39 weeks??

Nope!! We only made it to 38 weeks:) Yay! He's here!

It all started at 1:21 am October 1. I woke up with contractions that were only 2-4 minutes apart. I tried to relax, thinking they were false labor pains. After an hour of trying to go to back to sleep without success, I woke up Scott and filled him in on the past hour. We chatted for a few minutes and I told him I was going to the hospital. We took our time getting ready, I ate a small snack and we pulled away from the house at 3:29 am. After being watched for an hour, hour and a half, we called the doctor and he told them to keep me. We filled out the proper paper work and got situated. We didn't know if we would be staying or not when we first arrived, so Scott ran out to the car to get my hospital bag. Nurse Melanie gave me my IV, grabbed me a cup of tigers blood flavored ice chips and we were set! Except for the fact that I was in some major pain. Nurse asked when I wanted my epidural...my reply...as soon as the anesthesiologist had time for me. Lucky me, he showed up at 6:00 am, wearing Halloween suspenders. After a few quick moments, he was done and my pain was starting to wear off. It was amazing. I felt great. He did the perfect dosage. I could still move my legs on my own, but I couldn't feel a thing. And just for the record, the IV hurt worse then the epidural. I would compare the epidural to what it feels like when the dentist gives you a shot in the mouth after applying a local anesthetic.




The next 14 hours and 20 minutes were sooooooooo long. Scott and I were both in and out of sleep, trying to get in as much as possible. That is difficult to do in a hospital. People keep coming in your room, taking vitals, pumping you full of liquids(antibiotics for the group b strep, epidural, saline to stay hydrated, pitocin), ice chips, changing the catheter bag, rolling you over on to your other side since you can't do it yourself:) It just seemed like it was taking forever!! Turns out, the epidural relaxed my body so much that my contractions were still consistent in their timing, but were not nearly as strong as when we first arrived at the hospital.

With me being in active labor but not progressing very fast, my doctor came over on his lunch break to break my water...it was about 1 pm at this point. 3 pm and still not very much progess so they hooked me up to pitocin. 3:15 pm and my right side was gaining feeling. I told the nurse, she said it was because I was laying on my left side so all of the medicine was draining to that side. I got rolled over. 3:45 pm and I am absolutely dying from the pain. I call nurse Jacquie back, she says, oh, why didn't you push the blue button to give yourself more medicine? Umm, because I did not know there was a little blue button to push. When I got my epidural at 6am, it was shift change time in the hospital. Guess they forgot to tell me. So, she pushes the button. 15 minutes later, not feeling any better. I push the button. Feeling slightly better, but the anesthesiologist is on his way to give me another dose. After he leaves, I can't feel a thing from my rib cage down. I couldn't even cough, but hey, at least I was numb.

I don't really remember the times when they came in to check to see how dilated/effaced I was. The only one I remember was at 5pm, I was at a 7 I think. At 7:30 pm, I was up to 9cm. Good thing I had my epidural, because I slept like a baby from 6 to 8, with the exception of a quick cervix check. At 8 pm, I was fully dilated, but his head was at a +1 and they like the baby to be at a +2 before we start pushing, so I waited for another 20 minutes. At 8:20 pm, the pushing began. My doctor had a patient in the next room over, so he was running back and forth. But Scott stayed with me the whole time, and my new nurse, Mandi, was there with a few exceptions to when she had to get a scale, she grabbed me a mirror to watch, and grabbed the doctor because baby was so close to coming out. I was lucky to watch what was going on in the mirror, especially since I was so numb that I could not really tell if my pushes were helping or not. But I could tell they were:) I even got to reach down and touch his little head before he came out. Too much information? Maybe. Sorry. After an hour and a half of pushing, and 2 episiotomies and 1 tear later, Baby Boy Copeland was born at 9:53 pm weighing 7 lbs 1.4 oz and measuring 19 inches long. The doctor let me hold him as soon as he came out, then Scott got to cut his umbilical cord.





After he was measured, cleaned off a bit, and checked for good health, we got to hold our little baby for a couple of hours until they brought him to the nursery for a full health check.




Still nameless (we had it narrowed down to Maddox, Milo, or Krew), he got stuck in the nursery for quite some time because he had low blood sugar. They had to bottle feed him right away to get his sugar levels up. He finally made it to our room around 1:30am. The nurses told me to call them when he woke up, other wise, they would be back at 5 am because he had to eat to make sure his sugar level was ok. I was such a proud new mom, that I just held and watched him while he slept. I forgot how tired I was. The nurses came back at 4:45. I called them because I needed more medicine. His blood sugar was low again, so they did not let me feed him, instead, they took him up to the NICU to get an IV going to bring up his levels. They told me it would take about an hour or so...yeah right. Poor little guy was in there for the next two days. With high hemoglobin levels, causing the low blood sugar, and eventually jaundice. Even with his slight difficulties, he was a trooper!! He did so great! Didn't even cry when he got his IV's placed.




Eventually, as the day kept going...we decided on a name!! Maddox Iley Copeland. It was perfect. We both really liked the other two names, but Maddox just seemed to suit him the best. Anyway, Saturday, my mom flew into town. Here is Maddox with his Grandma in the NICU.



And one of him with his dad in the NICU.


I have a couple of me with him in the NICU, but they aren't very appropriate for the world wide web. The two we did get were of him feeding. This is mainly because every time we were up there visiting him, it was time to eat. We were on a very strict feeding schedule to make sure his levels stayed in place, so we would feed him for an hour or so, then head back to my room for an hour to two hours to eat, sleep, and get checked out myself to ensure I was healing properly. It was hard not having Maddox in our room with us, but the NICU nurses were great! They would call as soon as he would wake up, if it was before his next feeding time. Otherwise, we were up there every three hours. And not only that, but after seeing all of the other babies in the NICU with more serious health problems, I was very grateful knowing that Maddox would be ok in the end. After two days in the NICU, he was eating well, his blood sugar was high, and he was FINALLY sent to the well baby nursery. Two hours before I was discharged. I was so glad he was there! Because that meant he was able to come home with us on time:)