The Story of Cole's Birth

***FYI, This is long, so if you want to cut to the chase and see some pictures, see the link towards the bottom of this post :)***

Okay, I am a little behind, so I will start my posts this week by sharing the story of Cole's birth. Obviously the week preceding Cole's arrival was a bit stressful with the whole blood issue. We had received word on Tuesday that Jen's blood was a match to mine, and that my c-section was scheduled for Thursday, July 17th. I went to bed Tuesday night feeling good about things. Apparently Cole did too and knew that it was safe to come.

Around 1ish I woke up and my stomach was feeling kind of icky and having some pain. I got up, got a drink, went to the bathroom and went back to bed. Around 2ish I started waking up again, on and off. Finally around 4, the pain was coming and going and I was thinking that it may be contractions. I got up, went downstairs and actually got on the labtop and googled "What do contractions feel like?" I know that sounds so silly, but I never had Braxton Hicks with Mia or Cole, and with Mia I had such an early epidural that I never felt a painful contraction with her. Plus I think I was in a little denial. :) After googling and having the contractions increase in intensity I decided to wake up Cort. I told him that I thought this was probably it and that he should start packing up the last-minute stuff while I jumped into the shower quick. After I got out, I called the doctor office and they told me to come on in. We then called my mom and told her to come as soon as she could (God bless her, it was only like 5 in the morning at this point) and then called Sarah and Ian's and asked Sarah to come be a warm body in the house to watch Mia until my mom could get there (God bless her too). As soon as Sarah got there we left since it felt like the contractions were getting stronger and more frequent. By this point it was 5:30 a.m.

We got to the hospital, got wheeled to labor and delivery and taken to a room. The nurse asked me how my pain was on a scale of 1-10. I said an 7 or an 8 and she seemed kind of suprised, so I backpeddled and said, "well maybe a 7???" I didn't want to be one of those people who they sent home thinking they were going to be having a baby. She went through some other preliminary questions to get us admitted in and then examined me. At that point she said, "You are staying here and having a baby today. You are 5 centimeters dilated." Things moved VERY quickly after that. Lots of people started coming in the room, bringing Cort is snazzy outfit for the operating room, and hooking me up to all sorts of things, signing all the necessary paperwork, and prepping me. I was very happy to hear that Dr. Weeks was the doctor on that morning since he was the other doctor that had been helping with all the blood stuff and knew what was going on. They gave me the nasty stuff to drink that is supposed to neutralize your stomach and I of course puked it right up. Thankfully though, this was the only time I threw up, which is great considering I puked through most of Mia's delivery and after too.

They then wheeled me into the OR while they made Cort wait in the holding area. At this point they gave me my spinal (not bad at all) and got me all situated with the curtain up, making sure the spinal had kicked in, etc. They let Cort in and things began. The actual c-section itself was okay, I did not love the feeling of all the pushing and pulling although there wasn't really any pain. Actually at one point they started pushing down on my chest/stomach area and that was a bit painful and uncomfortable, but they cranked some more meds and that took care of that. :) After a pretty short amount of time, they pulled Cole out. He was born at exactly 7:00 a.m. I heard him cry pretty quickly and that of course was great to hear. They brought him over and and showed him to us and asked Cort if he wanted to cut the cord (which he did). They cleaned him up, did his apgars (he got an 8 and a 9), weighed him and measured him (I could not believe he was 8 pounds 10 ounces!!!), and then let Cort hold him over by me. I was so happy to finally get to see him! I really thought he looked a lot like Mia did when she was born, but now that he is changing each day I don't see it as much.

After that, we hung out with Cole as they put me back together again. :) That part always seems so long and I was just anxious to get into recovery. I should also add that Dr. Martin must have been called somewhere along the way because he showed up toward the end of my c-section. I was very happy to see him. :) Once we got to recovery, I was pretty lightheaded and my blood pressure was lower than normal, so they had me continue to lay flat and I couldn't hold Cole yet. :( They did let him snuggle next to me though. They gave me some medication to help my blood pressure rise a bit and that did help. During that time the pediatrican also showed up for her rounds and was able to examine Cole right away. She thought everything looked great with him and we were all thrilled that it does not appear that he has a heart murmur or anything unusual sounding with his heart. Yay!!!

Cort and I also decided at that point that we would name our little guy Cole Anthony. We had both really liked the name Cole and never found anything we liked much better than that. We had also known for a long time (pretty much since the ultrasound where we found out it was a boy) that we wanted to use Anthony as a middle name to honor my dad. So Cole Anthony it was!
After about an hour in recovery (and several phone calls to parents, etc.) we were taken to our room and I had a chance to feed Cole for the first time. He did a great job and has been doing good with feeding ever since (maybe a little TOO good, I feel like I'm always feeding him!!!). After that they took Cole for his first bath, which Cort got to go with and do camera-duty. Cole then came back to hang out with us (yay!!) and we just ate up our time with him. He was just such a great little snuggler in the hospital and still is. My mom then brought Mia to visit her new brother around noon that day.

Mia was so excited to come meet her brother (and I think see us). She pretty quickly agreed to come up and get in the bed with me so she could see Cole. She was very interested in him and the hat that he was wearing. :) She did a great job calling him "Baby Cole." She also got a big sister gift from Cole (which was a Nemo sticker book) and after receiving that, she wasn't too interested in too much else. :)

The rest of our hospital stay was good. Since I had Cole at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, by Thursday at 7 a.m. I got to get my IV and catheter out, as well as the leg things you have to wear that help with circulation. It was so nice to be free of all wires and machines! I was up and able to move around so much better than last time and had so much less bleeding than the first time around. We had great nurses and really had a good stay while we were there. This experience was a world of difference from the first time around in terms of pain and recovery so I am thankful for that. We were originally supposed to stay 3 nights because of the c-section, but they let me go home after 2. It was so nice to be back at my own house in my own bed!

I do have to say it is very cool that Cole was born on the 16th because my birthday is on the 16th, as is Mia's and my mom's. I am Feb. 16th, my mom is June 16th, Cole is July 16th, and Mia August 16th. Pretty crazy!

And now to the pictures.....Hospital pictures are not what they used to be. They didn't even take "traditional" hospital photos. Instead, they have a photographer come to your room and take pictures there. If you want to check Cole's out go to http://bellababyphotography.com/ and click on the left side "Website." Once you get to the website, along the bottom click on "Client." It will ask you to enter a password and ours is "Graske."

I like the pictures okay, I think I am just picky. :) I will say it is nice to have some of us as a family and some of me with Cole. A friend of mine who is portfolio building for photography is going to come this week and take some pictures of Cole, which is nice to take the pressure off of me. :) I have taken lots of snapshots of Cole, but haven't been too motivated to do anything more "posed" with him.

So there it is, I will be posting pics soon of Cole and his recent visitors. I have to get caught up!! Stay tuned!