First Blog. Ever.

I've done it - I've started a blog!  I figure it's about time to start logging my life happenings for my friends and family to read about, since I'm pretty much a stay-at-home mom now with a family and stuff.  :)  Plus, I enjoy reading my other friends' blogs, so why would anybody pass up on mine?  Just kidding......but I really am going to get this blog rolling.

I had ACTUALLY planned on starting a blog in the hospital right after Delano was born.  But given that the hospital had a crappy WiFi connection (or maybe none at all?), that was a no-go.  So THEN my plan was to get it rolling as soon as I got home.  Needless to say, Delano turned three weeks old two days ago and I am JUST NOW getting the ball rolling.  Ah well.

So I figured for my first few posts I'd play a little bit of catch-up as to what life has been like since I became a mom three weeks ago.  I do keep a journal of my own (via a Word document called "My Life") that I have been updating randomly over the last few years, so I decided to cut and paste my entry from last month about the birth of Double D.  That will definitely start this blog off from the beginning moment as a mom!  So here it is....you can skip it or enjoy it....I know it's a long one!

AUGUST 2012

IT’S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Delano Durante Simington was born at 7:56pm on Thursday, August 16, 2012.  He weighed 7 lbs 5 oz and measured 20 ¾ inches long.

At my doctor’s appointment on Wednesday the 15^th, it was decided that I could check into the hospital to be induced at midnight.  It made me incredibly excited, but also incredibly nervous.  It was really happening!!!  So Lucas and I went home, got the car packed with everything being taken to the hospital, went to dinner at PF Chang’s, and then watched TV until it was time to leave the house. Once we got checked into the hospital, I was hooked up to an IV and a few heart monitors and given a pill right around 1:30am (inserted orally up against my cervix) to attempt to get me to start dilating.  The nurse said it may or may not work, but that she wouldn’t know for 4 hours.  After she left, I did my best to sleep in the hospital bed while Lucas tried his hardest to get some sleep on the not-so-comfy pullout chair.

At 5:30am, the nurse came back in to check the status of my cervix.  Lucky for me, I had dilated to 2 cm!  She asked me if I had been feeling any contractions (to which my answer was no), because the monitor showed that I had been having some for a while.  She then doubled the pill dose and told me she’d be back in another 4 hours.

At 9:30am, the nurse came to check my cervix again.  By this time, I was having some pretty strong and painful contractions.  Since I had reached about 3 cm, I was allowed to have the epidural, which I gladly accepted.  So at approximately 10:00 am, I was given an epidural.  The epidural itself wasn’t that bad…..yes, it was a little painful and yes, it was a weird stinging sensation throughout my body when he started it up, but the worst part was having to sit up, lean over (on top of my contracting belly) and relax my shoulders (HAHA!).  Luckily Lucas stood in front of me as an anchor and helped keep my shoulders down.  Once the epidural was flowing, it was literally a matter of minutes before I felt relief.  Then it was a cake walk after that!  It was a very strange sensation for sure….I could move my legs, and I could feel when people touched them, but I didn’t like it when people touched them (especially rubbed them) because they had that constant tingly “asleep” feeling to them.  After my epidural was good and set, they nurse installed the catheter for my pee.  Didn’t feel a thing.  It was great.  The only real stinky part to the epidural was that I couldn’t lay flat on my back or sit up beyond a certain angle.  The nurse would come in and flip me from side to side every 30 minutes to an hour.  And lying on my left side in the hospital while drugged up was just as crappy as the past several months at home.

The next 8 hours or so were literally spent just waiting things out.  My cervix continued to dilate on its own up until about 7 or 8 cm, when it slowed down its progress to pretty much a halt.  This is about the time I got my first dose of pitocin.  Not too much later, I realized my epidural was wearing off (and man did it wear off FAST).  The anesthesiologist was in the room in no time to strap on another dose, though, and then we were back in business up until about 9 cm, when progress slowed down to a halt again, prompting another dose of pitocin.  A little after 6:00 pm the nurse declared that I was at 10 cm and ready to push!

Dr. Emberson arrived, checked me out for size (haha), and told the 2 nurses in the room to get me started.  Apparently the doctor doesn’t hang around for the whole pushing process….the nurses apparently call him back when the head is coming out and not receding back in during push breaks.  So we started the pushing process, and OMG it was HARD.  Since I couldn’t feel anything but slight pressure while I pushed, it was hard to figure out if I was doing what they wanted me to be doing (“Push down into your bottom”, “Tilt your hips up more”, “Push into your gut not into your legs”, etc).  I only knew if I did what they wanted when they hollered out “Yes!” or “Good job!”.  It was EXHAUSTING.  Absolutely exhausting. 

At some point in time they asked me if I wanted a mirror to see the progress, saying it might help if I could SEE what I was doing since I couldn’t really FEEL what I was doing.  I said sure, so they wheeled over this giant dressing mirror for the festive occasion.  As soon as I saw what THEY were seeing, I cracked up laughing and apologized to everyone in the room for the horrible view J.  However, the mirror DID help me to focus on where to push when I could see progress being made.

I pushed for approximately an hour and 20 minutes, and Delano (“It’s a boy!!”) popped out at 7:56 pm.  They laid him on my chest for a few minutes before Daddy cut the cord and then the nurses took him to his little bed right beside mine.  They finished cleaning him up and doing all the things nurses do while the doctor delivered my placenta and took care of things on “my end”.  It was probably around 8:30 pm when Lucas was finally able to walk out into the waiting room and announce our little arrival, along with his name (which made my mother cry, since Delano was her daddy’s middle name).  My family, Lucas’s family, Amanda and Leah were all part of the waiting room crew.  Jason and Shelley came by right around 9:00, bearing the gift of French fries (per request).  J

The first night with Delano I spent by myself, since I let Lucas go home to get some rest (I wasn’t going to make him sleep on the pull-out chair again, though I thought about it).  Delano and I stayed in our delivery room that night, since all of the recovery rooms were full.  I was concerned about breastfeeding - that Delano wouldn’t take to it right away - but that part went significantly well.  Delano latched on immediately.  Getting up and down was slow and tricky – I wasn’t connected to any machines anymore but the epidural was still wearing off and my body felt like it had just gone to war.  We didn’t get much sleep that first night as we were trying to figure each other out (and Delano wouldn’t stay asleep every time I put him in his bassinet), but we eventually got a couple of hours of sleep in the early morning hours with me reclined in the bed and Delano asleep on my chest.

The next day was spent with visitors from when visiting hours started (9:00 am) up until visiting hours were over (9:00 pm).  Before lunchtime I was moved over into a smaller recovery room, though the bed was larger than the last.  Loads of friends came by and our families were there all day as well.  By 9:00 when the last visitor left, I was ready for a shower and NO visitors!  Lucas stayed in the room with us that night, though he did run home first to take care of all the animal needs. 

The second night was definitely more of a challenge than the first.  It was hard to get any real sleep when nurses were popping in to check on me and the baby (or take the baby to the nursery for certain routine things) every hour, plus Delano was fussy and NOT sleeping and neither Lucas nor I could figure out the ultimate reason.  We fed him, changed him, walked him, rocked him, held him…..he would drift off, but then wake up during “transport” between us and his bassinet.  So then we’d do it all over again.  We eventually asked a nurse about giving him a pacifier, since that’s generally a no-no during at least the first month while breastfeeding, but since he had already established his latch I wondered if it was still such a horrible idea.  The nurse said that it was up to us, that some babies don’t have issues with nipple confusion and that sucking a pacifier may be ultimately what soothes him.  So we decided to give it a shot, and we were glad we did.  He wasn’t a super fan of the pacifier, but after a minute realized it wasn’t so bad and he got quiet.  Lucas eventually ended up asleep in the rocking chair with Delano on his chest.  It was a long, rough, zombie-like night.  Some people said that I shouldn’t have decided to keep Delano in my room, that I should have taken advantage of the hospital nursery while I had the chance.  But I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.  It’s not like two extra nights of sleep would have changed my life, plus I was thankful that those first two nights happened in the hospital when I had nurses around to help and answer questions.  I think it made my third night at home a little bit easier.

On Saturday, we got to go home at lunchtime!  We packed up and headed to the house, and then decided to head out to Portofino’s for some lunch with Lucas’s family and my mom.  After lunch Lucas’s family hit the road back to Nashville, and we were officially on our own!  We were officially our own little family!

 Dinner at P.F. Chang's before heading to the hospital!

 Our moms hanging out in the room with us the next morning.

 There he is!  About an hour after being born.

 I love this picture of my dad.  :)

 Aunt Nicki captured this great picture!

 Daddy with his new munchkin.

 Mama and Delano cuddles.