Welcome Baby Grayson!

It's a . . . BOY!

World, this is baby Grayson Michael! He was born at 9:37 a.m. on October 29th, and weighed in at a whopping 9 pounds, 12 ounces. He was 20.5 inches long.

I have been trying to write this post a little at a time over the past two weeks, so it's a bit long! But I wanted to make sure I documented Grayson's birth story as best I could. So - here it is!:

His birth was a planned c-section. We got there at 7 a.m. and the nurses loaded me up with a few bags of fluids. Cory and I chatted nervously while we waited, and each took one final guess: boy or girl? (We both said boy.) I was wheeled into surgery a little late, and very nervous/excited. They put in my spinal, and it went very well for me - it hardly hurt! Soon after I was numb from ribs-down. The spinal made me nauseated, but my anesthesiologist Bryce was FANTASTIC and made sure I didn't throw up once (even though I thought I would and told him that about 10 times in a half hour.) He was so on top of things - each time I said I thought I would throw up, he was injecting me with something so that I wouldn't - and I was very impressed with his overall demeanor and service. Cory came in the OR soon after I was numb to hold my hand, and surgery began.

Surgery took longer than I remember from before. I could not see anything going on, however after they cut me open and began I was wide awake and aware of everything going on, while at the same time feeling nothing that was going on. I felt a LOT of pressure when two nurses got on top of me and started to push baby out. It felt like they were going to break my sternum, and I could hardly breathe! We had to take breathing breaks, which was a little scary for me. Grayson was stuck up in my abdomen, so it took a lot of pushing and pulling to get him out.

And then . . . he was out! Dr. Dalla-Riva said "It's a boy!" and I was so shocked and happy. My first thought upon looking at Grayson was "Is that one mine?" :) The reason why I thought this: he was very red, bruised, and had a lot of DARK (almost black) hair! That was unprecedented - no one in our families has had hair as dark as Grayson's, so we were very surprised. I then became overcome by what a miracle he is, and I started to tear up. Then I started to laugh when I heard him cry - it was definitely a cry that reminded me of Nora.

They put him on the scale and told us his weight and I was SHOCKED! I knew baby was big, but I thought to myself there is no way this child is bigger than Nora's weight of 9 pounds, 1 ounce. WRONG! It was so shocking, I could only lay there shaking my head.

I was in recovery for nearly two hours before I got to see him again. That was the longest two hours ever and I got pretty antsy while they checked and re-checked me, and asked me about my pain levels. (Side note: I was feeling no pain at this point.) However, they did eventually bring him in, and I did get to breastfeed him as soon as I saw him, which was what I wanted. We later learned that there were a lot of babies born that day, and most were C-Sections so everyone was very busy!

Grayson was very bruised after he came out, and he looked like he had been squished into every crevice inside me. His poor arms and face were black and blue, and it was obvious to me that he was very sore for the first few days of his life (and on day two, they circumcised him!) He cried a lot in the hospital. Right away the pediatrician informed me he was "LGA" - Large for Gestational Age". (Um, duh.) He also had a weird bump on his lip, that first was classified as a skin tag, then later called a "mucous retention cyst". I don't know what it was exactly, but it has completely shrunk down to nothing since he's been home. I do think it interfered with breastfeeding originally - Grayson was a very shallow latcher at first. We have since corrected that, but DANG. That was very painful for me.

His first day of life he got to meet his big sister Nora. She came up in the evening with most of our family to meet Grayson. She was so very excited, it was so cute. :) She had a little gift for Gray, and mommy, daddy, and Gray had little gifts for her too - a Thomas the Train book, and a REAL kid's digital camera.

On Grayson's third day of life, I was alone with him for most of the day. He cried and cried, and I nursed him repeatedly to no avail (my milk was still not in.) I noticed that his mouth was dry and he wasn't wetting his diaper, so I asked the nurses for formula supplements. That's a hard decision to make (it felt like a mom-failure to me) but it ended up being the right decision. The very next day I was ordered by the pediatrician to supplement Grayson with formula until his one-week check-up. He had lost 10 percent of his body weight in the hospital, which is the maximum he can safely lose. It's amazing to me that I felt like such a failure giving him formula, and it ended up being exactly what he needed to have.

The last day in the hospital went just fine and Grayson got to add his footprint to the wall just prior to leaving. His reaction was the same as his sister's. :)

So, he's here! :) He's been such a little joy, but life sure has been a LOT different for all of us! I certainly forgot how tough having a newborn is. I will post again in a few days with an update on how his first two weeks at home were. ;)

Until next time . . .