Felix has stolen my heart & I’m sure I’ll never get it back. He’s been a joy to hold this last week, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the love & support of friends & family. We’re doing remarkably well; I’m slowly recovering, Penelope’s pulling all the stops to get as much attention as possible & Felix sleeps & eats all day (and most of the night).
I was so ready to have Felix, and so grateful that my doc pushed up the date for induction to last Wednesday night! Would you like to hear (read) all about it? If not, read no further & just scroll through the awesome pictures courtesy of the lovely Rachel Call. By the way, It was awesome having her take pictures of Felix’s arrival. Rachel was absolutely fabulous to work with. Her photos obviously speak for themselves. Check out her facebook page to see more pics of the birth. If I ever have another kid, we will have her take the birth photos again.
About a week before Felix arrived, I got an email from Rachel offering to take Felix’s birth photos. She’s just starting out a birth photography business, but her portfolio so far is incredible. I was so excited that she’d offer to take photos for us! With Penelope, Chris was so busy worrying about getting the right angles, that he was sort of separated from the experience.
Last Wednesday night, I was admitted into the hospital for a scheduled induction. As the nurse hooked me up to the monitors, she asked me if I could feel the contractions. NOPE. Sure enough, I was having little contractions about 10 or so minutes apart. She hooked me up to the antibiotics & we waited. After four hours she was able to get me hooked up to pitocin & start the labor process. I didn’t want to get the epidural right away because that would render me bed-ridden until Felix’s arrival, so I held off.
Every hour after 2am, the nurse would come in to check on my progress & ask me how I felt. She seemed to disbelieve that I truly didn’t feel any contractions for about 4 hours. I didn’t feel any of them! I only had some back pain. Finally, I was so annoyed with my back pain I asked for the epidural. Turns out that constant back pain I’ve been having for the last few weeks were contractions!
Once the doc broke my water, it was only a couple of hours until I started pushing. It didn’t take much to get Felix out, perhaps 30-45 minutes of pushing. I can’t describe to you the fear I had when Felix was passed to me without so much as a scream. He was entirely blue. I held him for maybe 15 seconds before the nurses took him away. It was a good 5 hours before I’d get to hold him again.
Turns out he inhaled meconium. The fact that the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck probably didn’t help his breathing situation, either. He had to be on assisted breathing for about 5 hours before his lungs were cleared out & he stopped wheasing. It was sort of heart-breaking to not have him in my arms right away. I missed him. I was grateful, though, that he was getting the help he needed. Thank you, modern medicine!
We’re just thrilled to have him in our family. It’s sort of surreal to be a mother of two, but I can’t imagine anything else.
I’m really excited to get back into the swing of things. I’ve got a lot of projects in the works that I’m hoping to complete & share soon. What projects are you working on? Anything fun? Share in the comments!
