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Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 - One week old
Hello world! I’ve been here for seven days now and it sure is interesting! Last Tuesday, I decided that I had spent enough time poking my Mommy in the ribs, so it was time to come out. Daddy had come down with a cold and was running a fever, so he was sleeping in the living room. I woke Mommy up at 3:20 am, when that swimming pool I’ve been in for the last 9 months started to drain. I was getting a little squished here and there every so often, but it was kind of fun for a while. Mommy woke Daddy up asking how he was feeling, apparently she didn’t sound exactly normal, ‘cause Daddy knew there was something going on! Now Mommy has told me that she wasn’t sure that her water had broken or not, I’m not sure, but I think that has something to do with my swimming pool. Anyway… Mom and Dad rushed around for a while trying to get some bag ready to go to the hospital. They had foolishly thought that they had more time since I wasn’t supposed to be here for another 12 days. Being the new driving force of the Vence household, I wanted to establish my supremacy from the very beginning, so I thought I would mess up their schedule a little. So while Daddy was running around getting stuff together on a Sudafed Head High, Mommy and I took a nice warm shower then we napped for a little while. It wasn’t long at all and I REALLY woke her up! Serious contractions, here I come! I made sure to let myself be known I was serious now with contractions 3 to 5 minutes apart and a minute long. They were pretty tough and I was getting squished more regularly now, but what a small price to pay to see them. Only 3 hours after I woke Mom up, we were all on the way to the hospital. Mom looked silly walking into the hospital. She kept having to stop and breath, she leaned on Daddy a lot but after about a 30 minute walk which would normally take 5 minutes, we all arrived at labor and delivery on the 4th floor at Kaiser Zion Hospital. Mommy and Daddy met their friend and doula (a doula is a labor coach) Diana there, but Momma wasn’t all that interested in talking much. She just keep moaning and trying to squeeze Daddy’s hand off. As they were going into the triage room to see how far along Mommy was, she had a very scary thought! She looked at Daddy and said, “If they check me and I’m only 2 centimeters along, just let me completely freak out for 15 seconds, then bring me back into reality!” So the doctor checked Mom out and said that she was 100% effaced and 7 centimeters dilated. Now, I don’t understand all of that, but I do know that when Momma got to 10 centimeters, they would let her push so I could say hi in person for the first time. Mommy and Daddy had an appointment with our midwife that very morning, so Momma’s medical chart wasn’t at the hospital, it was in a truck on it’s way to the other office. They did what they could and pulled together all the important information and then very quickly moved Momma and Daddy into a labor and delivery room and Diana went to work! She rubbed Momma’s shoulders and feet and kept talking to her and praying with her and Daddy. Momma had to have some antibiotic medication in an I.V. to make sure that I wouldn’t get a Group B Strep infection, so the nurse got that started right away. Then Mommy and Daddy’s friends, Rob and Becky, showed up and my “Aunt Becky” helped Daddy and Diana keep Momma from freaking out too badly while I kept those contractions hard and heavy. Momma was “moaning like a banshee” according to my one of my Godmothers, Lura, who heard her while Daddy was on the phone with her. I was really making Momma hurt, so they helped her move over to a birthing ball. I really liked that a lot since it helped me move down the birth canal even faster. Then Momma changed positions again and that made her want to push me out. She got back into the bed again and her midwife checked Momma and said that she was at 10 centimeters and could push if she wanted to. While Momma wanted to push, she also wanted to labor down as much as possible to make things a little easier on me, so she decided to wait on the pushing. Well, she lasted all of about 10 minutes and decided that she REALLY needed to push. So with Daddy helping her on one side, a nursing student on the other, and Diana and Becky at her head giving her encouragement and support, Momma started pushing. I was excited and really wanted to see them, so I helped and with Momma pushing, me pulling and God guiding everything, I came out of my swimming pool and was put on Momma’s tummy at 9:20 am, just 6 hours after I got everything started. I got to stay there for a little while before they moved me and got me weighed, 7 pounds 8 ounces, and measured 21¼ inches long. Then I got to go right back to Momma and started nursing, that was pretty neat. All the adults around were pretty funny, Momma and Becky cried, Daddy even got a little teary eyed I think. I cried a little too. Someone finally remembered that we had cameras and a camcorder! My “Uncle Rob” took pictures while everyone was fussing over me. The nurses were so nice and everyone did what they could to make me comfortable in this strange new world. My Grandma Pam and Grandpa Charlie showed up and I got to say hello to them. Grandma was just a little upset that I was in such a hurry, she wanted to be there, but I had other plans! Things settled down, Momma got to eat (and she was hungry too) and they moved us all into a different room. We all got to relax for a while and make the last of the phone calls. Since Momma and I had a natural birth without any pain medication, we both started recovering very rapidly, unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for Daddy! All the excitement and adrenalin had kept him going for a while, but his cold got the better of him and before long he looked grey. Momma and I sent him home to rest up, after all, we were really going to need him to help us both out over the next couple of days! Things weren’t very busy at the hospital, so Momma and I got to stay until Thursday morning and this sure helped Daddy get some rest two nights in a row. Since we got home at around noon on Thursday, I’ve learned about cats, they really don’t seem to think I’m much of anything, and I’ve seen the dogs, but Momma and Daddy aren’t going to introduce us for a while yet. I’ve been outside adventuring to the Doctor’s office on Saturday to check on my jaundice. That wasn’t so bad, but they made me cold when they put me on the scale. Everything was ok and we all went home again. Today we went back to the doctors’ office again. I’ve been working pretty well at this nursing stuff with Momma, so I weighed 7 pounds 10.9 ounces. That’s over my original birth weight! All that was ok, but I made Momma cry when they poked me in the thigh with a vaccine. Momma and Daddy said it was to help me fight off infection, but that didn’t stop me from turning purple for a few minutes and wailing until Momma got to hold me again. It was ok after that, and to be honest, I thought it was harder on Momma then me. After we got home and I got my lunch, Momma put me in this neat BabyBjorn contraption and I’ve been dictating this story to Momma so she can type it for me. So check out my pictures if you haven’t seen them already, Momma said she would post new ones all the time. I’m pretty tired for now, so I’m going to go get a snack and get a little sleep. I’ll update you all again later! ~Bobby
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