Birth Story

Wow I can't believe it's already been 6 months since my baby boy was born! I swear the whole 11 weeks I was on maternity leave I kept telling myself I was going to write a blog post about his birth and never got around to it. Now here he is 6 months old and I haven't blogged about him at all except the Shutterfly photo book I shared back in March. Part of me feels guilty about it because I really wanted to share my experience but then on the other hand I can't feel guilty because I know I devoted every second of my time to that little boy and I wouldn't change it for the world. I thought for sure I'd have time while he was napping to just sit down for a few minutes to type out a blog post but whoever says "sleep when the baby sleeps" is crazy because that's not always possible. Granted we did enjoy our daily naps when he laid on my chest (best thing ever) but when he was down for a nap I had so much to do I couldn't always sleep with him.

Just so that I don't forget, because that's pretty common of me to do. I'll share my birth experience here. When I went for my last ultrasound to measure baby Camden on February 3, I was told he was measuring in at 8 pounds 8 ounces and the doctor wanted to schedule an induction for Monday, February 10. I was pretty excited that Camden would be born on my grandpa's birthday (my mom's dad who I never got to meet because he died in the beginning of 1984 - I was born in the end of 1984). When I left the doctor's office they called to tell me that they actually couldn't do the 10th and it had to be the 11th. I was kinda bummed because that meant waiting another day and not having him share a birthday with his great grandpa. February 11 is my friend Renee's daughter's birthday too, so she was happy to share her 10th birthday with Camden.

These are the important times that everything happened during my labor...just for the record:

February 11, 2014
5:00 a.m. - arrived at hospital for registration
5:30 a.m. - got settled in my room
6:00 a.m. - got the IV hooked up
6:55 a.m. - pitocin started
7:50 a.m. - Dr. Kil came in to break my water
8:00 a.m. - I was 1.5cm and about 70% thinned
12:30 p.m. - I was 2cm and 100% thinned
12:30 p.m. - I took a narcotic for about an hour to help with the pain since it was too early for an epidural
2:00 p.m. - Epidural time! (contractions were starting to get unbearable)
3:00 p.m. - 5cm, got catheter inserted (yay for not having to get up every 5 minutes to pee!)
5:00 p.m. - 6cm, still waiting...Dr. Kil left to go to dinner, lucky him
6:30 p.m. - 6-7cm, head still high, sunny side up, back labor started
6:30 p.m. - nurse turned the bed to where I was upside down to try to get him to flip over (didn't work, just made back labor much worse)
7:30 p.m. - 8cm, decided to do a C-section
8:30 p.m. - prepped for C-section
9:16 p.m. - time of incision
9:29 p.m. - time of birth :)

 Whew that was a LONG day! But it was all totally worth it once I got to hold my baby boy in my arms. 

Mark got to go with Camden to the cleaning station where the neonatal nurse did his apgar test (he got a 9 out of 10) and checked him out to make sure everything was ok. This process seemed like hours but it was really only like 10 minutes. I'm just laying on the operating table shaking like crazy while they're sewing me back up. I didn't even get to see him until Mark brought his cell phone over to me and showed me a picture of him. I can't believe the doctors didn't hold him up to show me real quick before they took him to get cleaned off. Dr. Kil said he had a hard time getting him out, he was stuck so far up in there that he had to use a suction to help him out. When he was pulling him out I could definitely feel the tugging, whew it took my breath away. Camden's right arm had an abrasion on it from hitting one of the tools that was holding me open on his way out. I think that's why they wanted him to go to the cleaning station to get checked out immediately, I guess they figured there was no time to show me my baby.

This is the first time I saw my baby boy.
It was the first picture Daddy took of him.
I cried right when Mark showed me.
It was love at first sight.
And now I'm tearing up as I type this.
I just love that little boy more than anything.
He definitely has my whole heart <3

This is while poor Momma is laying
on the table getting stitched back up.
You can see Camden's little abrasion.
The nurses said it would go away and wouldn't
scar but you can still see a faint white scar.
That's ok though, he's still perfect in my book! 

The best moment of my life!
I was out of it and in so much pain
but none of that mattered when I got to
see, meet, hold, kiss, and love on my sweet baby boy. 

Our first family photo. I love those two with all my heart!

The hospital was very strict and didn't allow more than 2 visitors in the room at a time. By the time we got back to the room after Camden was born it was 10:30. We begged the nurses to just let our family come meet him before they went home. They said they weren't supposed to but ended up letting them come in just for a couple minutes to see him. Debbie and Steve came first and then my mom, Megan, Sam, Devon maybe, I can't remember...I was so out of it! Our first night wasn't too bad because Camden was lazy and only wanted to sleep. He latched on and was eating good but decided he'd rather sleep than eat. Nurses told me I should wake him to feed him so that he was getting the colostrum.

On Wednesday we had some visitors but not too many to where it was overwhelming. Camden was so loved, everyone wanted to come meet him. It snowed quite a few inches on Wednesday night and nobody wanted to leave the house on Thursday. Luckily, it worked out to where we got to spend time with our baby boy without interruptions (no offense, y'all)...thank you snowstorm! We got to go home on Friday, February 14 with our sweet little Valentine! <3

Here are a couple pictures of us going home...

Mommy and Daddy compromised.
He wore his adorable elephant thermal outfit that Mommy picked out.
And of course the Packers hat to make Daddy happy 

Our neighbors snapped these photos as we were on our way inside.
This was so sweet of them and I'm glad we have these memories captured!
(Our other awesome neighbors shoveled our driveway for us while we
were in the hospital, we were sooooo thankful for that!)

We had tons of visitors our first weekend home - everyone who couldn't make it to the hospital came to the house to meet Camden. He is such a lucky little boy! I would share more pictures of him but it would take all day because I take so many. Feel free to check them out on my Facebook page though! I'll probably post the professional ones and maybe special events or something but it will take forever to post the one I take with my cell phone! I think that's all I have for now. I feel better now that I've posted a blog sharing my birth story. I'm going to try to keep up with this so I can document a bunch of memories and then look back on it since my memory is so terrible. Plus, I think it'll be fun to have Camden look back at this when he's old enough to understand.