Sunday, March 17, 2013

Going home...

Getting ready to go home Wednesday, Nov 21st...
 






Look how tiny!!



Leaving the hospital.
 
Getting him ready for a nap.  Look at those legs.

Snug as a bug.

Cassidy getting to hold Maddox.  When we arrived home Dave, Lisa and the kids were at our house.  They let me take a nap while they took care of the boys, took them to the park, did laundry and cleaned my house in preparation for Thanksgiving (which was at my house the next day).  They were amazing!  I couldn't have asked for better help than what I received before, during and after the hospital.  Thanks ya'll!

Visitors and more pics...

That morning around 9 the boys arrived to come visit us!  Thanks Erin and Cora!!  Seriously, I owe you so much for watching them and being so wonderful about everything.

First brother picture.





Hand sanitizer (this was probably taken before holding the baby).



Our first family picture!!

My 3 boys!

Maddox's gifts to his big brothers.

The boys were pretty excited to get a gift from the baby.
 
Cora didn't really want to hold the baby, but she sure did like looking at him.
 
Aunt Erin!
 
Later that day, Uncle Dave came for a visit.  Sadly the whole family couldn't come b/c Ellie and Cassidy were sick.
 
But later Aunt Lisa and...

Mason came and visited on their own.

The next day Uncle Geoff came for a visit.

Just a few cute pictures of my newest little guy...

This one was funny...I hadn't actually tried a pacifier w/ Maddox yet and the nurses brought him back from the nursery w/ him chowing down on this thing.  I thought it was just so funny how well he took to this thing.


Maddox Stephen Long

We arrived at the hospital at 11:35 pm November 18th and was at a 5 at 11:40.  I had been so scared they were going to send me home, I had progressed from a 4 from the previous week, but I was still scared.  5 minutes later the nurse came back w/ tons of stuff to hook me up to.  I was so confused so I asked if that meant I was going to get to stay.  She laughed and said, "Of course, you're not going home at a 5."  I was so excited!!  Yay!  It was finally the time!  They got me all settled in and then asked when I'd like an epidural.  I was doing ok and figured I could hold off longer, but I decided I might as well do it sooner than later b/c they were going to have to call the anesthesiologist in.  I figured we should wake him up earlier in the night than in the middle of the night. So when all was said and done, I had the epidural completed by 1 AM.  It wasn't a fun epidural, there was one spot in my back that just did not want to go numb and it kept shocking me, but it finally took and all was well.  Doctor Young came in later and broke my water at 1:20.  They then left us alone to rest and progress more.  I was able to sleep a little, but started to feel really nauseous.  The nurse finally came in to check on me at 2:10 and I asked if she was sure I couldn't have water.  NOPE!  Only ice chips, ugh.  I told her I felt like I was going to throw up.  So she got a barf bag (the coolest ones I've ever seen) and right as she handed it to me, I threw up!!  A couple of times.  It was so weird, I had never thrown up w/ the others.  She said that just happens sometimes from the epidural, lack of sleep and excitement.  She checked me right after and I was 95% effaced and at a 6.  On and off during this time my mom had been texting me.  I told her what happened and she said, "I bet you you'll be ready to have this baby in an hour, throwing up probably pushed that baby down." And you know what?  She was right, about an hour later, at 3:15 I was at a 10! The nurse got everything ready, called the doctor and and had me do a few practice pushes at 3:30 before the doctor got in.  I pushed through about 2 contractions w/ the doctor when...
Maddox Stephen Long decided to join this world at 3:37 AM, November 19th.  He weighed in at 7 lbs 5 oz and was 20 inches long.
 
 
Oddly enough, they didn't plop him on me right after Cameron cut the cord.  The took him off and cleaned him off, wrapped him up and then handed him to me.  But, it was ok, they did it quickly, handed him to us and we fell in love!

Look at that big yawn!! 
 

Soon after they gave him his first bath, which was the quickest they ever bathed any of my boys!  We were usually settled in our room before any of their baths.  I liked this way much better.  While bathing the nurse put the q-tips in the bath and he grabbed one.  She said he had a death grip on it! haha it was so cute!
 
Look at all that hair!
 



At 4:05 I fed him for the first time and he at great!

All settled in our new room by 5:25 AM.  I have a fun story about that name tag above his cute little head.  When we arrived to the hospital the nurse asked what we were going to name him.  If you know Cameron and I at all then you know we don't agree on names, so we arrived to the hospital w/o a set name.  We told her we had no idea but the only name we both hadn't said no to was Maddox.  She said she really like that name and later came in w/ this cute decorated name card.  She said it was just in case we did go w/ the name, otherwise she'd be happy to make another one.  Because of that we decided we might as well go w/ Maddox, the card was already made :)

Poor Cameron, trying to catch some shut eye before visitors arrive.

Pre-birth Story

Having a 3rd child honestly has been a lot harder on me than I expected.  I feel like it takes me so much longer to get anything done, and this, by far, has been the longest it took me to do a blog post on my child's birth!  Let's see how much I get done in blogging tonight ;) 

Before I get started into the birth story, I thought I'd update on the adventures I had before actually giving birth.
 
As mentioned in a previous post, I started having very consistent contractions on Sunday, October 21st and went into the hospital that night.  They hooked me up to monitors and later gave me pills to slow down my contractions and pain killers and sent me on my way at 1:15 AM.  If you want to read in detail more about that night scroll down to an earlier post. 


36 weeks (9 mths) Nov 4th


37 weeks, Nov 11th

I went to the hospital 2 more times where they both sent me home.  I think we went in Sunday, November 11th and late Tuesday, November 13th.  Both times we went home in the middle of the night w/ pain meds.  The last time they sent me home I seriously balled, I couldn't control myself.  I was sick of being pregnant, sick of being semi-bedridden, sick of the lack of sleep, sick of feeling bad for poor Cameron having to go into work after no sleep and sick of feeling sick.  I just wanted this little man out of me!  Oh, and I felt horrible that I kept making my sister-in-law, Erin, come late at night to stay w/ the kiddos. 
 


There's something about Sundays that would just bring on major, and consistent contractions.  The next Sunday, November 18th, brought them on, every 5-7 minutes.  I was too scared to go to the hospital again b/c I couldn't stand the idea of being sent home again.  Our friends, the Sullivans, even came over that evening and brought dinner.  We had a great night hanging out w/ eachother, interrupted by regular contractions.  They were a little worried, but I assured them I was fine.  After they left I decided to follow some friends ideas of how to speed up contractions.  The major one that helped was pumping, weird right?  It was so strange doing that w/o a baby, but I was desperate by this point.  And no more than 30 minutes of pumping I was having contractions every 3-5 minutes.  I decided to wait another hour after pumping to see if they continued, and they did!  So I called my poor, wonderful, sister-in-law up and told her to get ready to come over.  She came over around 10:30 or so and we got last minute preparations done and headed out.  We arrived at the hospital at 11:35 pm.  Here's where I'll go into another post...just for the birth story, so stay tuned!


November 18th, 38 weeks 3 days