The Davissons

Alex Leighton Davisson was born on June 24th. The week before he was born was kind of crazy. Jeff's mother (Marylin) had gotten the week off to help out with the baby, since my due date was the 20th, and I had Wyatt a few days early. But then the stomach flu came to the house. First Jeff's dad got it, then his Mom did. Then it was my due date, and no baby. Then Wyatt got the flu on Wednesday, so I had to take care of him throwing up in the middle of the night while Jeff tried to get sleep so he wouldn't be too tired for school. Luckily the flu was mostly a 24 hour thing, so Wyatt was feeling much better on Thursday night, but I still didn't sleep too well.

On Friday morning (the 24th), Jeff went to school, and I got up to go to the bathroom around 7:30. Just after that I started having contractions, and just like with Wyatt, they started out pretty intense and were only about 4-5 minutes apart. So I timed the contractions for a few minutes and then called Jeff and told him he might want to head home. We talked and since he was almost to school, I told him to go ahead and turn in his homework, and then head back home (about a 40 minute drive home). My doctor had told me he thought my labor would be pretty similar to my first, so I figured I could just wait for Jeff to get home, and then we could go to the hospital. So I sat down and worked on having some breakfast while I waited for Jeff. After about 15 minutes I decided I should probably just meet Jeff at the hospital, so I got Wyatt up and Marylin drove us to the hospital.

Jeff and I got to the hospital about the same time (around 8:30 am), and we checked in. The nurses were pretty calm getting me all checked in, and then had me get changed and leave a urine sample. When the nurse collected my sample, saw the blood in it, she said "Oh, your water must have broken," and I agreed that it must have just broken. Then she checked my progress, but then got another one to check me too. I thought it was weird that they didn't tell me my status. Instead they asked me if I felt like I needed to push. I said not yet, but I would like an epidural if I could still get one. So they sent someone to find out if the anesthesiologist could come over, had someone call my doctor, and frantically ran around the room trying to get things ready. Apparently I was much further along in labor than I thought. At first the nurses told me they didn't think the anesthesiologist would be able to make it in time because he was prepping someone for surgery, but he showed up a little later, just when I was feeling the need to push. He said I didn't have time to get an epidural, but he could try for an intrathecal injection (aka a walking epidural) which would last about 2 hours. I said to try it, while I tried to keep myself from pushing the baby out (which was harder than I thought!). The two nurses were wonderful in trying to help me keep from pushing while the anesthesiologist gave me the shot. They told me I didn't have to get the shot, but I told them I would like to see if he could do it! Luckily he was a good one and was able to administer it. While he was working, my doctor arrived and asked how long I had been having contractions. Jeff told him it had been a little more than an hour (I think everyone was wondering why we hadn't come in earlier on in labor instead of having everyone scrambling around for everything). After getting my pain meds, the doctor was better able to assess things. After watching me push a couple times, the doctor decided to give me a quick episiotomy, and Alex was out with the next contraction.

He was born at 9:06 am, weighed 8 lbs 5 ounces, and was 21.5 inches long.

Jeff took this picture right after Alex was born,
while they were checking all his vitals and such.

This is the photo that was taken at the hospital, with the
"crib card." If you look closely, one of the nurses had a
dyslexic moment with the length. Haha.

A close up of the hospital picture.

Marylin brought Wyatt to the hospital in the afternoon to meet his brother. At first he wasn't sure what to think, and wanted Grandma to put the baby down to hold him instead. But then he warmed up, and decided to give Alex a fist bump, Baymax style (Baymax is a robot in the movie Big Hero Six. He does a funny noise when he does a fist bump). It was the first time we'd heard Wyatt do the Baymax fist-bump noise. It was cute.

With such a short labor (and therefore, a relatively easy recovery) and baby doing well, we were able to go home the day after Alex was born. It was so nice to go home so quickly. We didn't have to find more sitters for Wyatt, and I could rest in my bed without nurses bugging us :) After I got home, I just had to remind myself to take it easy, because I would get tired easily.