Dax Paul is here!

Dax Paul arrived on October 25 at 7:02 am weighing in at 6 pounds 15 ounces. Wow do I wish his arrival was as easy as that sentence was to type. Dax took 30 hours to get here from the time my water "broke" at 1:30 am on October 24th until he made his appearance but more on that in a moment. :)

Dax is such a sweet baby. He sleeps for several hours at a time, eats like crazy and is doing a great job of filling his diapers. He's a snuggler and would like nothing more than to be in your arms all day long. He makes the cutest little squeaking noises. We couldn't ask for a better little man!

Okay on to his arrival...

At about 1:30am I got up to go the bathroom only I really didn't "stop" going... but it wasn't the big gush I thought came with water breaking. I called the OB nurse at the hospital and asked what she thought was going on. Since I wasn't sure and she wasn't sure my water had broken she said to go back to bed and see if I kept leaking. I fell back to sleep until about 6am... when I felt another little...umm... leak... I got up called the OB nurse again and decided that I would take a shower and we'd go into the hospital just to be checked out. I really didn't think anything was going on and was pretty sure I'd be sent home.

We got to the hospital, got all set up on the fetal monitors and Dr. Shannon confirmed that my water had in deed broke. We were in for a long road as the nurse said and Dr. Shannon explained that he figured it would be anywhere from 10-20 hours before our little guy arrived because I was only dilated to 2cm. Boy was he off!

So got started on Pitocin a couple hours later as my contractions weren't very strong and were pretty spread out. I would like to also note that I had no pain medication at this point and didn't get any until 11:30 that night. Can you believe that??? I still can't!

Dustin was AWESOME through all of this. He was bossy when I needed him to be, comforting when I needed him to be, and made me laugh frequently. I didn't really want to walk but he got me up and moving, even if it was only for a few laps around the floor. When the nurse suggested using the jacuzzi tub it just didn't sound like a great idea at the moment but Dustin said I should try it. I was in there for about 45 minutes (this was still before I got any pain meds).

After the jacuzzi I think I stood through a few contractions and then laid back down in bed. This was when they started to get more intense and I was getting really tired. The nurse checked me again and I was only dilated to 3 cm. Still too early for an epidural. Damn! So she suggested that I take a narcotic (I can't remember the actual name of this one). After I took it I felt even more sleepy and was able to sleep between contractions but it did NOTHING to help with the pain! NOTHING! After about an hour or two of no real relief I asked for either something else or more to try to help. I then got another drug called Stadol (sp?) still didn't help at all. Apparently narcotics do nothing but make me loopy. Not the best feeling in the world.

At about 5 am I think Dr. Shannon came by to check on me and after realizing I hadn't made any change suggested we try a epidural and see if by getting me to relax things would progress. Okay before I say anything about the epidural I will say after it was completed it was worth it BUT getting the epidural was probably one of the scariest parts of Dax's whole birth. It hurt and I had strong contractions so it was very hard to sit still but after I was all numb I felt great... actualy I felt completely foreign 'cause I couldn't feel my legs! I was finally able to fall asleep. Poor Dustin was sitting by my bed, his head on the side of the bed trying to fall asleep too. The only problem was when I would fall asleep I would start breathing so shallow that my oxygen levels would drop and would set off an alarm. So poor Dustin spent the next about 30 minutes?? saying BREATH every time the alarm went off. We didn't get any sleep.

Dr. Shannon checked me again and decided that since I hadn't progressed and we were past the 24 hour mark we needed to get Dax out. He was still doing great inside, heart rate was great but it had just been too long. I lost it at this point. A combination of being exhausted and pretty sure that I wasn't going to have a C-section caught up with me. Dustin was so sweet, he held my hand and just kept telling me that everything was going to be okay and that he would be right there with me.

We were taken down to the operating room, holy cow it's cold in there! When Dustin came in he got to sit by my head and my anesthesiologist, Scott started talking to me about what I'd be feeling and such. He told us a story about a baby that was "supposed" to be a boy but ended up being a girl. I then asked when they were going to get started and he said "well they are almost to the baby" I don't really remember this happening but Dustin said I had this look on my face like "what the???" I was so surprised. Dustin said he knew they had started and knew that Scott was talking to be so intently to see what my reactions were as they started. The only thing I remember really about Dax coming out was the amount of pressure they put on my ribs to get him out. Wow!

The rest is kind of fuzzy. I remember asking Dustin what he looked like, what color his hair was and if he was still a boy. (to which Dr. Shannon kind of giggled and said Yes it's a boy). I remember getting to see him finally and kiss him and I remember Dustin going to be with him while they finished up with me. I fell asleep though so everything is kind of... blurry... I had to ask Dustin several times to clarify when certain things happened. I do remember being in recovery and watching Dustin watch Dax being cleaned up and assessed but I couldn't actually see Dax. I don't remember though how we got from recovery to the room. So strange to have gaps but that's probably a good thing too.

Well that's the story of Dax's arrival. I can't believe I just wrote a book but I'm going to print off all of my entries about my pregnancy for Dax's baby book....

We spent from Saturday- Wednesday in the hospital for his birth and then when we were leaving our WONDERFUL nurse, we really do love her, told us that because his bili levels were high we would probably be re-admitted the next day after our Dr's appointment. Which is exactly what happened. So we got 1 night at home and then 2 more nights in the hospital for a total of a week! Oh we were so happy to be home once his jaundice got better.

Thank you to everyone who has sent notes, texts, and visited. We love you all and are so happy you could be part of our little man's life!