The Smiths: Boyd Caleb Smith

Induction day started bright and early - they wanted us at the hospital at 5am. This was Thursday, August 13th.

Spoiler alert - this ties with Cora for the worst delivery experience. It's hard to say which was worse; quick and horribly painful or drawn out and very painful. Let's just say we're all glad it's over.

As I said, we got to the hospital around 5am and by 5:30, my contractions had already started on their own. I guess this baby really did want to be born on the 13th! The nurse tried and failed twice to place an iv, digging around under my skin with the needle each time before finally giving up and calling in someone else. It was not pleasant. A pre-cursor of what the day would hold. I started out dilated 5cm, like with most of our babies, but progressed very slowly throughout the day. They started the pitocin shortly after 6am and I got an epidural just before 7am. A little after 8am the doctor broke my water and told me I had a "melty" cervix. TMI, I know, but what does that even mean? All morning the epidural did basically nothing, except make my right let go completely numb and at 9:30 the baby's heart rate dropped and they put me on oxygen. At noon, I had hardly progressed and the baby's heart rate kept dropping with every contraction, so they did an amnio infusion. Who even knew that was a thing? I had so many cords and wires coming off of me at this point it was ridiculous. They had also gone in and attached a monitor to the baby's head (told me it wouldn't hurt the baby, but there was definitely a scab on his head for a month after he was born) to get a better read on his heart rate. I was in so. much. pain. They kept having me shift positions including turning around and kneeling at one point. Considering that my right leg was useless, I had to put all my weight on my left knee which was been painful ever since my knee surgery last November. ANYWAY, but early afternoon I was a mess. I was exhausted, humiliated, and hurting. I couldn't stop crying. It was pathetic. Shortly before 4pm they gave me some pain meds, then came and took out the first, non-functioning epidural and gave me a new one.

Just after 4:30 the new epidural kicked in all at once, just in time for the baby to be born at 4:37pm.

It's a boy!

And, we kept it in the single digits! (And I survived giving birth wearing a mask!) 9lbs 9oz and 21in long.

And now, there's nothing else to say - just pictures of an adorable, new baby!

We hung out in the delivery room for several hours. I don't think they took us to new room until after 10pm. But at least they brought me food!

I won't try to justify or explain here, but I'd decided to bottle feed this baby from the get-go. He loved those early bottles!

Our first call was obviously to Grandma Smith at home with the kids to tell them they had a brother! We'd been debating back and forth between a couple of names, but landed on Boyd Caleb Smith. They were all super happy to see him and sad they couldn't come hold him. Thank you, COVID-19.

When we finally got settled in a room, Andrew went home to help with the kids (even though they were already in bed, many of them don't sleep through the night - I won't name names - and we didn't want Grandma to have to deal with that). I snuggled with Boyd for a while then sent him to the nursery so I could get some sleep. Don't judge.

How cute is 1 day old Boyd??

He and I got to hang out on Friday. I was kind of hoping they'd let us leave once he was 24 hours old, but no such luck. Because of his size, they wanted to keep an eye on his blood sugar for at least the first 24 hours (he did fine) and decided not to let us leave until Saturday.

Flowers from Grandma Larsen and Aunt Kelly!

Daddy came and hung out on Friday while Grandma held down the fort at home.

Boyd failed his newborn hearing screen on Friday, so they tried again Saturday morning before we left and he passed. Maybe too much fluid in there the first time?

And, right from the start, this kid would pee every time we tried to change his diaper. So he went through a lot of outfits in the hospital.

He's so cute and squishy!!

I tried to keep him in the room with me Friday night but he was such a stinker. He'd wake up and cry every few minutes so by 2am or so I let the nursery watch him for a bit. The nurse said she didn't mind holding him all night....