Introducing Benjamin Willys Larson: The Rest of His/Our Story

Introducing Benjamin Willys Larson, born 7:50pm, 1/7/12, weighing in at 7lbs 2oz!

It's me (Ali) once again - I know you've missed me and all my rambling :)  Benjamin is "napping", so I'm hoping I can squeeze a little blog action in to update how everything else went after Matt's last post.  (Thank you honey for keeping everyone up to speed!)  We've had an incredibly crazy last few days running on what I can only imagine are the proverbial fumes - Matt has been able to sneak in a little sleep here and there, but the past three nights have afforded me little to none.  Guess it's the start of a whole new way of life!  

Fair warning: lots of details to come, feel free to skip if you are uninterested in any of this kind of stuff!  

First, let me start at the "end" before I go back to the middle.  Selfishly, I do this to remember why it is we had to go through everything over the last 39 weeks to get where we are now.  :)  And this is the why, our little baby boy:

We love him so much, and though he's come with many challenges, we are thankful for his life and love.  Not sure what we'd do without him, it's like he's a part of us now that simply cannot not exist.  But back to him in a second...

Matt mentioned in the last post that once my water broke, it was full speed ahead... and that is no lie.  I started having extremely painful contractions (like my overnight ones multiplied by 100. Seriously.) that were coming every minute.  Every. Minute.  Sometimes 45 seconds.  It seemed crazy since I was only about 6 cm dilated, but all of a sudden my body was raring to go.  Unfortunately, however, I could only tolerate this kind of pain for about an hour (after ralphing twice... I can't believe how calm Matt stayed for me!!) and finally gave in to the epidural.  (Which, ultimately, became the best.decision.ever despite my initial incredible fear.)  Once the epidural was in, everything seemed to be going really well.  No pitocin needed, dilating on schedule, got to 90% effaced in no time, contractions started coming at a more normal rate, etc.  Everything seemed like we were heading in the direction of a wonderful delivery.  But of course, Benjamin had other ideas!  

The epidural was pretty amazing....

It started snowing just in time for Benny's arrival!

they were ready to catch him!

Once I got to 10cm (quickly!), I started working with my fabulous nurse on pushing.  "It looks like we could have a speedy delivery here!" she said, and we all thought.  Our visitors (my dad, stepmom, sister, Matt's mom, and Amber's boyfriend DJ) had all headed to the waiting room and expected to be notified within 20 min to 2 hours once BWL arrived.  Unfortunately, for everyone, they ended up waiting a lot longer than that!  About 2.5 hours into pushing, we realized that BWL just may not be able to get his head in the correct position to come out on his own.  I tried, and tried, and tried (even laboring on my hands and knees with my epidural in and all!), but alas, BWL just wasn't able to twist his little body enough to get into position.  He kept hitting the side of his head against my pelvic bone (which has left him with a nice battle wound for the moment), and despite all our efforts, it just wasn't happening.  A little over 3 hours into pushing, my doctor looked at me and told me the news.  Tears had already been streaming down my face (though I couldn't really help it!) for about 30 minutes at that point as I tried to push through the fears of possibly having a c-section, the fears of having all my hard work go to waste, the fears of yet another thing going wrong, and the big fear of "failing".  I pleaded with God silently - I mean, couldn't just one thing go my way for once?  

[Clearly I've been taught many lessons through this pregnancy/labor - I know for certain that any expectations I have can very easily be cast aside for, well, anything.  And being able to handle the loss of expectations or hopes in a positive way is a valuable trait to have.  Life will never go just the way I want it, but that doesn't mean that life isn't amazing and great.  The past nine months have been tough, and not much like I thought they'd be, but in the end, it's been wonderful.  Sick or healthy, Benjamin's life is amazing. Our lives are amazing.  And I know we are blessed.]

Excited Grandpa!

Matt giving them the news that we were heading in for surgery:

So off to the operating room we went.  We said farewell to the nice, cozy, decorated labor/delivery room and hello to the cold, sterile, white operating room that was now Benjamin's entrance to the great big world.  My doctor was amazingly compassionate and understanding of my disappointment/sadness, and having met lots of the nurses/staff on our floor thanks to our wonderful friend Jess (a former nurse there) who visited us several times throughout the labor and totally hooked us up, along with the fact that there weren't many babies on our floor that night, we ended up having a full operating room with people cheering me on and being absolutely wonderful.  We got to listen to KBCO (BWL entered the world while the Doobie Brothers was playing!  I laughed about that...), they helped us take pictures, they told fun stories/jokes, and generally just helped us make it through!  While I was sad to be stuck behind a curtain while they worked away, I was just thankful to know that our little boy would finally be here.  And once he got here, Matt got to cut his cord (I didn't get to see it sadly, but one of the doctors took a picture for me!) and help out with all the "checks" being done while they finished doing work on me (it felt like children or small animals were dancing on my stomach the whole time... in case you were wondering) :)  

Cutting the cord:

Matt bringing him over to meet me!

New family!!

Some of our wonderful team in surgery:

After everything was done, I was taken to the recovery room where I had to spend a few hours getting checked on and what not.  Sadly I didn't get to celebrate with the family right away (though the nurses did a really great job of keeping me company and cheering me up), but once Benjamin was checked out and had a chance to finally lay with me (finally!!), Matt got to take him out to the waiting room to introduce him to everyone!  I can only imagine that it was a very special time - thankfully my sister snapped a few pictures of BWL with our cheering squad!

SO - that's our story, or at least how it's starting!  I know it was certainly not as "difficult" as many arrivals, nor as "easy" as many either.  But it's all gone exactly how it was supposed to, somehow. And no matter the means, we now are enjoying time with our brand new son!  I'm recovering from his arrival slowly (and taking lots of pain meds!), but we've been blessed with help from amazing staff and family that have been willing to help even when it gets pretty gross (no need for TMI here) :)  We have so much to learn and are grateful for all the support and encouragement we've received from family and friends - the visitors and messages we've received have lifted my spirits in more ways than you know!  And if all goes well, we should be heading home from the hospital tomorrow (hopefully!)... [And a special thanks to my mother-in-law who flew out and has spent time with us at the hospital and also back at our house doing all sorts of nice things for us while we've been cooped up here!]

Some of Benjamin's visitors (forgot to grab the camera with everyone! bummer...) :

Benjamin says to thank you all for your love and prayers!  We will know in about 7-10 days if he tests positive for cystic fibrosis, at which point we'll have to send him to Children's Hospital for a stress test to verify that he has it (as apparently there are many false positives initially).  But so far, the pediatricians that have stopped by our room have said he looks very healthy.  We are SO thankful for that!!  (The bowel issue we were monitoring now seems to be resolving itself, and we are even MORE grateful for that!)  He is a strong and vocal boy (shocker!), and we LOVE him.  Yes, he is crying in large amounts and at high volumes currently, but we still love him. ;)  As of his 48 hour birthday, he's down about 8.5% in weight, which isn't terrible - we're just waiting to see how far he goes down as he may not be getting much "food" despite the many many hours of breastfeeding we've endured together - just one more challenge to overcome!  (This means we may also stay in the hospital until Wednesday to make sure feeding/eating is going well for him and me.)


Other fun moments so far

First bath (Matt got to go!):

Matt smiling after changing his very first diaper:

Cuddling with mom!

(I loved the monkey on his butt...)

We'll keep you updated on more as we start to get settled into life as a family of FOUR (Lincoln, aka "the original stinker", has been staying with wonderfully selfless friends and my fabulous sister).  We have much to learn about BWL's needs and cues, but slowly we are getting there.  And I'm pretty sure he loves us as much as we love him.  :-)

***
Here are pictures from our first day at the hospital when we found out we'd be getting induced - we passed time by playing cards, singing songs, spending time with our visitors, and mentally preparing for Baby Larson!

 Thanks for all your love and support!