Welcome to the world Cooper Allen Gallaway

Well, after nine long months we made it! We're going to have change our blog title from "We're Having a Baby!" to something more along the lines of "Welcome to the Gallaway Sleep Deprivation Challenge!"

All joking aside, everything has been going well. Cooper was born at 8:26 p.m. on Wednesday, March 30, 2011. He weighed in at 8 lbs, 7 oz., and measured in at 20 inches long. Cooper is every bit his father's son. He's got Kevin's lips, ears, toes. He's also got a matching dimple in his chin. His nose though, that's all mine! Since all babies are born with blue eyes we'll be waiting a while to see what color they end up being. I've got green and Kevin's got blue so we'll probably be somewhere in between.

We checked into the hospital at about 7:15 a.m. and we were up in the room, settled and hooked up to an IV and monitors all by about 8:30 a.m. Shortly thereafter, if I remember correctly, they started administering the pitocin and the nurse examined me and said that I was dilated to a good 4-5 cm. Which is way more than I was expecting.

From there things just kind of moved at a pretty good pace. They would come in every 15 to 20 minutes to up my pitocin. They had it at a 12 (the max I could get was 20) and I wasn't feeling much and then they upped it to 14 and I was done! I was only able to feel contractions on the left side of my body and they were coming right on top of each other with no breaks in between. At this point I was 6 cm dilated, so they backed the pitocin down to 12 and the anthesiologist came in to give the epidural. Now, most people told me that the epidural does hurt ... I'm not saying anyone is a liar, but it hurt. That was probably because it took him twice to put it in. He didn't link how it was threaded the first time, that was mainly becuase I could hunch over far enough to give him a good look at where he wanted to put it. My reward for that stellar performance was him sticking me a second time, only he stuck the needle in a spot that he hadn't numbed yet. Good times.

After the epidural all was well in my world. I did have one spot on the left hand side that would only get numb if I was laying on my left side and the medicine would then drain in that direction. After awhile the doctor came in and broke my water and examined me and that's when she said I was at 6 cm. Just over an hour later she came back to check and at that point I was 8 cm dilated, 9 cm when I had a contraction. So I went from 6 to 9 pretty quick.

Finally at about quarter to 7 they told me that we could start pushing. Now, when we started this process, I definitly didn't think I would end up pushing for an hour and-a-half, but that's what we did. By the end I was exhausted and felt like I couldn't push any more. After an hour of pushing the doctor comes in and is just standing there watching. The thought going through my head at that point was "dude, wanna get in on the action, because I'm pretty sure my insurance isn't paying you to just stand there and watch today."

Think about it, these guys have the best job EVER! You go to your OB appointments, they say hi, measure your belly, ask if you have any questions, if you don't, they say, "see ya in a few weeks," and turn you loose. Then it comes to actually having the baby and they don't show up until the baby is all but born.

Anyways, the doctor finally jumped in there and did something because I was clearly done and was telling Kevin that I was tired and that I wasn't pushing any more. The doctor made a few snips and out came the baby. I hear the nurses say, "oh, there's two, wait .. three." I think my reaction was "THREE BABIES!!!!!?????" After they finally calmed me down from that episode I was better. It wasn't until yesterday that Kevin told me that the umbilical cord had been wrapped around Coopers neck three times. They had no idea at all during the day that it had been wrapped because his heart rate was solid all day and through the entire delivery. Apparently the cord was long enough that it didn't pose any potential problems. After hearing that, I realize things could have been a whole lot worse.

I have to say, having a baby is the most life changing event ever. Kevin has been absolutely amazing with Cooper. He's been changing most of the diapers because I've been confined to the hospital bed. But Cooper loves to snuggle with his daddy. I've been attempting to breastfeed and that's been a whole different story. Thing got off to a rough start but I think we are finally in a place where we are moving forward and making some progress.

I was hoping that we would have been able to go home yesterday (Thursday) but they do the juandice testing about 24 hours after birth and they didn't want to do Cooper's circumcision without having the test done first. They have scheduled him to have the surgery this morning and they should be sending us home sometime this afternoon. I'm ready to go home and just try to figure everything out without a nurse coming in every few hours to take my blood pressure, check my temperature, etc. I did get up this morning and roamed the halls for a bit. It felt nice to get out of bed to do more than go to the bathroom. My legs, arms and back are all pretty sore so it makes it difficult for me to do pretty much anything but feed Cooper.

Anyways, the nurse has just brought Cooper back from his hearing test and it's time for him to eat AGAIN!!!!!

Here are a few photos for everyone to enjoy!