HE'S here:)

Tonga Teancum Mahe joined our family at 8:31 am on April 28, 2011. He weighed 8 lbs. 3 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long. He was supposed to be a SHE, but I always kind of felt like it was a boy, so I didn't buy a stitch of pink - even though I had given away all of Emmie's baby stuff! But unfortunately, I didn't buy a stitch of blue either...so for the duration of his hospital stay, baby wore the hospital issued tee shirt:( Sorry buddy, get used to it - you're number 5 here.

 

This picture was taken a few minutes after he was born - I had been in labor for SO LONG. This was by far my longest and worst labor/delivery experience. I had been contracting pretty consistently for the whole day Wednesday. By 9:30 that night, they were about 4 or 5 minutes apart, so I went in to the hospital. The contractions were still not all that painful, but they were showing that they were strong on the monitor and they were getting closer together. But I wasn't really progressing, so they sent me home:( So I went home and slept for a couple hours until the contractions were stronger then went back. They messed up the epidural (I've never had a problem with this before) and so first of all, I was only feeling the anesthesia on one side - so they pumped me full of another dose - which made my heart rate drop to near death. So scary, it made me so tired, I just wanted to sleep but I was scared that if I did I wouldn't wake up! But I did, so take that reaper.

 

Then after the delivery, I got to experience what is called a "spinal headache". It doesn't sound so bad, but the pain was WAY worse than labor pains. Basically because they messed up the epidural I was leaking spinal fluid. This causes your brain to sag and pinch little nerves along your neck and shoulders. I was getting shooting pains down my arms and I couldn't move my neck. I spent the majority of the day laying down like this picture. To fix this, they do what's called a "blood patch". They draw a bunch of blood from your arm, RE-DO the epidural and then shoot the blood into your spine for it to clot the spinal leak. So gross. But after they did it, the headache went away. Unfortunately, it has left me with pain in my lower back and shooting pains down legs:( This is only supposed to last a couple more days. Suck-o, huh? I'm usually right back in the swing, but this time has been a lot harder.

 

But he's so worth it! Welcome to the world, Buddy!