So, getting him here was a bit of a mess. So, if you get bored with birth stories, feel free to bail now, but I want to write it down somewhere before I forget it :-).
First of all, I was HUGE this pregnancy and told that was because Cooper was huge and I had a ton of amniotic fluid. They estimated Cooper at 11 lbs! Luckily (I guess) he was only almost 10 lbs (9 lbs, 14.8 oz to be exact) and 22.25 inches long. He was born at 10:58 am on April 12, 2012. And here I thought I was going to have a March baby!
Cooper was due on April 4th and since Mack was 3 days early and supposedly second babies come earlier, I thought I was going to have a March baby. But, nope, Cooper was not coming. I was doing all the things they told you to do, walked, ate spicy food, put my husband to work, stripped membranes (uggh, hate that phrase!) and he wasn't coming. So, you know what worked? Castor oil. That's right. I glugged some of that down at around 2 in the afternoon and I was in labor around 7 that night.
I had been to the hospital so many times with contractions that would never go anywhere, I didn't believe it and I kept thinking they were going to stop. But they didn't - they kept progressing. And my doctor basically said they weren't going to let me go home until that baby was born - she was getting nervous since he was late and apparently my placenta had started deteriorating. I was nervous too and just wanted to get my baby boy out already!
So I progressed and all that jazz to 8 cm. And then I regressed to something like 6 cm - they said b/c his head was too big and kept banging on my cervix which was swelling (sorry if this is TMI, but I seem to have lost the judgment to determine what is TMI and what is not, so you'll have to bear with me :-)). So anyways, we kept going for another 2-3 hours and no more progressing. SO, they tell me that it looks like his head is too big and they worry that even if his head makes it out that they might have to break his shoulders to get those out. At this point, I was so tired and the doctor said we needed to go ahead with a C-section - so I was like "let's just do it".
So, they pumped me full of drugs which make you shiver like crazy and went to cut him out. Honestly the whole thing freaked me out which surprised me - I normally don't freak out very easily. I was crying - not sobbing - but quiet tears streaming down my face. I was pretty bummed about having a C-section I guess. And, apparently they cut me and tried to get him out, but he was too big for the cut, so she had to cut me vertically on the uterus as well (so I have a T shaped incision on my uterus). So I guess if he was too big for even the normal C-section inscision, I should just be grateful I live in the age of modern medicine where he was able to be born healthy and I survived :-).
So afterwards, for some reason they thought I might be hemoragging? And here is where I wonder if things were worse than they told me, b/c they sure seemed nervous. After sewing me up, they kept me in the surgery room for like 2 hours beating up my belly. They kept pushing in on it a ton and seriously like two people would be on top of me pushing on my belly - I don't really understand how that helps you not to hemmorage, but apparently that is the way. And then they told me I might have to have a blood transfusion and according to accounts I was deathly pale. They wouldn't let me out of Labor and Delivery until like 7 pm that night so I would continue to be observed.
It is interesting b/c I had a vaginal birth with Mack and it is interesting how it affects you differently. Like I wanted to make sure Cooper was okay, but I wasn't like "oh, let me hold him" (of course, I did) the way I was with Mack. I don't know if it was the medicine or what - but it was weird.
Well, I stayed in the hopital for like 4 nights. I was happy about that b/c it was so hard to move around after a C-section, I was terrified of going home and having to take care of him on my own. Finally I was able to get up and down on my own and that made me feel like I would be able to manage. Poor Cooper had jaundice so he had to do the light treatment for that. But that was just one day and he got better.
So during all of this, my mom and sister had been keeping Mack. So we got home that day and my mom and dad brought Mack back that night. It was so good to see him. Since we thought Cooper would be born near the 4th, he had been with them for 2 weeks and I missed him terribly. So we got him back and it was so good to finally hold him.
But he had a nasty cough, and a mild fever, so we gave him some tylenol that night (to bring down the fever) and put him to bed to recover. The next morning he still had the nasty cough and his fever seemed even worse. So I made a Dr's appt and brought him to our pedi that afternoon. He gave him a breathing treatment and told us to come back in a couple of hours. We did, he gave him another breathing treatment, his breathing was still not improved and so he told us to go to the hospital directly from there! Cooper is not even a week old at this point. So the last place I wanted to bring a newborn was a hospital full of sick kids. So long story short, Mack was in the hospital for almost a week with something like pneumonia. It was awful. One of us had to be there at all times and we were lucky to have Andy's mom, my mom and us all doing rotations of either caring for Mack or Cooper.
Here is a picture of him the first night in the hospital :-(:
I wasn't going into the hospital b/c I was breastfeeding Cooper and didn't want to expose Cooper to this since in a baby I felt it could be deadly. But no one told me, Mack kept saying "Mommy come soon?" - uggh. They kept saying he was doing really well. I can't believe I didn't go be with my boy. They didn't tell me b/c they thought it was better if I stayed home with Cooper since I had just had a C-section and couldn't lift Mack and I shouldn't expose Cooper, yadda, yadda, yadda.
So anyways, my mom let it slip that he said that and it sounded like Mack wasn't getting any sleep, so I insisted on going in and being with him. Cathy (Andy's mom) stayed with Cooper - she was amazing - so I could go and it felt so good to finally be back with my boy. I hated seeing him like that - he looked so miserable. Luckily, the following day he was released - praise God! And we finally had our whole family home.
Of course, I worried Mack would really resent Cooper since not only had I abandoned him to his Meemaw and Aunt Evie for two weeks, but then he was stuck in a hospital for another week. Poor baby. But he was amazing with Cooper from the get go and really just loved him. Here is a picture of him that first week back home. Isn't it adorable?
So now we are 12 weeks in and they are just adorable with each other. Cooper lights up every time he sees Mack and Mack loves his baby brother. He always asks me when Cooper cries - "Baby brother all right?" and he'll go give him a hug. He is so funny. Occasionally he does say "put baby brother down. Hold Mack" - but I think that is pretty good. No complaints here. Two is definitely more than one, but you also get double the rewards.
Feel so blessed with this beautiful family. Thank you Lord!
