40 Weeks

Baby Stu is here!!!

A little late post..but I'm sure those with babies understand.
My LAST chalkboard photo on week 40 (February 16th) and Sawyer was a week old! Sawyer decided to make bless us a week earlier, which means a week more of our life to love on him.

Thursday, February 9th I woke up early because like I had been saying--sleep was already nonexistent. I decided to take a shower, shave my legs, actually fix my hair somewhat, and put on a full face of makeup-including my faithful Lipsense. My mom walked in our house (we moved in just 2 days prior!) and announced it would be baby day. Ha! I laughed her off and said it wouldn't be because I actually got ready and baby day would probably come when I hadn't showered and wasn't ready at all. She insisted it would be that day because in the ultrasound we had done just a week before it measured Baby Stu and gave him the due date of the 9th. I still laughed her off. My mom even snuck this photo of our precious Abby girl that morning.

After I got around to work I was talking with a coworker about how to speed up the process and ways to get labor started. This led to her bringing in an exercise ball for me to sit on during the day. Haha, it was quite comical. Well throughout the morning I had been feeling a little off, but I wasn't exactly sure why so I decided to call my doctor's office at lunch and planned on going over after school just to get checked out. They told me to be there by 1:30, which required me to leave work early. I snuck out and didn't make a big deal about it because I just knew I would be back for work on Friday.

Flash forward to 1:30...I drove myself over with my mom with me (she planned on going to get her nails done afterwards) and told Ryan not to worry about coming. My doctor was actually on call at the hospital and the doctor in the office said I was dilated to a 4 but thought I was in active labor so I should head to the hospital for my actual doctor to make the call if I should stay or not. I was still not getting my hopes up and was still planning on being at work the next day.

I got to the hospital and when my doctor came in to assess me she said I was now dilated to a 5 and my blood pressure was high (mine has always been low). That's when she decided to keep me. Was this seriously happening?! I called Ryan and said he better head over because it was the real deal. I was still in disbelief. This was probably about 2:30?

Not long after they started getting me hooked up to monitors and the dreaded...IV. I have horrible veins and many of you will probably not believe me, but 21 POKES later I finally had an IV in my arm. That was honestly the worst part of my experience. On the 12th poke they said if it didn't work they were going to do a Picc Line. Well the 12th poke worked (that eventually changed). Side note-the nurses were so sweet and were feeling pretty terrible. They called in everyone they could think of and get to try. At that time the nurse said it would be best to go ahead and get my epidural since I was now at a 6 with contractions 2-3 minutes apart...I still felt nothing really. After the epidural, things moved so fast and were kind of a blur. That's when my doctor came in and suggested a C-Section due to a few things that could cause complications.

They quickly took me back about 6:00 for the surgery and it wasn't long after that my dreaded IV stopped working. At this point they had already started the surgery so they had 2 people poking my arms at the same time rushing to get another IV started. My poor veins!!! 21 pokes (altogether) later they quickly got Ryan and Baby Stu was born at 7:05.

I can't say enough nice things about my doctor, labor and delivery, and recovery nurses. Some of them even came back to visit me the next day to check on how we were doing. They all made the process seem like a breeze and were so caring. I had premade some baskets of goodies for those that helped care for us while in the hospital as well as those that came to visit and celebrate our little peanut! Our nurses definitely deserved more than peanuts and M & M's.

Now onto a picture overload of Sawyer's first week of life...

 

I can't believe how much hair Sawyer was born with. He will be rocking a mohawk for awhile. 

 

Abby has done so well with Sawyer. The other day when I had Sawyer laying in front of me Abby snuck in a big lickin' on the side of Sawyer's face and then laid down next to us.

Sawyer's FIRST holiday! Happy Valentine's day! He got to meet one of his friends, Amyx, who is just a month older than him. As you can see, they got along great. Amyx reached over and made it look like they were holding hands.

Ryan thinks Sawyer sleeps just like me. He takes 5 minutes to stretch and has the biggest yawn.

I know babies technically don't smile yet, but these grins we get every once in awhile makes my heart melt!

I could never of asked for a better Daddy to Sawyer! For the 24 hours after Sawyer was born, my IV arm was strapped down to a board so it wouldn't mess up which made it nearly impossible for me to change Sawyer's diaper or nurse him on my own without Ryan's help. For someone who has never held a baby or changed a baby's diaper, he was a natural.

...and so our greatest adventure begins!!