A & E and Little C

Let the cuteness begin!!!...

I got my name from a couple places. My mom and dad both liked the name Carson and then found out that it's Scottish and meant "son of a marsh dweller." If that's not appropriate, I don't know what is!!! Daniel is my paternal grandfather's middle name, Robert Daniel (but we all know he goes by "Dan"). It's also a good Bible name (Hebrew) and means "God is my judge."

After I was born, my mommy and daddy wanted some special time with just me, so we they made all my grandparents wait out in the waiting room for about an hour. Dr. Bost let them know everything was okay, but that they had to wait a little while. Apparently, my grandma Wannie was trying to bribe the nurses to find out my name, but they kept their mouth shut. Next time, maybe she should have offered more than $20! :-) Mommy and Daddy noticed right away that I had my daddy's chin, dimples, lips, eyelashes, and sideburns. Yes, I was lucky to be born with a head full of hair and complementing sideburns. I like to make a serious face where I curl my lip up, so I guess you could call me "Elvis!" FYI - That was Daddy's nickname in high school. They're not quite sure whose nose and eyes I have, but I have a feeling I'll start to resemble someone more as I get older. I do have very big hands and feet though like my mommy. My great-grandpa, Papa, also has big feet. I'm built more like my mommy with long arms and legs. I guess you could say I'm a pretty good blend of both. They keep telling me I am the most beautiful thing they have ever seen. I think they are still in awe that I am finally here. I know they are so thankful that I had 10 fingers and 10 toes and am as healthy as can be. I ended up being jaundice, but that's very common. Both my mom, dad, and Uncle Dave all had jaundice, so we weren't too concerned. I did have to "tan" under the light at the hospital for a while and then had to wear a "Bili-Blanket" at home for a week. I hated that thing! My daddy called it my "Laser Vest." They'll post a picture later. Anyways, back to when I was first born...

My mommy wanted to feed me as soon as possible, and boy was I hungry! I had no problems figuring out how that whole eating thing worked. I know mommy was so happy that she didn't really have any problems with the whole breastfeeding thing. The only real issue we have is that I liked to curl my bottom lip under really tight when I was inside mommy, and I still like to do that. Apparently it hurts her. She keeps trying to curl it back out, but then I just put it back where I like it. Leave me alone already! Sometimes I am so hungry that I eat way too fast. Have you ever tried gulping in that position, it's kind of tough. Sometimes I eat too fast, gag a little bit, and then spit it back out. Mom's trying to feed me before I get SO hungry, that way I don't gulp so fast. Anyways, back to more interesting things... ME!

My mommy is a picture-taking fool who doesn't like to edit and narrow down her pictures. She takes multiple pictures of the exact same shot, but still won't delete any, SO... since the blog can't support all the amazing pictures of me, she has set up a Shutterfly account where she will post all of her pictures of our family. Check it out... http://thepeterspack.shutterfly.com

Here are the first pictures of me with my grandparents and Uncle Dave at the hospital.

Wannie

Grandmother Jane (we don't have nickname yet)

Granddaddy Tim (we don't have a nickname yet)

Papi

Uncle Dave

Some of Mommy's favorite pictures from the Hospital...Again, check out http://thepeterspack.shutterfly.com for lots more pictures!

Next Up... Headed Home!!!

Where do I even begin... Knowing how much I tend to write, and knowing the magnitude of the subject at hand, I've decided to break up our introduction of Carson into two or three parts. The first part (this post) will cover everything leading up to the birth of our little man including some of the nitty gritty details of the labor. So, for some, this may be TMI. You might just want to skip to Part 2 where all the cuteness begins. As mentioned before, Dr. Bost wanted to "attempt to" (which I later learned meant "will") induce about a week early to hopefully avoid having a baby that I could not deliver vaginally. So we picked the day, July 21st, as D-Day. My mom came in that Tuesday and we got pedicures and went shopping, you know, girl stuff (i.e. stuff that I probably won't be doing for a while once the baby got here). She took us to eat at Texas Roadhouse so that I would fill up since I couldn't eat anything after midnight and until after the delivery. The evening was very normal, not "tomorrow your life is going to change forever", probably because I was just about 100% convinced that we were going to get sent home and the "attempt" wouldn't work. I was sure that we had a stubborn little boy on our hands and that he was NOT ready to enter this world yet. Little did I know, this would not be the case. Well, he came, but not without a fight (more on that later). We went to sleep fairly early since we had to be at the hospital at 6:30AM. Alas, for the last time we went to bed childless, with no idea how much our life would change.

Headed to the hospital - Wednesday, July 21st, ~6:00 am

Last belly shots (sporting the Golden Corral belly look, i.e. shirt not quite covering the belly)

And we're here...

So when we got up to the 3rd floor at St. Elizabeth's, I mentioned to the nurses at the front desk that Dr. Bost was going to "try" the p-gel approach to get things going. All the ladies just laughed at me and said something along the lines of, "No, you're going to have that baby today, you're not going home. Dr. Bost is going to get that baby out, he always does. I think you'll have him by 12:00 noon." Those were not words I was expecting to hear. I suddenly started to get a little nervous or anxious, or was it excited, or both. I think it hit me at that moment that this was for real. We weren't leaving without our little man. They got me all checked into room 310, the one closest to the elevator and lobby. They gave me the standard hospital issue gown, but I told them I had a super cute one that a friend gave me (thanks Kelsey!), and they just laughed and said to save it until afterwards because it would not stay super cute during the whole labor/delivery process. So, I took their advice and put on the not so lovely blue one that had been worn by who knows who before and saved my pretty blue and green paisley one for later.

Here's a little view of our room and me all ready to go!

Around 7:30ish, Dr. Bost came in to insert the p-gel. At this point, I was only about 1/2 cm dilated (a not so whopping improvement from the week before when I was still "closed") and still 80% effaced and Stage -2. He said he only needed about another 1/2 cm in order to try to break my water. This is when I knew he meant business, and that his plan was to deliver this baby today. So, he inserted the p-gel and then we waited a couple hours. I was already having very regular contractions according to the monitor, but they weren't painful at all. On that little pain chart (below), I was still at 0, maybe 1 at the most every now and then. I got asked to assess my pain A LOT. I hated this because I don't know if I have a high tolerance or what. It's very subjective. Even if it did hurt at some points, it wasn't so bad that I couldn't put a smile on if I had to... so how do you rate that. Whatever.

Anyways, Dr. Bost came back around 9:30am to see how things were coming along. I think I had progressed to about 1 cm, or just enough that he was doing to try to break my water. HOLY. CRAP. Bring back that pain scale again! This was definitely not a 0 or 1. HOLY. CRAP. This was H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E. Keep in mind, there are no pain meds at this point. Apparently, I have one of the toughest membranes he has ever seen. He could not get the little hook to snag the membrane and puncture it, so he pretty much was just scraping and scraping at my cervix. I bled quite a bit after that. He thought he "might" have gotten it because at one point he thought there was a little bit of fluid. I think he just decided to give it a rest because I was in agony. I was a trooper, but it was no doubt the most painful and uncomfortable thing I had ever experienced in my life. He even said that might be the worst part of the whole process. He decided to come back in a couple more hours to try again. Whoopee. You can only imagine how not excited I was to know we were going to have to go through that again. Anyways, he came back around noon to try again. This time, he got it for sure. Luckily, this time wasn't as bad. Still painful, but not nearly like the first time. Everything was SUPER real now. After your water breaks, there is no turning back. dun dun dun...

At this point, it's still just a waiting game. I wasn't really dilating hardly at all. I think I was maybe 1-2cm at this point and stayed that way for quite a while. We went on a couple walks around the floor, but it didn't really do much good. It was just nice to get out of the room. These walks were a pain in the rear because at this point, I was sporting the old lady-style, big ass diaper thing (complements of the cervix scratching/water breaking process). If only it had been a diaper or Depends, but no, it was some gigantic pad with disposable panties to hold it in place. Apparently, our moms had some kind of pad with a belt (which I just don't get), so I guess this is better. SORRY - I warned you that I would get into nitty-gritty details. :-) Oh, and note to any pregnant people out there, I would recommend bringing your own Depends, or at least having them on hand when you get home. In addition to the walking like you're wearing a diaper, lugging the IV machine was a pain in the butt. That was Andrew's job.

Again, now it was just a waiting game. To make a long story short(er), they kept checking me every couple hours to see if I had made any more progress. Progress, to say the least, was SLOW. I pretty much stalled out at 3 cm FOREVER...seriously, like all day. I was having very regular contractions, but again, they weren't really painful and didn't appear to be strong enough to get stuff going down there. So, they inserted some kind of uterine monitor that would tell them the strength of the contractions. If they were weren't strong enough, then they were going to start me on pitocin. If they were, than that was my body's way of saying that the baby was too big and wasn't going to come out the normal way (i.e. the contractions weren't forcing him down far enough in the birth canal to put pressure on my cervix and cause me to dilate). After monitoring this for a while, we found that they weren't strong enough, so I got another IV hooked up for the pitocin. They started it off in small doses, but again, I wasn't showing any progression, so they kept upping it. As expected, the contractions started getting more intense, but they still weren't bad. I was maybe up to a 3, occasionally a 4, on the scale. I was finallly about 3 to 3.5 cm and was told I could have the epidural if I wanted it. I didn't really think I needed it yet because the contractions really were still bearable. The nurse informed me that it would take 30 minutes to an hour for the anethesiologist to get there, so I might want to reconsider. THANK GOD I told them to go ahead and call because out of nowhere the contractions went through the roof. I was definitely veering towards the far right end of the pain scale now. I'm surprised I didn't break the plastic rails that keep you from falling out of the hospital bed. I just remember clutching them with all my strength and holding on for dear life. I was not a screamer (like the lady across the hall), but instead was a clutch/cry/grit-and-bear it type. The anethesiologist could not have come any sooner at this point.

FYI - I am one of those who is not opposed to the pain meds route. I think it was my mom that told me, "you don't have to be brave." The fact that an 8.5-lb baby is being forced out my women parts is brave enough. I don't have to prove anything else. Props to anyone who chooses the natural route and goes through with it. In theory it sounds fabulous and wonderful, but personally, I want to have as pleasant of a childbirth experience as possible. I don't want to be in such agony that I'm not really there or it is so bad that it's not a pleasant experience. I know a number of people who did it naturally, and again, way to go, but that just wasn't for me. Anyways, the epidural process is a whole other story.

Again, long story short... they had to do the epidural twice because the first time, only my right side went numb. Of course, this didn't feel great, but it was nowhere near the pain that I was feeling with the contractions. After the second go-round, I was on cloud nine. The left side wasn't quite as numb as the right was, but it was good enough. I have to say that as much as I enjoyed not being able to feel the full wrath of the contractions, I hated the feeling of having dead-weight legs. All was good for a while then out of nowhere, I could feel every contraction again in one isolated spot in the left, lower abdomen. Again... HOLY. CRAP. The anethesiologist (who was super nice) came back and couldn't really do anything. He told us that he hated doing epidurals because every woman was different and sometimes it just didn't take like it should. He was a little baffled that I didn't feel anything for a while and then the feeling came back. Apparently, that's not too common since you are hooked up to a continuous drip. Well, come to find out that in about 45 minutes, I had gone from 4 cm to 9 cm. That probably had something to do with feeling the pain. There was just so much going on in a short period of time. When Dr. Bost told me we were at a 9, I thought he was kidding. We had been in the 3-4 range for so long, I didn't think we would ever actually get to the pushing part.

I was so tired and STARVING by this point (it was now about 10 PM-ish) since I hadn't been allowed to eat since midnight the night before, so I was going on 24 hours without food. My body doesn't do well without eating. I have been known to pass out before if I hadn't eaten and then kept busy-bodying around. I warned the nurses of this too. I wasn't just starving, I was really, really weak. With the first push I almost passed out. I got really light-headed and thought I was going to throw up. They gave me oxygen and had cold rags on my face and neck. Unfortunately, at this stage in labor, you really can't take a break for too long. I never knew how exhausting it could be to take a deep breath, hold it for 10 seconds while you push your brains out, and then repeat two more times, and then do it all over again two or three minutes later. I think the holding your breath while you're pushing was the hardest part. I continued to get dizzy for a while with the pushing. I don't think I could have done it without the oxygen. I also did throw up (more dry heaving, since ice chips was all I had "eaten"). Pushing was way harder than I expected it to be. The charge nurse, Linda, probably is the one who got me through it, even though she was lying to me the whole time. She kept telling me that "this is the push"... and I kept believing her. I don't think my eyes were open at all during the whole process because I was so exhausted. At one point, I really remember thinking I couldn't keep going. This pushing thing went on for 2 hours, which I know Dr. Bost had told my family would be the max he would let me push. I was very lucky to not have to have an emergency C-section. Apparently, it was about down to the wire and I had run out of room down there if you know what I mean. Dr. Bost said if Carson had been one ounce bigger, he probably wouldn't have made it out that way. Additionally, he had his first poop (meconium) while he was still inside which can be very dangerous if it were to get in his lungs... another reason he had to come out NOW. Somehow, I managed to push him out at 12:39am on July 22nd. He was determined not to be born on the 21st. The feeling when I knew he was actually coming out of my body was incredible. I have never been so relieved in my life and just full of so many emotions. The exhaustion was out the door and I just wanted to see him. It's all a blur now, but I just remember crying and wanting to hold him. It took a second for him to cry, but finally hearing it was just the greatest blessing. I find myself tearing up now as I type about it three weeks later. Every time I look at him, I am just amazed that Andrew and I made this little person (with God's help, of course!). To me, the miracle of life is truly the most fascinating of all of God's creations. I never knew I could love something so much.

First Moments...