I only pushed in the water for 5 minutes when they decided the baby wasn't responding well to me pushing in that particular position, so they wanted me to try a different position instead. They wanted me to go to the bed and lie down on my left side but I couldn't walk! I felt the baby's head pressing there and I had no ability to even straighten my legs out. So, a group of them literally carried me to the bed with my legs apart wishing I could just hurry up and push again!
Once I got to the bed they had me get on all fours instead of lying down on my side. This worked great! I was being told to push and what to do and I did exactly as everyone told me. I was able to concentrate so well. I loved pushing! It's the best part of labor and I longed for that stage to finally come! In just 5 minutes, I pushed the head out and then didn't realize I still needed to push to get the body out. I couldn't see baby being born this time given my pushing position. So I asked if baby was out, and Melissa said, "no, you have to push baby out", so I pushed through one more contraction with only two big breaths and baby's body slithered out! Baby was guided to the bed immediately right underneath me and I scooped baby in my arms and stared at baby. We looked down to see that baby was a boy! They put oxygen on him because he was purple from the quick pushing adventure and now that he was out he pinked up in seconds! He was so glad to be out!
Almost immediately, I had them wake and bring Aidan in so he could meet his new little brother. Since it was so early he was sleeping in his pack-n-play in the living area. He was fascinated and stared at his little brother with curiosity and smiled at him.
After a few hours of bonding, the nurse did the newborn assessment on him. He weighed a whopping 8lbs even and measured 20 1/2 inches long with a 13 1/2 inch head circumference. His head came out perfectly round and didn't mold into the "cone head" that Aidan's did. I guess Aidan did a good job of paving the way for #2 and the pushing process was much faster, as well!
He has a head full of hair. It's about an inch long and is a dark blonde color. I wonder if he'll lose all of this birth hair. His eyes in the sunlight show to be a very dark blue for now. His skin was a plumpy pink color and he has chubby cheeks. He has long fingernails and loves to wiggle around a lot. He can lift his head far up into the air already when we hold him on his tummy.
After we got all cleaned up, we packed up the van and took some pictures and left for home at 1:30PM just 7 hours and 15 minutes after he was born. We stopped at Chic-fil-a for some chicken sandwiches and a shake because Mommy was starving!
We got home about 2:30PM or so and were so glad to be in our home! We settled in quickly. I nursed him one more time before Aidan and I took a much needed nap in the bed while Daddy and baby had some holding time downstairs (and Daddy got to watch college football of course!).
I'm just glad I had the baby in time so Daddy could see the Clemson game last night! After our 2 hour nap, Austin called his parents to come over and watch the game and meet the newest addition. They brought over an excellent dinner for us - ham, mac&cheese and beans! And she made some homemade cookies in the shapes of the letter "B" for boy and the color blue. Mmmmm! They gave us a sweet card and a bouquet of flowers in this sweet baby boy vase. They gave Aidan a "I'm a Big Brother" balloon which he loves to play with! We watched Clemson beat Florida State even after we gave them 9 of their points which contributed to another tied 4th quarter game! It was a great end to a wonderful day!
Daddy put Aidan down earlier and then after the game the rest of us went to bed too. The baby slept with us and Aidan slept at our feet in the pack-n-play all night. It was very different to hold a little baby and nurse him often and listen for all of his noises to see how he's doing as compared to just snuggling with a 13 month old who you no longer worry about.
