Baby Asher came to town!!!

-Labor & Delivery

You really don't have to read all of this. It's mostly for my own journaling purposes. I'm writing about this now because I started the draft and became very busy with Baby Asher. Staying up nights nursing is hard to transition to at first, and Baby Asher takes up all of my time now :).

We went in Monday morning, the 5th of November, at 7 am for my scheduled induction, but we were waiting for Dr. Bunten to arrive for a bit. We didn't actually get going until around 8 am. They inserted a tablet in me to get me going, saying that they would use pitocin if necessary later on. Thankfully, my water broke before any of that was necessary. I felt a small, warm trickle. At first, I didn't realize it was my water that had broken, but I didn't think it could be anything else by the way I felt after thinking about it. The nurse didn't think it was anything, but I knew it was too much vaginal discharge to be nothing. I labored without an epidural for most of the day. They gave me an epidural around 4 pm. Around 5:30 pm, they checked how much I was dilated and were shocked to discover that I had already dilated to about a ten! This really got Scott and I excited! We had thought we were going to have a few hours to nap, but apparently Baby Asher had different plans. The nurse told me that when I felt the urge to push to let them know. She said they didn't want to have me push when it didn't feel natural, so it surprised Scott and I when Dr. Bunten came in and told me to do a few practice pushes. Apparently, they weren't for practice because she had me start pushing there and then. That was another surprise for Scott and me. Again, we thought we were going to get a respite, and again we were excited to find out otherwise.

I was pushing for much longer than Dr. Bunten had hoped. Part of that was because Asher's head was sunny-side-up, his head is big, and my epidural wore off part-way through which caused me to take more breaks than I would have otherwise. They told me to push this little button for an extra boost of the epidural, but it didn't work. They had to have someone come in to fix it. Dr. Bunten started talking about the need to do a c-section, use forceps, or suction. At that point, I started pushing like a mad women. There was no way she was going to use forceps on my baby's head! I have a bit of a paranoia for such things. Dr Bunten was like, "That's right! Prove me wrong! Good job!" We started to see his head come out. Everyone was saying good job, but I was crying that at the end of my pushes he was going back in. Dr. Bunten made a small incision that finally turned the tide, and out came Baby Asher! He was eight pounds, eight ounces. At that point, I finally realized my reward was here. During labor, Scott had been trying to remind me of that, but I was too busy giving him a dead, zombie, woman-in-labor-pains look. My beautiful baby boy was here! I immediately started cooing at him. It sounds cliche, but you really don't realize how much you are going to love this little person until you see him. His umbilical cord was kind of short; at first, I was holding him on my lower abdomen. The doctors and nurses said he was peeing when he came out, lol.

After they took him away to clean him up and do all of the logistics, I was feeling very light-headed. They gave me some oxygen, and Scott held Baby Asher at first. He took to fatherhood like a fish to water. He's wanted to be a Dad forever. : ) I was sad that I couldn't hold my baby at first, but they helped me nurse him for the first time lying down even though I was feeling woozy. I had thrown up during a lot of my labor. There was even one time when I threw up all over myself, and they had to change my sheets and nightgown. Scott turned away just for a moment to wash something off, but it was enough time for disaster, lol. It's so crazy how anything goes during labor. Stuff that would embarrass you normally totally doesn't matter anymore!

Because I had a bit of a fever right before I had Asher, they monitored his temperature the first few days in case he had contracted an infection. His temperature was a bit low at first, but he was fine. We are so grateful to have a beautiful, healthy boy! He is such a handsome, little guy. Asher was born with syndactyly on his right hand. His middle fingers on his right hand are fused together. This basically means that the webbing on his hand didn't separate in the womb. Luckily, a one-time, surgical procedure can take care of this, and it won't affect his development at all. He will probably have the procedure when he is around a year-and-a-half. This is the best time for optimal results/healing. It also allows for more skin to grown in order to avoid doing more skin grafts. We are grateful that he will be just fine. I can't tell you how much my love has increased for this joyous, little bundle in the last few weeks. I'm holding him right now as he sleeps; he looks so peaceful. I love it when he smiles in his sleep. He's so beautiful!

 8 pounds, 8 ounces

Grandma Robyn holding baby Asher.

 Grandma and Grandpa Dyer holding baby Asher!

 Out little batman burrito! Scott loved that I crocheted the edges of this batman blanket!

 Asher's first bath! We just had his second bath a few days ago, and he loved it! It relaxed him so much he pooped like six times in the bath tub and peed twice, lol. I guess we know what to do when he's constipated. :)