How It All Went Down

I am sure all of you are just so anxious to read about our birth experience, so without further adu...here it is.
We went to the doc on Tuesday, April 20th and found out that I was still dilated to a 1, but a bigger 1 than last week. The doc asked me what I wanted to do since my due date was in 2 days. I told him I was ready to have this baby. So he called the hospital and had it set up that we would go over for some hormone cream to soften my cervix more and then go in at 5 a.m. the next morning for the pitocin drip. So we headed over for the 1st dose of cream at about 3:00 p.m. (I had to have 2 rounds of this, 6 hours apart). So the nurses did their thing, and I laid there for 30-45 min. on the monitors. Little did I know that this cream could cause contractions, man they were strong and hard, not to mention the pain I was in from their hands being you know where. We decided to take Jaxon out to my parents house so he could spend the night, then at 9:00 p.m. Justin and I headed back up to the hospital for round 2 of this adventure. Once again they did their thing saying this time I was dilated to a 3 when we left at 11:00 p.m. We came home, and I decided to try and go to bed to get some sleep. I was having really strong contractions and was in quite a bit of pain. So I get upstairs and I toss and turn trying to breathe through the pains. Justin was downstairs at this point watching tv. He has a hard time relaxing during stuff like this, imagine that! I texted him and told him to bring me a clock with a second hand at about 1:00 a.m. I knew they were getting closer and stronger. Sure enough they were happening about every 2 minutes and lasting for a good minute to a minute and a half. Justin called our awesome nurse at the hospital that helped us at the 9 o clock adventure and she said it would probably be wise to come back in so I didn't miss the chance for an epidural. So we got back in the car and were off again. We got up there, got all settled in to the same room and started the process of 100 questions and hooking me up to every type of machine possible, while all the while I am still having contractions that are definitely getting worse. When she checked me this time, I was at a 5. I got my epidural at like 2:30 a.m. ish. At this point I had had it. Things were much better after the epidural kicked in though. I kept progressing until about 5:30 a.m. then my contractions started to slow down so we started the pitocin drip to get things moving again. After that I just laid there and hung out. I could still feel the pressure but that was about it. I liked my epidural better this time cause I could still move my feet myself but couldn't feel too much. Then at 6:30 a.m. I woke Justin up (yes he was asleep on the couch, poor guy was beat!) and told him that there was a ton of pressure and to go get the nurse to see what was going on. She came in and sure enough I was at a 9, almost a 10. So the nurses prepped the room for delivery and went and woke up the doc out of the doctor's lounge. Anyone else notice that everyone was sleeping but me? Just wondered. Anyway, he came in and we started pushing. It was such hard work, but in a way I enjoyed every minute of it. I could feel it, but not if that makes sense. It took about 20-25 minutes of pushing and our little man was born at 7:10 a.m. The doc set him on my belly while cleaning him off and said "he looks bigger than 7 lbs 3 oz like I thought". The day before that is what he guesstimated he weighed. So we all took bets on the weight. I said 8 lbs 3 oz, another nurse said 8 4, the doc said 8 2 and my lovely husband who has to be different said 9 lbs. She weighed him and sure enough 8 lbs 12 oz. Maybe dad knew what he was talking about! We all couldn't believe how big he was! 21" long as well with big hands and long fingers and lots of dark hair. Such a beautiful little thing.
Giving birth is such an amazing thing. I always feel so strong after thinking that "hey, I just brought another human being into this world". I loved sharing that with Justin, it is such an experience that brings you so close as a couple, I love that feeling.
Jaxon came up later to meet his baby brother and was in love immediately, and still is. He loved holding him and kissing him and is gentle, for the most part. We came home the next day and just love having this little guy here and a part of our family. Little did we know we were in for a week of hell following this amazing experience. See when they discharged us they said we needed to bring him back to the doc the next day to have his bilirubin levels tested for jaundice. We did the same thing with Jaxon, so we thought no big deal. Took him in and it wasn't where the doc wanted it so we had to take him back the next day as well, that was Saturday. Once again the doc didn't like where they were so we took him back Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday the following week. The poor thing had to be poked in the heel every time and would just cry and cry. Our doc doesn't work on Mondays so the results were read by another doctor, who ordered bili lights to come to our house. So the home health nurse came and set them up and told me to leave him under them all the time, except to feed and change him. I have never cried so much in my life. Not only are your hormones already out of whack but then to tell this new mom that you can't hold your baby, it kills you. That week was the most emotional, sleep deprived week ever. But we made it through it. I don't think I would have if it hadn't been for Justin. Usually he is the worry wart and I am the one calming him down, except this time the roles were reversed. I was a wreck all week and was so glad when the doc said we could be done with them on the Friday of that week. We took him in for his 2 week appt. the following Tuesday and everything checked out great. His levels are where they should be and he said he looked great health wise. This was definitely welcome news!
So now we are just loving having him here with us. He is a great baby, so content and easy going. He gets up twice a night to nurse, about 4 hours apart so that's not bad and he LOVES to be snuggled, my favorite part! Justin says that is the only reason I have babies, maybe it is, is that so bad?! It amazes me how this new human can feel like such a part of your family immediately and that you just love them unconditionally. Jaxon is adjusting pretty well. I won't say he has been an angel the whole time. He is definitely doing things to get our attention, but I know that will pass. We are trying to keep things as normal as possible and still have one on one time with him. I love having these 2 boys in my life, I don't know what I would do with out them!
So that is our story. I know it is the longest post ever, but I had to put it on here. I can't wait to see what the future has in store for Justin and I and our boys.