Home Sweet Home

Dan has already posted the highlights of the birthing experience and honestly its still kinda a blur to me. I felt like Tuesday really went by extremely quickly. I has happy to experience contractions and also happy to feel them to a lesser extent once I asked for an epidural. Pushing was interesting trying all sorts of positions like squat bars, pulling on a rope and good old fashion chin to you chest pushing to get him to maneuver the last few inches. I did end up with a 3rd degree tear which was a fear of mine going in and they spent close to one hour stitching me back together again after Dexter was born. Its still very swollen down there and will be for several weeks I am told but I have like 5 different things I can use to lessen the pain and inflammation and they are making a difference.

The next few days in the hospital also flashed by, the main goal for my 3 days in the hospital was to establish breast feeding. Dexter, Dan and I worked on this every 2-3 hours around the clock and met with the lactation consultant twice to go over various strats and tricks of the trade to make breastfeeding work. Both of us are still learning, sometimes its hard to get him into a good position and about half the time his tongue doesn't want to quite work right but we are both determined to make it work.

Another highlight of my hospital stay was my visitors. Heather came over for the birth and will be back this Saturday with Cole and Jeff. Dan's friends came over - Jay & Ruth, Adam & Nicole, Jon, Kristin & Duncan- and everyone was happy to meet little Dexter (well except Jay and Adam who seemed scared by a newborn) My mom was there the whole time as well and was a wonderful help!

Our 48 hour stay turned into 72 hours because Dexter's bilirubin level was a bit high to go home (especially in dreary Ohio where the sun doesn't shine to get it naturally!) so we stayed one more night and Dexter got his first spa treatment with lights on him to promote breakdown of the bilirubin.

We are now home and our first concern was how our dogs and cat would respond to meeting Dexter. Each night we sent home a hat Dexter had worn during the day so they would have the smell of him to be somewhat familiar with. I was pretty happy to see that when we did bring him home all our pets were pretty calm and all wanted to sniff and lick him. When he cries they do get a bit concerned but so far so good.


Thanks for reading all this, I promise future blog entries will be shorter and have less pictures!! I just have so much to share and so many cool new things to discover and learn! I love you all and glad you're part of our new family.