The Birth of Charles William
I thought I should take the time to document our Charlie's birth into this world as soon as possible, before I forget all those special details. It was quite an experience and one Tim and I will treasure forever, just like we do Andrew's birth.
We scheduled Charlie's induction for Wednesday morning, June 18th. My doctor told me that if I wasn't progressing the way she'd like, then she'd have me come to the hospital the evening before and start a procedure to help move things along before we actually began the Pitocin on Wednesday morning. Since Charlie was perfectly comfortable staying in Mom's tummy forever and showed little signs of coming out soon, we ended up going in on Tuesday evening.
Tim and I were anxious and excited to welcome Charlie. Since my body wasn't progressing like it did with Andrew's, we were a little nervous about how long the induction might take. So DD came over on Tuesday afternoon, and Tim and I headed to the hospital around 6, stopping for dinner at Corner Bakery beforehand. The hospital ended up not having room for us until closer to 8pm, so it ended up being a sweet little date for mom and dad before heading in to the hospital, including dinner and a leisurely trip to Costco. ha!
Once we got to the hospital and got settled, the nurses told us that I was still only dilated 1cm. They started the Cervidil and Tim and I watched the TCU baseball game (they were in the Championship), which they ended up losing. Tim left before 10 and I slept the rest of the evening as best I could as the contractions started to get stronger and stronger.
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| Mom and Charlie before his birthday |
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| All smiles before things start getting real :) |
Around 5am, the nurses came in and we started the pitocin. They told me I was dilated to "maybe" 2 cm... and that's when the fear set in. The contractions were already intense, and I was afraid of the dreaded pitocin contractions which are always fast and furious. Tim arrived around 7am to a very fearful and tearful mom. He quickly settled in and helped calm down Mom. The doctor arrived between 8am-9am to break my water, and that point, I caved and asked for the epidural. I expressed all my concerns and fears that the epidural would only slow everything down, and cheerful Dr. Neville only laughed and said not to worry. Let's get an epidural!
The epidural went pretty smoothly (much better than the dramatic one with Andrew's induction) and I was quickly VERY comfortable and immediately fell asleep. The doctor came to break my water around 9am and told me I was 5cm already. Tim and I were going to have a baby soon! I fell right back to sleep.
Around 11am, Tim woke me up to tell me he was concerned about the baby's heart rate dropping. I checked the monitor and noticed that I was in the middle of the longest contraction ever, and I knew the baby was on his way now. We called the nurse, who took one look and called the Dr immediately. She had the room set up for delivery in minutes. I was excited, but could feel nothing going on... it was quite surreal. Dr. Neville arrived quickly, and we started pushing. Tim and I were geared up for a long push session, but we didn't realize that Charlie had done most of the work for us. After three pushes and one contraction, Charlie arrived!
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| 7lbs 14 oz and 22" long! |
Charlie had a rough ride out into the world. Dr. Neville tried to tell the nurses that she thought Charlie had broken his shoulder during delivery, but the nurses were convinced that all bones were ok. When we saw the pediatrician, Dr. Jones, a few days later, he confirmed that little Charlie had a broken collarbone. He reassured us that there's nothing to worry about and that babies are designed to break those bones if necessary to get out. He also had quite a bruised forehead when he arrived, but this seemed to be altogether gone after just a couple of days. The most worrisome detail of his birth was that he has a slight heart murmur and his little heart seems to skip a beat here and there. Dr. Jones says he's not concerned and that we'll keep watching this over the next couple of months. We did have an EKG run on Charlie before we came home from the hospital and Cook's Childrens' pediatric heart doctor did not feel like Charlie's condition warranted any further testing at this time.
We were immediately flooded with family visitors to love on baby Charlie! We also had visitors from Beth and the Moreys.
We were immediately flooded with family visitors to love on baby Charlie! We also had visitors from Beth and the Moreys.
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| Miss Delilah and baby Tabitha (in Kara's tummy) came to see you Charlie! :) |
While we were in the hospital, DD, Aunt Kobie, Rayli, Lexi & Emmi took good care of Andrew! He was so happy to have some cousin time, I don't know he noticed Mom & Dad were gone :) Andrew made a quick visit to the hospital, but we waited to make a true baby brother introduction until we came home from the hospital. Here we are coming home from the hospital...
And here are some pictures of Andrew on his vacation with the cousins!
Now we are a family of four! God has blessed our family tremendously and we are so overjoyed to have two healthy baby boys in our home.
And here are some pictures of Andrew on his vacation with the cousins!
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| Carrying his new backpack around all over the house! |
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