Things no one told me

1. My post pregnancy belly will look and move more like an old water bed than the semi tight abs of 9 months ago.

2. A healing umbilical cord can smell so bad I would make a trip do the dreaded Lester Hospital Emergency room out of fear that little stump was infected.

3. Stretch marks appear darker and larger once the baby is out, how cruel is that!

4. Falling asleep becomes a race. The second Ambrose is out, I'm sprinting up the stairs into bed trying to squeeze every second of sleep out of the next few hours (or minutes).

Squishy Newborn pic!

How adorable is he?

Birth Story

I guess I'll dive right into this world of blogging, and have one of my first real posts be the birth story of Ambrose Vincent. *while this won't be graphic, if you're a male, a male family member or anyone else that thinks that birth stories are a little much for something as light hearted as blogging, come back in a couple of days and I'll have another topic going* I hadn't planned on keeping the video up, but since so many have seen the nitty gritty, I'll just leave it up there!

It was just over a week ago, and I can already feel some of the details going foggy. I went into labor during the early hours of Monday morning. It all started with me thinking that I had wet the bed, and truth be told, it wasn't that unbelievable, so I just chalked it up to being 39 weeks pregnant and changed. However, after crawling back in bed it happened again, now I had started to experience some of the not so nice pregnancy "side affects" but wetting my pants twice in 2 minutes, no way! John and I talk about it, and after much googling, we think that my water broke. We decide to go back to bed to try and rest (yea right!) and I say a prayer that if this truly was my water breaking that I would begin to experience contractions. Well, God answers prayers (even odd ones) and my contractions begin at 1:30am, 30 minutes from the time my water broke.

I knew that I wanted to labor at home as much as possible, so I grab a couple of things to make me comfortable and hunker down. I found sitting/laying completely unbearable, so through each contraction I leaned over the bed or got down on all fours while John massaged my back (just wanted to include in here that he was my rock the entire time) .

We labor at home for about 4 hours, and decide it's time to head to Lester when the contractions are about 4 minutes apart and last for about a minute. Contractions in the car were a bummer, but thanks goodness it was 5am and very few drivers were on the road. We go to triage, they monitor Ambrose, and check and see I had progressed to a 4. I hadn't really given any thought to how far along I'd be, but 4 is not what I had wanted to hear, I felt a feeling of defeat and self doubt knowing that I wasn't even half done yet. We wait in triage for about 1.5 hours ( why I have no idea because there were only 2 other women on the entire floor) and then head to our newly renovated L& D room. After being in there for about 15 minutes the doctor on call comes in and checks me again, I had progressed to a 7. That was music to my ears and gave me the energy and determination to go through with the natural birth. That was the last I saw of that doc because it was time for a shift change and she was headed home. I had seen the same midwife for my entire pregnancy, and LOVED her. I had really been hoping that she would be the person that would deliver me, but you know how the military is with patient care... you get what you get and you don't throw a fit (that's at least what I tell my kindergartners). But imagine my surprise and excitement when Cmndr. Scott, the midwife I had been seeing, walks through the door. I was thrilled! . I labor in for about another 2 hours before I begin to push.

I felt that all the labor books I had read had prepared me for the contractions, but nothing prepared me for the physical and emotional toll pushing would take. Ambrose was posterior (however we did not know that at the time ) and that made him incredibly hard to push him out. He ended up stuck behind my pubic bone for quite a long time (and has a palm sized bruise to show for it) and watching him emerge SO SLOWLY was incredibly discouraging. I thought that after his head was out it would be easy sailing, uh... no. Since he was facing a weird way, the shoulders tried to come out at a diagonal. By this time, I had reached total exhaustion, and had a VERY hard time pushing at all, let alone trying to get these crazy placed shoulders. Before I knew what was happening a swarm of nurses were using their hands and pressing (jumping more like it) on my belly from the outside trying to "push" Amrbose out, Cmndr Scott is also yanking and jiggling Ambrose trying to free him. After what seemed like forever , I see what looks to be a small Smurf being delivered and passed directly to the team of nurses. Seeing him that blue was terrifying.

Needless to say, the shoulder yanking and pulling has made for a slightly more difficult recovery (if you get what I'm saying), but it as everyone says, it was all worth it!

Stats 8lbs 1.6 oz

19 1/4 inches long

Not the best first family pic, but it is what it is

Ambrose's Delivery Video

Home stretch

I have finally decided to jump on the blogging bandwagon, better late than never. It is an easier way to keep everyone informed on what's happening in our life, especially with the new addition making his appearance (hopefully) any day now.