November 19, 2013 ~ Happy Birthday George!

Tuesday morning I was set to go in for my induction at 9:30am. I couldn't sleep much that night, too excited and too congested. Ah, lovely pregnancy symptoms that would soon vanish! When it was finally time to get ready I started having a lot of discomfort, but no contractions. Caroline was still feeling under the weather so instead of dropping her off at school, we dropped her off at Nana's. Alan and I headed to Maine Medical Center and we couldn't drive fast enough. While I wasn't having contractions, my discomfort was growing steadily and quickly. We arrived at the hospital and as I had figured out, I was in labor. After a couple hours of paperwork and the basics, they decided to break my water and see if my labor and that would get the show on the road, but it didn't. I actually stalled so after three hours, they gave me Pitocin to start contractions up again. That was at 3pm and they kept cranking them up. They started with contractions every 4 minutes, then to 1.5-4 minutes, and finally every 1.5 minutes. We called my friend and birth photographer and told her it was probably time to head in. It was a good thing since when she arrived the contractions were pretty darn strong. I did 2 more laps around the delivery floor and then settled into the recliner. I ordered dinner but never touched it. It got too bad to think about eating and I could barely even listen to the anesthesiologist going over how the epidural would work. Once that was in I enjoyed about an hour of relaxation, but no food, and then I was told it probably wouldn't be until after midnight that we would meet our little boy. I didn't want to wait that long and made a comment I wanted his birthday to be 11/19. That was a little after 8pm. A little while later I felt a lot of pain. I went from nothing to everything out of the blue. The pain broke right through the epidural and I immediately hit that button. I wasn't going to not hit it like we did with Caroline! By the second hit the resident OB realized that we were ready to go. My OB came in the room minutes later and Alan left to grab some ice chips across the hall. He was gone maybe 60 seconds and they had already had me push once. Baby was coming fast and furious! I was very lucky to only push 5 times over about a 10 to 15 minute period and out came baby boy. George Willis Lovejoy had entered the world at 9:57pm. Every exclaimed how big he was but he seemed beautiful and small to me :) Granted, I only could see the top of his head. When they finally weighed him no one could believe that the guess of the OB, somewhere over 8 pounds, was absolutely wrong. He measured in at 10 pounds and 2 ounces, 22 inches long. Ignorance was definitely bliss because I was shocked and I don't think I could have pushed that easily knowing his size beforehand!!!
We'll be sharing the beautiful photos that Carly took as George entered the world and the following day when he met his sister for the first time as soon as we get them. For now, this is what we got. George had hypoglycemia due to his size and we couldn't get his levels to regulate so he was finally placed on an IV and NG tube. We still managed to leave after only 3 days even with stumbling with a few different medical problems and he took every one in stride. Upwards of 10 heel sticks a day and he was a champ! Through it all, he is a very easy and happy baby and already gives us the cutest smiles!

 Alan doing some labor photography before Carly arrives lol

 A blurry self pic

 Relaxing on the warmer once we found out he had low blood sugar

This time around I was able to actually hold my baby, give him love & walk over to him once he was in the warmer. A totally different experience this time around :)

 Snuggly in our hospital room

 Getting love from Caroline

 

 While the pictures are beautiful, Caroline was so cute meeting her brother that we quickly had to grab our phones to get some video as well! 

 George & I hanging out while Daddy is home

 

 Some Kangaroo time with Daddy

Relaxing and getting some sun to help with his jaundice