I had every intention of taking cute little weekly photos of our new little man, but at one week we were in the NICU (and coming home from the NICU that day) and at two weeks I was, quite honestly, overwhelmed with life. I did manage to snag pictures on those actual days (without cute said signs) and by three weeks (and his due date) had my bearings to make good on my original endeavor. At four weeks I forgot the sign again...
For the monthly cute baby pictures my plan all along has been to do what my dad did when I was a baby. He put playing cards beside me for how many days old I was. Pretty clever.
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| Me at 7 days old (Atticus bears a little resemblance) |
Of course there is no "1" in a deck of cards, but the Ace does represent "1" and "A" is for Atticus. Then I also have my favorite Snoopy playing cards and well, I have a love, maybe obsession, with all things Peanuts. Perhaps I have put too much thought into this...
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| Atticus Joyner Croy (We will find out how much he's grown on Monday!) |
I figured now would be as good a time as any to share the story of Atticus' actual birth. His birth was actually the easiest part of everything that has happened over the last two months. My doctor said it would be and she was right.
So, December 23 was mostly a calm day of waiting. I had been in the hospital in the antepartum area since November 22. We were told I would be taken over to labor and delivery early in the morning around 5 a.m. of Dec 23 to be induced at 37 weeks. We had everything packed up, ready and waiting. After all, we had been there a month and we were ready to get this show on the road! I think it was around 6 or 6:30 before we made our way over to L&D. Then around 7 or 7:30 they started pitocin to get labor going. I had been checked the day before and was almost at 2 cm. I had been having contractions since Nov 21, sometimes rather intense, so the initial stages of pitocin weren't much different. I would ask my mom and Casey when I had pain how big the contraction was on the monitor while we "hung out" and listened to Christmas music. At 11:15 a.m. I felt a pop and realized my water had broken. Weirdest feeling ever, by the way. My contractions became more intense, not sharply painful, but they made my whole body tremble. I asked for the epidural (which I was terrified of) and got it around 2:30 p.m. The anesthesiologist was hilarious (which I did not expect) and my nurse was a brash lady in her 50's named Terry who talked of retiring to Colorado (After being in the hospital a month, I had met a lot of nurses and learned a lot about them. I also initially was nervous that nurse Terry was much different than the other nurses I had encountered--like I said, a bit brash and brutally honest and to the point. She ended up being one of my favorites.) During the time from 2:30 to 5:00 things were pretty boring, hanging out and waiting for things to happen. I was getting dilated more but didn't feel the contractions really, so I just talked to my mom and Casey. Just before 5:30 p.m. I felt a little different for some reason and nurse Terry checked and said I was at 10 cm. She called my doctor who rushed in from home. When my doctor got there, she got me set up and said it was time to push. It was really different than I expected but wonderful--just my doctor, nurse Terry, my mom, and Casey. I remember my doctor had to turn Atticus the right way first. Nurse Terry alternated between helping Casey and my mom holding my legs (which were completely dead to me) while I pushed when the nurse and doctor told me to--three big pushes, rest, three big pushes again. It was hard pushing but not painful thanks to the epidural. I pushed for a little more than half an hour. All four who were with me were so encouraging. I remember Casey breathing with me and me telling him I loved him after each round of pushing, and then suddenly Atticus was here and placed on my chest. I cried and held him, relieved he was finally here, and in disbelief that I birthed a baby. He was perfect and we were so excited! Embarrassingly enough, then I felt sick and threw up. But, that quickly passed. Then I just watched him being cleaned up and talked to Casey. His birth was such a special and surreal experience. I'm not really sure what I expected. I think I had this idea there would be a lot of random people in the room, a lot of commotion, and a lot of staring and loudly talking/screaming to the pregnant lady trying to give birth, and that I wouldn't remember a lot about it because it was chaotic and stressful. At any rate, it was much calmer, encouraging, and more memorable than I expected. It was also easier than I anticipated. I was terrified of giving birth, of not being able to or something, that it would be harder than I could physically handle and they'd have to do a C-section after I was completely spent. Luckily, none of that happened at all. I'm grateful.
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| Family photo on New Year's Day |
I just pray I can point him to Jesus well. At the end of the day, that's more important than cute photos. But this one though....
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| Be. Still. My. Heart. |
