Obi Herron is Home!!

We are home...all three of us (four if you include the dog). :-) It feels great to be back from the hospital and starting to settle in. (Quick side note, I am typing this while laying on my couch and my laptop is ON my belly, it is amazing to have full use of my stomach again.)

Thursday morning we went in to the hospital for a scheduled induction. Got there are 6:30 and was in a gown and in bed by 7. The nurse started a low pitocin drip in my IV to get it going. By 9:30 I had my epidural and then the nurse raised the dose of pitocin right up. For the better part of the day I stayed at a 3-4cm dilated and 90% effaced. The contractions I was having looked really strong on the external monitors, but because I wasn't really dilated they went ahead and put in internal monitors for both me and the baby. Once they did that they realized that the contractions weren't terribly strong afterall. So, the upped the dose of pitocin again and within an hour I was completely dilated and almost ready to start pushing. The doctor came to check really quickly before she had to do a c-section and since the baby was still not quite low enough she wanted me to wait and see if he would move down a bit. The fabulous thing was that all day long I felt NOTHING!! We hung out, watched some tv, talked, had some friends stop by and just really enjoyed the day. However, by 5pm there was a whole side of my ride hip that was not getting any epidural medicine and it was terribly painful. I could handle it with breathing, but let's just say that I was made very aware of how grateful I was to not be feeling the rest of my body. Thankfully the nurses were able to fix everything and by 7:30ish the doctor was back and I was ready to start pushing. To be honest, it was a great experience. We just chatted with the doctor and nurse about their kids and families, the differences between pentacostals and baptists and then they were giving us suggestions for baby names. We'd just stop talking every time there was a contraction and I would push and then we'd pick back up our converstation. Unfortunately, the baby's head was rotated sideways and everytime I pushed they could rotate him back around, but not enough to where he would stay put. After over an hour of pushing the doctor said that he wasn't going to come out without some help...so we could do a c-section or try the forceps first. We opted for the forceps...which, I was SO grateful I couldn't feel those go in. The doctor rotated the baby's head and when she did that, the whole rest of the baby rotated to, it was such a wierd feeling. Within 6 pushes I had his head and the rest of his little body out!!! There are two things I remember first after he came out. 1- that his head was huge and cone-shaped and I was SHOCKED at how big he was, 2- that my stomach was immediately like jelly. They took him immediately over to the warmer to get him cleaned up and I had torn pretty badly, on top of having an episiotomy, so it took a while to get stitched up. Jason called my mom to come in to see the baby and as they were looking at him I started to get sick feeling. I called Jason over to grab a bucket and I was going to heave. He got there just in time, I rolled over started throwing up and just as I did, the pressure from throwing up caused the placenta to shoot out...literally. It hit the doctor smack in the middle of the chest and splatted to the floor and sent blood everywhere. It was like a horror film. The doctor stood up and I remember hearing her say, "um, I think I need a new gown". She was covered head to toe, her hair was dripping blood. It was so gross and funny at the same time. I was embarrassed and mortified to have done that to her, but she just laughed and said it was all part of the job.

So, there in a nutshell is the birthing story. What about the babe?

His name is (after much deliberation): Obadiah Knight Herron. We call him Obi, and it totally suits him. Knight is a family name on Jason's side, so that is where it came from. He was 8lbs 11oz and 21 inches long. He is terribly bright and alert and incredibly beautiful. I did not at all expect for my baby to be so cute right from the beginning. We are both smitten with him and decided that we would bring him home from the hospital after all. ;-) He is cuddly and snuggly and just perfect in every way. God has blessed our family immensely and we are in awe of this gift we have been given.

Here are a few pictures of our new man!

Here he is...just a few minutes old.

I was pretty darn excited!!

Awww...so sleepy!
Jason finally has someone to test his toy on. :-)

So sweet...I am in love.

I'll be posting more pictures again soon. Things are getting a little more settled in. My mom is here until next Wednesday and it is SO helpful having her here.