Cael Luther Kenney arrived at 6:05 pm March 5th, weighing 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and measuring 21 inches long. He was born 20 days early but has strong vitals and is perfect in every way.
I lost my plug at about 10:30 am and totally freaked out. I called Dr. Carr's office and they said that since I was starting to have contractions, I should go up to the OB floor of the hospital to get checked to see if my water had broken (I had no idea if it had or not).
I went in and the test they had to make sure my water broke came back positive. They also said, after the cervical check, that my cervix was VERY anterior (meaning it was very forward, which usually doesn't happen at 3 centimeters dialation, apparently). I'm not going to lie, I cried my eyes out. I was so scared! We were scheduled to go to the lamaze class on the 13th and I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Plus the thought of pain scared the bajeezus out of me too. So I called Brad and told him to bring my bag down and called my mom and activated the massive text lists I had made for this moment.
My nurse at the time was Pamela Baker, Brett Baker's mom and she helped me a LOT with the emotional part. She was very nice about everything. Unfortunately, she had other patients to attend to (they were going into labor before me) so I got Denise, who was also very very nice. She helped me a lot with the breathing during contractions (I was being stupid and holding my breath and bawling because they hurt like crazy).
Dr. Carr came in some time later to see how I was doing and checked my cervix again. I hadn't dialated any further and it turned out that my water hadn't really broken, it had just ruptured a little and was leaking a tiny bit. So he broke it for me. If I thought the contractions before that were bad, they were NOTHING compared to what came next. Luckily, the epidural specialist, Dr. Lowe, came in right after that so they were lessened a bit. The epidural didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would, which was a relief. I was kind of mean to Dr. Lowe and I felt bad when he came in to check and see how I was doing the next day.
Next came the easy part. After that epidural and the pain I had been feeling, I guess I went a little loopy because Brad said I was telling him I wanted Cael to come out now and that I kept talking to Cael and telling him to come out lol
Dr. Carr came back and checked my cervix again. I was fully dialated at that point and Cael's head was far enough down. Dr. Carr said I could start pushing now. While he and a couple of extra nurses came in to set up, Denise gave me a rundown of how to push and whatnot. She still made it sound too easy.
So the time came to push. Holy crap, I had NO IDEA what I was doing. They just told me to push like I was pooping so that's what I did. And boy, did Cael come out FAST! It only took pushing during three contractions to bring him into the world.
The best part about my pushing experience was this. Between the second and third contractions, Cael's head crowned and Dr. Carr said I could touch it. After I did, I was so overcome with the idea that I was actually having a baby that I started to giggle. When I stopped, Dr. Carr looked up at me and says, with an astonished look on his face, "Wait! Do that again!" So I did laugh again, because the look on his face was hilarious lol It turns out that my laughing was pushing Cael out more effectively than pushing! Isn't that so cool? Cael was brought into the world with laughter! :) In my book, that makes him THE BEST baby in the world <3
While all of this was happening, I was delivering the placenta, which really wasn't all that bad. In fact, I didn't even notice it was coming out until Dr. Carr said, "And there's the placenta. It's a really good color." Of course, I just had to see it. It looked like a liver and was all flat on one side (Dr. Carr called that the baby side). Hard to believe all of that was sitting inside my stomach for 8 months. WHOA.
All of this happened in 5 hours, by the way.
Brad didn't get to cut the umbilical cord because everything was coming out so fast, but he and my mom both got "tattoos" of Cael's feet on their arms. Pam was taking his footprints. His little feet were so purple I was afraid something was wrong, but Pam said it was just coloring and that he'll even out soon.
After everybody finally left to spread the news of Cael's arrival, I was told to start working on breastfeeding. It looks os easy when experienced moms do it but boy, is it hard. Cael didn't want to latch (and still doesn't) so after trying for an hour and making him mad, I was allowed to stop forcing him and just cuddle. That was short-lived though because he needed to go to the nursery for a full check (this was about 4 hours after delivery). I was asked if I would mind trying to stand and get everything situated to go to my room. I'm not going into details about that because it was awkward and messy...
After-birth = GROSS
Anyway, I got Cael back and he, Brad, Jen (my nurse for the night), and I rolled our way to room 506, right across from the nurses station. Cael stayed in my room all night, which was probably a bad idea for me. I couldn't sleep because of all the adrenaline still going through me. Well, that and the fact that I couldn't stop watching Cael :) I love every move he makes and every breath he takes.
He looks a lot like me as a baby but almost everything he does (minus the quivering lower lip when he cries) is Brad. He coos and grunts in his sleep. His tiny little fingers are long like mine. His ears and back are so hairy and his feet curl up, so I call him my little monkey. His other nicknames are Bubby, Goof, Cael Baby, and Buddy. He has super manly burps and explosive diapers. He likes looking at girls and when he's looking at the world, he looks like a little old man. He smiles with gas but it's still cute. He also snores sometimes. :)
Mommy and Daddy don't get much sleep anymore with the feedings every three hours but it's totally worth it.
Cael has already had his first outing (to Wal Mart to buy more diapers) and first day at Grandma's. He's already able to take down 2 fluid ounces of formula in a single feeding (sometimes even more) and now only needs to be burped every 15 cc instead of 5 to 10 cc. He spits up a lot but it's better than the first day of formula. The reason we started Cael on formula instead of the breast, other than his issue with latching, is because I'm not able to get the milk out it a timely fashion so he "loses interest" and gets mad because he's not getting food when he wants it. I also have issues with shape so a bottle is easier for him to feed off of.
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