Mason William

We welcomed our little boy at 4:20pm on March 23, 2009. He is a perfect little angel, and looks so much like his sister did! We couldn't be more happy with him! And check out all that blonde hair!

You may be wondering why this post took so long to get up here. Well, let me explain. (No, there is too much, let me sum up.) First, you probably remember the botched induction on the 19th. (If not, check out my last couple posts) Well, the birth center called and had a room for us on the 23rd, and would we like to come in for another try? (Uh, yeah we would.) They had some sort of mass exodus, discharging more than 10 women the day before, so we loaded our stuff (we hadn't unpacked) and tried again. We had much better luck. I started the medicine around 8:00 in the morning, after the nurses finally got an IV going. (Side note: why do health care "professionals" never listen to me? I tried to tell the girl that the veins in my hands collapse, and she could save herself some time, and me a lot of pain, if she would just put it in that big, bulging vein on my forearm. You should see the bruises on the backs of both of my hands.) We hung out, watched a movie and watched my contractions on the the monitor. Somewhere around noon, they started to get uncomfortable, so I asked for an epidural, something I didn't get the chance to experience with my angel. (And am now wondering about the wisdom of that decision. Stay tuned.) Once in place, which is a procedure that the husband is trying desperately to erase from his memory, my doctor came in to break my water. By this time it was almost 3, so I called my mom to tell her that baby was taking his time, and that she and the angel should probably rethink the visit they were planning after the angel got out of school. Who knows when he would arrive? As it turns out, about an hour later. I told the nurse about the "pressure" I was feeling, and after a quick check, ("Wow, you weren't kidding. He's right there!" Yes, I know. LISTEN to me!!) she and the doctor began scrambling to set up their stuff, which I don't really understand. Why wouldn't that stuff be set up already? They knew I was in labor, right? I mean, this ending was inevitable. The rest is as you can imagine. He came very quickly and was just perfect! That was the good part of the story.

Now, during the epidural process, my anaesthesiologist "snagged" a little hole, causing a tiny leak of spinal fluid. Apparently, there is about a 1% chance of this happening and frequently results in what they call a "spinal headache". Well, it happened to me. They tell me that a spinal headache is kind of like a migraine, only it lasts for 5-12 days. I've never had a migraine, so I wouldn't know, but I do know that a spinal headache hurts. Bad. There is a procedure to fix it, called a "blood patch", which is basically injecting my own blood (taken from yet another hole in my arm) into another epidural catheter. So, after doing this on Thursday, the relief was instantaneous. Cool. Now I can focus on my angel and my peanut!

So during this "focusing", I notice that the whites of peanut's eyes are a little yellow. The angel was a little jaundice when she was born as well. But during his first well baby visit on Friday, they tested his biliruben, which is some sort of thing that people have in their bodies that I don't know about, and it was too high. So we were told to take him to the hospital to lay under the "lights". This would fix those bad bilirubens. Off we go, picking up the angel from school and heading back to the hospital, a different hospital this time, but still 90 miles from our house. I figured this would take an hour, or maybe a couple hours. They checked us in to stay the night, with the option of a second night. This information would have been useful before we left home! We had nothing that one would normally pack for an overnight stay. Plus, we had the angel with us, and if we had known, we might have had her stay with grandma. (Luckily, my angel is a good sport, and can entertain herself with pretty much anything. I know a lot of kids who would not have endured such an "adventure" with as much grace. Man I love her!!) In addition to this unplanned hospital stay, my headache was returning. It could have been due to stress, and not "taking it easy" as I was instructed to do. The peanut endured his time in the tanning bed, as the husband called it, while he and I shared a cot the size of my couch and the angel slept in a nest of extra pillows on the floor under the sink. (This hospital room is about the size of a decent sized bathroom.) It was awesome. (inject sarcasm here) Luckily, we only had to stay one night. But now my headache was back in full force, so I had to go to the emergency room (the only place open on a Saturday) to have another blood patch done. Apparently, about 30% of people need a second one. (See, this is why I don't go to Vegas!! If there is a short straw, I'll draw it. Every time. I can't explain it, and I'm a statistician!)

So that was our week. My poor peanut has been dragged to more doctors in his short life than any man should be! Needless to say, this is the first chance I've had to announce the little guy! Hopefully, it all goes up from here!