Henry Clark Pierson

Well I guess it's about time I blogged about the little bundle of joy that arrived 2 weeks ago!  He took his sweet time getting here, but we love him just the same.  I honestly thought he would come on his own and boy was I wrong.  


Here we are on Easter Sunday wishing he would come since he was 1 week over due at this point.  The day before I had walked all around Baby Animal Days and on Sunday we walked up Old Main Hill, but nothing worked.  He was being stubborn.  

Apparently Adrienne really likes my belly.

 Monday morning I was scheduled to be induced.  The hospital called me at 7am and told me to come in at 7:30.  I had been having contractions all Sunday night, so I didn't sleep at all.  They were about 20 minutes apart so not enough for me to go in, but close enough that I didn't sleep much.  But I was determined to get the baby out of me in a timely manner. 

Still in good spirits.  Obviously this picture was taken between contractions since I'm still smiling.  Honestly I wanted to try and go natural (or as natural as possible).  But when you are started on Pitocin going natural goes right out the window.  They started me on pitocin at 8:20am and I was dilated to a 3.  Four hours later with pretty intense contractions that were seriously 2 minutes apart, I was only dilated to a 4.  Lame.  So at 12:30 I decided to get an epidural because I was tired and I didn't want to have those crazy contractions forever with no progress.  The epidural was nice for like the first hour.  Then it sucked. The little guy's heart rate was acting crazy so if I laid on my left side his heart rate would drop.  I also had to have oxygen or his heart rate would drop.  They informed me that when you are "over due" your placenta gets old and doesn't work as well, so that is probably why his heart rate was being finicky.  Oh and my doctor came in and broke my water after I had the epidural and they said it had a greenish tint (gross I know) which meant he had probably already had bowel movements inside the womb.  This is bad because he will ingest the meconium when he goes through the birth canal so they said there would need to be a respiratory therapist there when he is born to make sure he is breathing okay.  At this point I'm wondering why they let you go a week overdue if it causes more problems.  So because of all this, I was stuck lying on my right side so that Mr. Henry's heart rate would be normal.  That meant all the epidural juice was collecting on my right side, and nothing was working on my left side.  So I could mostly feel everything.  At first I thought it would be nice because it was taking some of the pain away, but I would still be able to feel when to push.  That was at like 5pm.  I didn't start pushing until 11:15pm. So for most the day I was in pain from hunger, in pain from lying on my right side all day, and in pain from contractions on my left side.  By 8pm I was getting bugged.  That's about the time they told me I had a fever so I needed antibiotics through my IV right away and my baby would be going straight to the NICU after he was born to get him on an IV with antibiotics.  Apparently a Maternal Temp (that's the official name) is a bad thing and they worry about their being an infection that could have been passed to baby, so they don't take any chances and the baby is taken to the NICU.  So when 11:15pm rolled around we were taking bets on when he would arrive.  The nurse said I could be pushing for hours, but I was not going to let that happen.  I guessed he would be there at 12:10am, the nurse guessed 12:12 and Clark guessed 12:15.  He arrived at 12:16am on April 10th 2012.  A nice even day (I'm weird and I like even numbers so it was perfect).  I only pushed for about 50 minutes.  After 16 hours of labor, I was ready for him to be here!  He was born 7lbs 70z 21 inches long.

As soon as he was out I asked the doctor "shouldn't he be crying" and the doctor said no because they had to suction out the meconium before they wanted him to take his first breath.  So I couldn't do skin to skin right away and hold him because they had to suction out all the gunk.  Clark was able to cut the umbilical cord though, so that was good.  Then it felt like they were working on him forever!  The poor little guy.  When they were done they let me hold him for just a minute.  Then they took him down to get a bath and all cleaned up.  They brought him back to me to hold for just a minute then he had to go get all hooked up to the IV's.  

First Family Picture

Down in the NICU

My poor baby with an IV in his head for the antibiotics.  It was so hard to hold him with all the cords and monitors.  We are glad those are gone! 

Handsome little guy.

He was born on Tuesday and finally able to leave on Friday.  He gained weight, never lost it so his Pediatrician was very happy.  We had his two week appointment yesterday and he is now 8 lbs 4 oz and 22 inches long.  So basically he has almost gained 1lb in 2 weeks.  I love my little chunky monkey.  

This is totally a Clark thing.  When Clark was little he would hold his ear and suck his thumb.  

I just took this picture.  He decided to sleep for a long time so I could blog finally!  He is so kind to his Momma.  

He needs to eat so I don't have time to proof read.  I hope I don't have too many errors, but if I do I'll blame it on "new mom brain" formally known as "pregnancy brain"