued to work on him for about 1/2 hour while the doctors put my organs back in place and stitched me up. I got to see our little boy for only a few seconds and didn't get to hold him until almost an hour to hour in a half later. But he looked healthy and that's all I cared about. Bob went with the nurses to the NICU to finish up with our little boy. And I was left to wait until I was put back together again.

One of the first pictures of our little guy!

It's funny laying on the table completely awake knowing that just behind the screen my organs are all displayed. At one point the doctor let me know that I have beautiful ovaries. I guess that is good thing. Also being awake I could see some of what was going on on the other side of the screen. I tried to look but the light they were using was VERY reflective and I could see bits and pieces of what was going on. I just pretended it was TV show and not actually me. I also was getting impatient to be finished because my arms and shoulders were killing me. I was so happy when I saw them finishing, and the doctors told me I was done.

Finally I was wheeled back into the labor and delivery room. I was REALLY groggy from all the epidural that they gave to me. But I was happy to see my Mom, Grandma, Grandpa and Dad were all there waiting for me. We had to wait for a little while until Bob got there and finally our little guy was wheeled into us. The nurses immediately tried to get me to breastfeed but I didn't know what I was doing and he was not corpora ting. Finally the nurse told me I had to either breastfeed him or give him a bottle in the nest 5 minutes. Since we couldn't figure out how to breastfeed I gave him a bottle. (I wish I would have had more time to try and figure out breastfeeding)

We spent 4 days in the hospital.

Bob's first diaper change. It ended up being a false alarm but good practice

Our first family picture.Some bullet points of our stay:

• I'm so thankful for all the people who were able to come visit us. I wish I would have been able to spend more time with everyone. My bed was in such a weird spot that for the most part I couldn't see anyone that was sitting on the couch unless I was completely laying down. But we are so thankful for all everyone!
• Nurses suck. Okay not all nurses. We actually had a lot of really good nurses that tried to make our stay at the hospital as pleasant as possible. But being there for so long we went through a lot of nurses. They tried to help with breastfeeding but each one had a different method and Zack fought us the entire time. The times I thought he had latched on I'm pretty sure he was just using me as a pacifier. But we did have a few nurses that were not helpful at all. They would forget what I had asked for, leave my room saying they would be right back and come back and hour later, or just not come back at all. We were forgotten a lot. On the day I was to have my staples out they kept putting us off until finally at 11:30 pm I got a girl that was training to take my staples out. She did a good job, but I was a little nervous when she said she was just training... yikes.
• We also were put into a room before it was completely ready. We were missing a lot of stuff that we should have had or been aware of. Only on the last day did we find out that there was a book we were suppose to get that introduced us to what to expect from our stay. We also missed Discharge Orientation because no one told us that we were suppose to go the day before. How was I suppose to know that! We were also suppose to get a diaper bag when we left but the CNA never brought it to us -- I only knew about the bag because my friend delivered just a day before us and she told me about it and that it had a great book in it. Bob ended up going back to the hospital to get it.

Bullet points on Zack

• We weren't able to get Zack circumcised because when the pediatrician went to preform the procedure his "pee hole" was just a tad too low and they wouldn't have enough foreskin to make it work. Of course they only found this out after making the first cut so our poor little guy had a 1/2 cut penis. We made an appointment with a urologist and hopefully will have it fixed in no time.
• His respiratory was low and few times he stopped breathing while in nursery. But by the time we left the hospital he had worked out all the kinks.
• The nurses also thought he had a heart murmur but the pediatrician never heard it and when they thought they did they were pretty sure it was nothing serious. So far he has been 100% fine!

Being home with a newborn has definitely been challenging. It's so scary leaving the hospital knowing that their aren't any nurses when I need them. But my family has been here helping us adjust to our new lifestyle.

But I'll admit our little guy is adorable! Here are a few more pictures!

Tummy Time

This is Zack stretched out in his cradle! I love it.

We've also had a few hickups since getting home. Tuesday Morning (7/15 about 5 am) I got Zack to sleep so I layed back down on the couch to catch a little sleep before the next feeding. But I couldn't catch my breath. And when I coughed I could feel something in my lungs. So I woke up Bob and we called my mom to come watch Zack. Then we headed to the ER. 6 hours later -- a X-ray, CT Scan and Cardio something or other all they had figured out was

1. I wasn't pregnant -- yes they spent 2 hours trying to figure that out even though I told them I had just been released from the Maternity Ward after having a Baby with a C-Section scar to prove it!

2. I had fluid in my lungs (but didn't have pneomia)

3. And my legs were swollen.

I got some medicine to relieve the swelling in my legs and set up an appointment with my OB for the next day as a followup.

At the OB he said my C-section was infected and put me on antibiotics, and my blood pressure was still really high and I was put back on bed rest. Not fun with a newborn. So life at the Speakmans has been pretty interesting. Again thank goodness for my family and for Bob.

This next week is going to be interesting. This will be the first time I'll be completely alone with Zack for most of the day. I hope I'm ready.