We arrived at the hospital on Sunday March 25th around 7am for my scheduled induction. Driving to the hospital seriously felt surreal. So crazy knowing we were about to meet our baby. They got me all checked in and took us back to our room. They got my iv in and the doctor came in to break my water, but he couldn't haha. So he just kind of scratched it a little bit then said once my contractions get going it might be easier to break it. a little while later i got up to go to the bathroom and my water broke. It wasn't a huge gush, just lots of fluid leaking down my leg. They started me on pit to try to get my contractions going.. well long story short it wasn't working.. like at all! i was only dilating about 1/2 a centimeter every 3 hours. i was super, super frustrated because what could i really do? I nearly had a break down when i was still only a 3 at like 5 in the evening. haha! I had Matt’s Mom bring Sloane down to try and lift my spirits a little, and she did just that. All the nurses loved that she came dressed in her rapunzel costume and she literally got sparkles everywhere!!
They decided to stop everything and let me hang out for a bit then slowly start me on pit again and every half hour keep upping the dosage. this is what finally helped, i finally got to a 4 at about 7:30 and started to feel really painful contractions. As soon as i started to feel those i asked for the epidural. ive said it once and ill say it again. Epidurals are miracle drugs haha they seriously feel so good and don't even hurt! they had me rotate to each side with one of those peanut balls in-between my legs and i even got a quick little nap in. by 11:30 i was ready to push so they called Dr. Bean to head over. They asked me which day i prefer my baby to be born, because if i wanted him to be born on the 26th they could have me wait to push for a few extra minutes. I decided just to start pushing and however long that took would determine what day his birthday would be. I pushed through 2 maybe 3 contractions and he was here. I pushed for 3 hours with sloane so i couldn't believe how quickly he came. They put him right up on my chest which i didn't get to experience with sloane either. It was the best feeling ever. He was so so cute and i was surprised to see how much hair he had. i thought for sure he would just have a little peach fuzz. He had the best little pouty lip that all the nurses kept commenting on. They weighed him and he weighed 8lbs and 20 inches which was also bigger than i thought since i had been measuring a little small. After getting to snuggle him for about and hour and a half they took us down to the recovery room. I decided to have matt go home so he could be there with sloane. so he left and i had them take the baby to the nursery so i could sleep.
At about 4:30 my nurse came into my room to let me know that the Henry’s oxygen levels kept dropping so they decided to take him to the nicu, but he was going to be totally fine and not to worry. Well of course i was worried and there was no way i was going to be able to go back to sleep. So they took me over to where he was at and i just sat with him while they gave me a bath and put him on oxygen. I held him for a long time then finally decided i would feel better if i could take a shower. When I came back to the nicu he was all hooked up to monitors and had an IV in his hand and it seriously broke my heart! I knew he would be fine, but no one wants to have there baby in the nicu and all I wanted was to just bring him to my room so I could show him off to our family. We could still have family come visit, so we had lots of visitors through out the day. When Sloane came she was so so excited!! She kept saying, “Mom, look at that baby!” And, “Mom, I want to hold him!” and, "mom, look at his crazy hair!" She was so so sweet, just like I knew she would be. Later that night I finally had a little break down haha. I knew Sloane was having a hard time with out me and I wasn’t sure how long the baby was going to have to stay in the nicu and with all my post pardom emotions I had a good little cry.
The next morning I went in to see how he was doing and they said he had been off of his oxygen since 2 am and was doing great and if he could keep his levels up for 24 hours then he could go home!! I was discharged that morning so I had matt come down with sloane and decided to have him stay at the hospital for a few hours and I would take Sloane home and spend some time with her. We went and got lunch and played with a bunch of her new birthday presents and then watched a movie. She kept hugging me and saying, “mom, I missed you so much!” It seriously broke my heart!
While I was home matt texted me saying Henry had failed on one side of his hearing test, which I guess is pretty common. So we actually have to take him at 2 weeks old to get tested again. That stressed me out a little bit, but now I’m feeling ok about it, and know it will all work out. When we got back to the hospital Matt’s Mom took Sloane so me and Matt were able to hang out with the baby for awhile before he went home. Even though I was discharged we decided I would stay another night, and they let me stay in a room right across from the nicu which was awesome. The next morning Henry was still doing great and all his test results came back normal which meant we got to go home!! Matt and Sloane came and picked us up and now we are home as a family of 4.
The whole time at the hostpital we could not decide what to name him. Matt finally just said to do whatever I wanted and he would be fine with it. Henry was a name I really loved my whole pregnancy so I decided to stick with that, and I think it fits his sweet little spirit so well.
My recovery has actually been great. I have felt awesome and Henry has been the best sweetest little babe so far that pretty much just sleeps all the time. Sloane was a really difficult newborn, so this has been a whole new experience for me that I have so enjoyed!
^you know dads in charge when Sloane comes to the hospital looking like this haha
