Road to our family: Month 1

Ok, so being a new mother does not lend itself to writing blogs on the regular, and let's not forget to mention that I'm already bad at keeping this up to date... So, how to pick up on this? I don't want to just leap forward in time without giving some insight to the last four months. What I'm going to do is write about each month, and then hopefully at some point I'll be caught up to the present. Hope.

The Birth
We went in for an induction on 03/20/14 at 39 weeks and arrived at Mount Nittany Medical Center around 7:30am. Dr. Elizabeth Raquet was our OB that day, and she said I was basically nowhere near starting labor naturally. The doctor started me on Cytotec and the plan was to do 3 rounds of Cytotec: administer the dose, remain connected to the fetal heart rate and contraction monitors for a certain time to be sure everything was fine, disconnect from monitors and move around for an hour or so, then reconnect to the monitors and wait until the next dose.

Cytotec Dose 1 - we walked 1.5 miles around the maternity floor (the nurses were very impressed!), individually wrote letters to the baby about why we wanted to have him in this world, did some blood work for the cord blood collection, and settled into our room for L&D. Progress at end of dose 1: 3cm dilated, 50% effaced, -3 station, firm cervix.

Cytotec Dose 2 - we walked 1 mile around the maternity floor, and I started to get hungry because all I ate for breakfast was a bowl of cereal. I was given Jell-O, multiple juice cups, and a berry sorbet cup, but they were not satisfying. The wallpaper in our room started to look like an alternating pattern of chicken carcasses and potato wedges, and I told our doctor and nurse such. The doctor allowed me to have a break to move around, take a shower, and eat instead of administering the third dose. Sometime in there, we had done another 1.5 miles around the maternity floor, and heard a woman deliver her fourth baby within a few laps around the floor! I had not progressed much: +3 cm dilated, 60% effaced, -3 station, soft cervix. Around 6pm, the doctor ordered me chicken breast, mashed potatoes with gravy, steamed cauliflower, melon cup, and hot tea. Dr. Raquet wanted to be sure I had chicken and potatoes since I was fixated on the wallpaper of the room. Lara knew this was not going to fill me up, and brought in contraband: 2 rotisserie chicken thighs with wings and a strawberry shake. It was heavenly!

Cytotec Dose 3 - around 10:30pm, not much happened. Lara alternated in reading the Divergent book series and sleeping. I did the same, except read Neil Gaiman's new book 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane'. At some point, I started having a little back pain. My nurse checked my cervix and found little change, except effacement went up to 75%. Around 3:30am, Dr. Raquet felt my cervix had softened enough to start Pitocin at its lowest dosage. To relieve the back ache, I rocked on a yoga ball while Lara massaged my back.

Pitocin & Water Breaking - By 7:15am, a bunch of things started to happen. Our OB was changing rounds with Dr. Theodore Hovick. However, Dr. Raquet wanted to push us along before leaving, so she broke my water. Repeat, broke my water and started Pitocin in the same hour, say what?! Almost immediately, I could feel the time and intensity of each contraction. They started at five minutes apart then moved closer to three-minute intervals. I didn't want to move or try anything. I couldn't focus, and I felt like I could hear/feel/sense everything and nothing during my contractions...the pain disoriented me. At 9am. I couldn't do it anymore and received an epidural that helped immediately with the pain; there was pressure but nothing like being stabbed with a tree branch.

Delivery - Shortly after the epidural, the baby was showing signs of fetal heart rate decelerations, which caused them to stop increasing Pitocin. We were at a stand still, but at 11am, Dr. Shreya Patel spoke on behalf of Drs. Hovick and Raquet and said we were at a point where we have to progress labor. The baby had be delivered, and by pushing forward, we would know if we could have a vaginal birth or if we'd have to go with a Caesarian section. To do so, they pushed Pitocin again, placed an internal contraction monitor and attached a fetal scalp electrode to better monitor me and the baby. It scared us because he started having variable decelerations between 90 - 150 beats per minute every minute or so. At 11:45am, Dr. Hovick said there was no change: 5-6 cm dilated, 90% effaced, and -2 station. He then told Lara to take a break, get a shower, etc. while I napped so I could be ready to push. For whatever reason, at 12:30pm Dr. Hovick came to check on me again and said we were ready to push and deliver the baby! In less than an hour, I dilated 3-4cm and he dropped to a +2 station. I hollered to Lara as I'm getting my feet placed into the stirrups to get out of the shower quick because the baby was coming; Lara was incredibly shocked! By 12:45pm, the nurses were in place so I could push. The lead nurse counted to 10 while I pushed less than a dozen times. Lara held my left leg and was so encouraging throughout the whole delivery. When he was crowning, Dr. Hovick came in to finish the delivery. It took about 5 minutes, and I pushed about 10 times total before Elias came into the world at 1:05pm! I can't remember much, only tidbits...tearing up when they put him on me; he didn't cry when he came out, which worried me; he was very alert and looking around to the surprise of everyone in the room; he came out with a full head of jet black hair; Lara cut his umbilical cord; we got to see the placenta in a 5 gallon bucket; I watched him take the cord blood sample; I watched myself get over 40 sutures, and eventually dry packed with 2 things of gauze because I wouldn't stop bleeding; he was eager and quick to breastfeed; and we were so happy to see him delivered safely!

Elias in the first month
God, it'd hard to recall the minutia, so I'm going to bullet point things:

Elias and I had a rough start to breast feeding, and he lost enough weight to where we had to supplement with formula. It took 10 days for my milk to come in, and being coerced by Lara into seeing a lactation consultant while the verge of tears in order to stay with breastfeeding.
We co-slept the shit out of our recliner. Pretty much my outfit of choice the first month was a bra and some underwear, while Elias slept and nursed non...friggin'....stop. I look back and miss that time with him.
When I got out of the recliner, Elias preferred to sleep on Lara's chest at night.
All he did month 1 was feed (try to survive), sleep, and cry. We really believe because my milk took forever to get in, he cried just because he was hungry.
We did not start cloth diapers until the end of two weeks, because we were so ROCKED by having a baby. Disposables were just easier at that point.
Thank God for friends and family... The Tartaglias ordered Pizza Hut for us one of our first few days home, and that was a life saver. Lara's department alternated bringing us dinner (sometimes lunch too!), and my parents came around week 3-4 and hooked us up with a freezer full of home cooked food. Even though we had food prepped for a month, it was nice to not have to prep anything, and just eat. We felt very very blessed!
He didn't like his first sponge bath, but once we figured out how to keep him warm, he LOVED bath time and still does.
When we would go out, the only way he would soothe was being carried inside Lara's jacket. I think there's a picture in one of the slideshows of it...
Although we've never had a child before, overall Elias seemed like your standard model, just hungrier. He was really attentive to everything around him (although he probably couldn't see much) and loved to be snuggled up with us.

So the photos taken below are from our phones...quality questionable, but lots of memories captured with these phones!

My photos -