Baby Owen Arrives

On Sunday, December 27th, we had Nic and Heidi's family over for dinner.  They stayed and played for a while and it was all good times.  An hour and a half after they left, my water broke.  We called them and Heidi headed back over.  We were not exactly ready.  At my appointment the previous Thursday, my cervix was hard and I was dilated all the way to a 1.  Ha!  I figured I had a long time to go before baby was coming.  I called the doctor and he had me head to the ER.  We took pictures of the water (which all the nurses thought was hysterical), packed quickly and raced out the door.

It was a long night.  I wasn't in labor, and the doctor didn't come in until almost 4am.  When he arrived, he noted that I was low on fluid and recommended that we induce.  He wanted to wait until the next doctor on call came in to make the final decision.  The next doctor came in Monday morning and didn't even give us an option--she decided to induce again because of my fluid levels.  She started with a half dose of cervical ripening drugs, and I quickly went into labor.  However, I really didn't progress much after five hours.  She gave another half dose and I went into harder labor with pretty strong contractions less than two minutes apart.  Another five hours passed and I was still only dilated to a three.  I figured she'd finally give a full dose or start on petosin, but I got the feeling she was tired and didn't really want to do my baby.  That might be unfair but that is how it felt.  At almost 1am, my labor had pretty well died out and I was exhausted (I hadn't slept since Saturday night).  She said I could continue walking the halls all night or she could give me Benadryl and we'd start all over in the morning.  I was full of anxiety by this point and I'd been walking the halls for many hours, so I opted for the Benadyl.  Perhaps the worst part of this wait was my hunger! No real food since dinner on Sunday and it was 1am on Tuesday.  My nurse convinced the doc to let me have a sandwich, which really saved me!

Tuesday morning, I woke up after a delicious five hours of sleep and was ready to conquer the world.  I was still anxious--I was only a three and my kids were getting babysat.  It looked like this was going to be a lonnnngggg deal.  The next doc on call was stuck on the plane home from Alaska and so another doctor filled in.  He stripped my remaining membranes and started me on petosin.  I started in on hard labor.  At 1pm, I measured again at a three.  The doc was getting nervous and so were we!  The Alaska doc showed up and discovered the issue--Owen was sunny side up and unable to progress down the birth canal.  By this point, I was in plenty of pain so she had me get my epidural.

When I got the epidural, it hit a nerve bed and went straight down my right leg.  Nowhere else.  The anesthesiologist (who incidentally got stuck in traffic for an extra hour on the way to the hospital) didn't want to replace my epidural unless necessary so I did another hour with the pain until she realized it really wasn't taking.  While replacing the line, she dropped the only syringe in her kit.  They had to go down three flights to get another one.  While in route, my blood pressure dropped dangerously low to below 70 over something.  I started sweating and throwing up all over the place, among other unpleasantness.  Eventually it was all resolved and I geared up for many more hours of labor.

My Alaska doc had me lay in a special position and pray that baby would flip.  I laid that way for four hours, during which I really enjoyed a conversation with my mom, and I worked out more child care arrangements.  My doctor went to bed, assuming it would take a while.  However, I talked to my nurse and told her it felt like I needed to push but I was pretty sure I was just a three or four.  I asked her to check me and lie to me if I was still the same.  She checked, and I was fully dilated.  19 minutes later, baby Owen was born at 9:59pm on Tuesday, December 29.  He was almost identical in size to Kate--7 lbs 10 oz and 20 3/4 inches long (Kate was a quarter inch shorter).  He looks JUST like Kate did as a newborn.  He's definitely got the Edwards features--eyes, chicken legs, and crazy long fingers and toes.

I don't know if I'm just better at embracing moments now or what, but his birth was one of the happiest moments of my life.  I was able to watch in mirrors and feel him emerge and then had time with him skin to skin.  I was so deliciously happy and my heart was so full.  This baby is a miracle and I can never deny that.  It was a very spiritual moment.  Our doctor said it was one of the most memorable births she'd ever experienced.  I love her for making it feel special for everyone.

By the time everything was settled and baby was cleaned up, it was 2am and I was obviously tired.  The nurse offered to take the baby--something they refused to do with Kate.  I jumped all over that and took in a few hours of sleep.  It was an excellent hospital experience.  I had four doctors and nine nurses throughout labor and delivery alone.

Some pretty flowers from Mom and Dad Edwards.

More beauties from Nic and Heidi, with my favorite treat attached.  

I was so excited for the kids to meet Owen.  They came the next afternoon.  It was everything I hoped for--lots of smiles, cooing and love all around.

They thought Owen's pooper was the funniest thing and giggled throughout the change.  They especially like it when Owen peed on Brady.  Brady's comment?  Diaper 1 of 10,000.

Zac: "We waited a long time for you!" and "His fingers are so long!"

Kate:  "Don't feel sad.  Your big sister is right here."

Checking out his hair:

Zac made a comment about how he remembers kissing Kate in the hospital, too.

She really planted one on Owen.

I love the way the nurses wrap the babies.  They were a lot better at it than I am.

Hawaii hospital food.  Ew.

I can't say enough how grateful we are to Heidi and Nic and their kids.  Many of our friends that my kids are very comfortable with were on the mainland.  It was lousy timing for Owen to arrive, and Heidi embraced having our kids.  I arranged a few other options and she kept telling them she had it.  Our kids adore her kids, and think Nic and Heidi are family.  So do we.  They completely saved us for this experience and many, many others in our past 8 years of friendship.

Brady cleaned the entire house top to bottom before I came home.  That man knows me well.  It was a disaster, because we thought we had a full week plus before Owen was coming, and we'd just been camping.  That's just one of his big gestures that has had him racing around like crazy and trying to stay afloat since Owen's arrival.

The kids are in love.  We are in love.  The first 12 days of this baby's life including sleeping most of the day and most of the night.  The kids insisted on holding him every chance they could get.  So far, Owen has not caught the cold that I came down with mid-way through my hospital stay, and later passed to Brady and Kate.  Here's to hoping colostrum really is liquid gold.

The kids also deserve some major kudos.  They were in Christmas break and stayed pretty chill and content to being home for the rest of break.  These are kids that are typically outside several hours a day.  Thankfully, we had toys from Christmas and later from Zac's birthday to keep us all entertained.

I look at these pictures and can't believe how much this baby has changed already.

Some fun facts about Owen:

• He is a champ at nursing.
• He pooped about 3 times every nursing session for the first week.
• He could only open his left eye for the first few days after birth.
• He can curl his toes around your finger.  Yep, this kid has Brady toes.
• We think that maybejustmaybe he has red hair.  It's definitely not blond, at least for now.
• He has a little dimple in his chin which is the only feature I can take credit for.
• He has some good lungs, but we didn't hear them until the start of week 3.
• He gets called Zac and Kate more often than Owen.  That's the curse of being baby #3.

We did have some funny moments.  Owen's needed several re-checks for his weight, hearing, and potential jaundice.  Things were all good but it was quite a bit of back and forth.  We also had to go in on a Sunday when his eye was oozing green.  Right after the visit, we were at the park and Zac jumped 8' off a play structure to avoid getting tagged.  He wailed in pain, and his foot was swollen.  We went in the next day for X-rays, and thankfully it was just a sprain or other form of trauma.  He's still swollen, but recovering.

I thought I recovered really fast, but at the two week mark, I started bleeding heavily.  I went in after several days and had some problems that needed to be addressed, including a baseball sized blood clot sitting on my cervix.  Combine that with several back-to-back debilitating migraines, and a baby that is suddenly not content at all in the night, and you have a recipe for Disaster Karen.  It's been hard and I haven't felt well.  But I think I'm about to turn a corner!  I can feel it!  In the meantime, I've accepted help from friends and my heart is full of gratitude holding this baby and sending my kids on playdates.

We are missing family more than ever because there's nothing like showing off your baby to them.  We are looking forward to my parents visiting at the end of this week.  I wish I could come to the mainland, too, but that visit has to wait until May when Eric gets married.

We are a family of 5!  I can't believe it!!