Jonathan Abraham Arias!
Jack was born Saturday February 12th at 6:01 am. He weighed in at a whopping 9 pounds 4 oz and was 20.75 inches. Nobody expected him to be that big. I had a feeling he wasn't going to be small, but I wasn't expecting a 9 pounder!
Friday night Phil and I went to bed around 11 and shortly after that I had a really painful contraction, it hurt so much I was kind of taken aback. I wondered if it could actually be happening but I didn't have another contraction for over 20 minutes and it wasn't that strong so I decided not to get my hopes up. For the next hour and a half I was having contractions about 15-20 minutes apart, some were strong and some were not that great. I couldn't sleep so I went to watch TV and time the contractions. I was also feeling really nauseated. Around 3:00 they started coming every 7 minutes and they were getting pretty strong. I knew my dr wanted me to go in as soon as they became regular, but I didn't want to show up at the hospital too early so I decided to wait a little longer. At 3:30 I called the nurse because the contractions were really painful and were 6-7 minutes apart. As I was talking to her I got super nauseous and ran into the bathroom and puked in the sink. She said, "okay you are definitely in labor, I'm going to let you get in a car and get down to the hospital." Tell me something I don't know. At 3:45 I went and woke Phil up mid contraction and told him we needed to leave ASAP. We called our neighbor across the hall, who happened to be out at a birthday party but was really close so she was at our house about 5 minutes later. Livi had woken up at this point and kept saying she wanted to go with us. Luckily, she loves Dora our neighbor so when she showed up she was fine to let us leave. We got to the hospital about 4:30 and I was dilated about 6-7 cm. The contractions were SO painful, I seriously thought about an epidural, thank goodness Phil was there and he was so encouraging. Every time a contraction came he would rub my back and tell me to think about holding Jack and think about how wonderful it was going to be. That helped so much and made it a little easier to deal with the pain. To deal with the contractions I was sitting facing the back of a chair and Phil was rubbing my back. However, every time a contraction came the babies heart rate would drop so I had to change position. I got on the bed and layed on my side and would grab the rail and squeeze like mad when a contraction hit. Of course, Phil was right there rubbing my back and encouraging me. Within an hour I was dilated to a 9 and almost there! The Dr. came in and broke my water, and shortly after that I started to feel like I needed to push. I have no idea what time I started to push, I think it was around 5:40. After one especially productive push I felt the babies head come out part way. The Dr. was in the room but he was taking his time putting gloves on etc. when the nurse alerted him to the impending baby. He looked over and said, "oh wait!" and hurried to put on his gown and glasses and everything else all while telling me not to push. I knew he was right there and with one or two more pushes he would be out so it was so hard to just sit there. Sure enough within 2 pushes Jack was out and I immediately felt such relieve. There is no better feeling then having that baby out and not dealing with contractions anymore! The cord was wrapped around his neck twice, but thankfully he was fine. That is probably why his heart rate was dropping.
Before he was born the Dr. was saying he thought Jack would be about 8 pounds, but when he came out Dr Burkehead said, "that is NOT an 8 pound baby. I'll be a monkeys uncle if he is less than 9 pounds."
Because of his weight they checked his blood sugar and it measured fine. After they took him to the nursery one of the nurses noticed that he was shaking so she decided to check his sugar levels again and they had dropped below the "safe" range. They gave him some formula to see if they could get it back up but that didn't work so they had to keep him in the nursery and I wasn't allowed to hold him or feed him. Needless to say I had a very weepy afternoon. That night they transferred him to the NICU so they could give him an IV of a sugar solution. Thankfully I was allowed and encouraged to nurse him there. The next day his sugar was measuring great and they began to slowly lower the dose in an attempt to wean him off the solution. When I went in for a feeding in the afternoon his IV was leaking and his levels were looking good even after a reduced dose, so the pediatrician decided to turn off the IV and see how he does. He was able to keep his blood sugar up and that night was transferred back down to the general nursery! We got home on Valentines Day and I can't think of a better way to celebrate the day of love. Even though Phil was busy taking care of Livi and visiting me at the hospital he still stalked the freezer full of Toaster Strudels as a Valentine's surprise. He knows me well.
Jack is so adorable and soft and sweet smelling. He looks so much like my dad when he was a baby. He is also a big sleepy head. I have a hard time keeping him awake to eat. I had heard that you have to be quick while changing little boys' diapers, but I guess I wasn't quick enough. He peed on me and himself during a middle of the night feeding last night.
Livi is the BEST big sister ever. She loves to talk to him and when he gets fussy she tells him it's okay. She covers him with his blanket and tries to put his hat on. She loves kissing his cheeks and petting his head. She definitely wants to be involved in everything he does and it's obvious that she is as smitten with him as the rest of us.
