Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Haidan Hylarides' Birth Story- May 11th 2012 the best day of my life!

It's taken exactly 1 month and 9 days for me to have a chance to sit at the computer and think. Think then type (with one hand while nursing I might add). Better late than never right? Here is the official birth story (with the aid of the notes I took on my phone while in the hospital) of the new man in my life.


Introducing Haidan Berry Hylarides:
Now, where I left off in my previous post. It was 5pm Thursday May 10th, I hadn't been able to sleep/rest at all that day because I knew there was too much that needed to be done. My day started at 7am. By 8pm I knew it was contraction time and that I should record/time them as best possible. Being a new-age kinda gal I downloaded a "contraction counter" app, but the contractions were so close together and so hard to distinguish that I soon gave up. By 10pm I knew I needed to make a decision: 1. wait until the contractions were unbearable, 2. wait for the "gush" of water breaking, or 3. go to the hospital and figure my shit out. We went with option number 3 and in the 15 minute car ride I had 3 contractions, in the parking lot I had 3 more, and walking to the labour ward I had 2 more to make it clear I had made the right decision. We were put into a room to get monitored and measured and then we played the waiting game...
 Patiently waiting through contractions
 Our last "just the two of us" photo. weird
daddy keeping busy


11pm rolled around and the residents suggested I go for a walk around the halls of the hospital. They obviously weren't reading my blog, because they would have known how hard it was for me to move around let alone walk the last couple weeks. Paired with some lovely contractions, my lower back/hip pain was eventually unbearable. I walked for an hour and had two really strong contractions before giving up hope on a "natural" child birth. (side note: people say "natural" child birth and mean no epidural, I think they're just silly... child birth of any sort is natural? It is after all what our bodies were made for!) I believe I mentioned something about "This kid just might be an only child after all" to W as I breath through contractions, all I could think to say or do while trying to exhale is "ok, ok, okkkkk, ooookkkkk, ok ok ok... ok its done" which W found quite funny to listen to.We were put into a birth room which was nice and big at around 1am, OFFICIALLY May 11th 2012! I was still about 4cam dilated at this point and my new best friend with the epidural was on his way to making me the happiest mommy-to-be. As he did his business in my back I had 3 more rough contractions that were more intense than the last, in part because I had to stay super still (or go paralized thanks to mr. man putting needles in my back).
It was 2am and I was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I was 7-8cm dilated, had a completely numb right leg and a mostly numb left leg and some serious numb bum tingly action happening. At 5:45am I am fully dilated and ready to push this baby out! Time to wait for the "urge-to-poo/ pressure-down-there" contractions and giver! I push every contraction, three pushes for 10 seconds each (I felt no pain and the pushing was great!) and am told that I have two hours to push this monster out before they need to use a vacuum/forceps. As I push I'm told that little bean has his face side ways instead of down (the easiest way to push out a human head is when it's faced down) so I lay on my left, then my right, then on all fours until he's finally ready.


Shit got real. fast. W watched as a little head and body came into the world exactly at 7am on that Friday morning (May 11th 2012), and he was placed on my chest. I'd love to say that I was in tears and so was W... but I think I was in such shock as to how easy and painless the whole thing was that all I could say was "Hello little man, I'm your momma and here's your daddy". The nurse took him away to get cleaned and measured so W took pictures, it wasn't until I saw W holding him in the rocking chair that I burst into tears. His first moment being a Daddy and I could see the tears in his eyes. What an amazing thing to experience right? Haidan weighed in exactly at 7pounds and 48cm long (about 19 inches) and being the goof that I am I said to the nurse "WOW that was great! I could do that again!" It was appropriately a beautiful sunny day, to welcome the newest member of our family 9 days early.
We had a lovely visit from Grandma Hylarides while I got to have a warm shower, then learned the tricks of breastfeeding for the first time (the start of a long haul down the breastfeeding road). We were moved into a recovery room (which was a shared room with another new mommy) and it was a lot smaller than I expected. The woman we shared a room with had just had her 3rd child via c-section and her baby cried (ie screamed) every 2 hours... all night long. Let me just leave that story at: she was a loud baby while Haidan slept the whole time, she had 100 visitors that were loud and intruding, and I was NOT impressed with her at all.
That Friday W learned how to bathe, change and taco wrap Haidan. I video taped his first bath of course, we saw the on site paediatrician who gave us some information about little Haidans balls that hadn't dropped (we have 6-8 months for them to drop and then we have to worry if they haven't arrived) and changed his diaper again. This time he pooped mid-change and peed in his eye and all over his nice clean little body, that was a fun little accident! 
 His first outfit (as I look at these pictures I can't BELIEVE how much he's changed already!)


That night W went home to deal with our furr child Bossy and Haidan and I set in for our first night together, I didn't know how I could possibly sleep with such a new and exciting little human being in my care. I called for help a few times in the night for some help breastfeeding and was shown different positions each time. I couldn't allow my little wonder child to sleep in the plastic tupperware container they put in the recovery room so I spent the night sleeping with him on a pillow beside me (probably not recommended but tooo darn bad!).


Saturday morning I got a little wake up call (not in the literal sense) by the morning nurse that came to check when Haidan fed and was changed last... I forgot to change his diaper in the night and said "Oh I guess we forgot" (not even noticing that I said "we") and the nurse said "OH honey there is no "we" this is YOUR responsibility now, YOU are in charge and have to make sure you do these things"... OOPS that'll be the last time I ever forget to change a diaper in the middle of the night! 
By lunch time the nurse had given us the A-OK for us to leave, so we had a few discharge papers and Haidan had a hearing test to take and we were out of that hospital and home by 4pm. Saturday May 12th was my mom's birthday so we celebrated with a home made meal from W's mom... a love dinner with new parents and newest grandma's!
 Our first family photo... I'm so in love with this picture!
 First day home, looks like I'm 6 months pregnant, but it goes away girls it goes away :)
 So bundled up :)
 Sleeping baby, sleeping daddy at our first doctors appointment
 SO little and cute omg the yellow socks kill me!
Shhhh baby sleeping (and mommy too!)


This is where I'll stop because it's taken me FAR too long to write and finish this story off, next time I get a chance I will be writing about my experiences with a new born, breastfeeding, the things they don't tell you about labor (from my point of view), and all things parent-hood that I TOTALLY didn't expect out of myself or W either!
Thanks for reading and waiting ever so patiently!
xo