2 Weeks: Henry Nash

 
    

Henry Nash Stanley

Born October 7th 2015 at 12:15pm

7lbs 10oz

20in

It was two weeks ago from this night that I called Nate to tell him to head home. I called him probably around 7ish to tell him I was having consistant contractions. He was working in Ames. He plowed through the door at 9. He thought I would be waiting in the car ready to go. Unfortunately,  my contractions tapered off abot 20 minutes before he arrived home. So we stayed up and watched a couple of episodes of NCIS and then I decided to head to bed. I warned Nate we would most likely be getting up at 3am to head to the hospital. 

Since this is my 3rd baby, I had a pretty good idea of the signs that my body is going into actual labor. Sure enough 2:10am I woke up and for the next hour I timed my contractions. Around 3:30am I woke Nate up so he could call his parents to come watch the kids. We showered, put the bags in the car and waited for his parents to arrive. When we went over their schedules for the next day, I snuck into each of their rooms and kissed and snuggled them with the biggest tears in my eyes because I knew the next time I would walk into our home, it would be with their baby brother. Cece, as always, snuggled right in and said "I love you". Arlo literally growled and rolled over, I wouldn't expect anything less from my boy.

The car ride to the hospital was quiet and the streets were empty. I held Nate's hand through contractions and we talked about nothing important. We parked and made our way through the hospital to the maternity ward. My contractions were not consistant and I was only dialated to a 4, which was sort of disappointing, but then they explained that he was not fully head down and was sort of stuck off to my left hip. They immediatly started giving me the run down of risks of c-sections. Nate and I have never been big on birth plans, our end goal is get them out as safely as possible. However, since I had already done this natural twice before, I was really hoping to go the same route. I had huge confidence that if they would just break my water, my body and baby would do excactly what they needed to do.

They admitted me and decided to give me the lowest dose of pitocen  possible, to keep my contractions regular. Of course shift change happend at 7am and I had to wait till the new doctor would check to see if he had lined up or not. Around 8:30am Dr. Belaire came in and thankfully he had lined up perfectly and I had dialted some more, so she went ahead and broke my water. I asked for the epidural and that's when the rolling contractions began. I asked the nurse to turn my pitocen off, since I knew now that my water was broken my body would do what it needed to do. But apparently, that was a no go. I didn't get to discouraged since I always keep the mind set that this is only a few hours of my life so suck it up. 

I got the epidural about an hour later and of course it only worked on one side. I began to have terrible back labor on top of the rolling contractions. I basically could only breath through my contractions and only concentrate on breathing. Nate said I would not open my eyes or really answer anyone's questions. Finally they fixed the epidural and Nate noticed my pain relief immediately. 

About 45 minutes later, Henry Nash was born. He was the longest labor out of all 3 babies but the easiest delivery, since he basically fell out onto my bed with only Nate there to watch and our nurse yelling for the doctor and other nurses. They were scrambling but Nate and I were laughing. When they told us he was healthy and looked great, I remember hot tears running down my face with relief. For 15 weeks I have had all the scenerios of his kidney dilation being a soft marker for chromosome disorders playing on the back of my  mind. I remember closing my eyes, feeling those tears roll down and Nate's hand on my head, hearing Nash's cries and Nate's laugh. It was one of the most beautiful moments of my entire life. 

Nash is (knock on wood) a pretty calm baby. He cries when he is hungry or if he is ready to be wrapped up and put to bed. He is pretty content to sit in the bouncer and watch everything happening around him. He tolerates his big brother constantly in his space and loving on him. I have to say my biggest worry was how Arlo would handle having a baby in the house. With Arlo it's either immense love or extreme hatred.  Luckily, Arlo loved Nash immediately, he is always wanting to give him hugs and kisses. He always tells me when he is crying, even if I'm holding him. He does this thing were he rubs his face against Nash's hair and tells me how soft he is. I think having a brother will be one of the best things for both of the boys.

As for Cece, she always says "Good-bye and I love you" when she leaves for school or her extra activities. She will randomly go over and rub his head and whisper "Hi buddy" to him through out the day but she keeps her distance. She would rather help me, which so far as been very helpful. I don't want her to think that helping take care of either one of her brothers is her job. She is 7 and should behave like one, taking care of them is my job. If she wants to help, terrific, if not no big deal.

In two weeks I have had several moments when I feel like it's going to fast. He is already out growing his newborn sleepers. Mainly because he is to long and cant stretch out his legs. He snores as loud as his big brother, which is nice since I just have to listen for his breathing in the middle of the night to check on him. He loves to be swaddled when sleeping and is unphased by his Dad's loud voice. 

Oh how we love him.