Introducing Parker James Lalla

So the last post was an update on the induction...well let me fill you all in on the birth and Parker's first 48 hours of life. The birth....So on Friday 5/11 at about 5 pm the midwife broke my water and things really kicked into high gear. Contractions got way worse and I needed pain medication at this point. So I was given IV fentanyl and IV phenergan. Well the phenergan makes you completely loopy and I was able to sleep for a little while through the contractions. I was able to hold out till about 11pm and then I wanted the epidural...which I felt like a failure because I really wanted to do a natural child birth. On the plus side for a natural child birth, the epidural didn't take. They kept coming in a giving me more pain medication and I could still feel massive amounts of pain and the urge to push. So after the epidural I dilated to an 8 and held there for about 4 hours, so the nurse came in and explained my options, cause all I wanted to do was push and I wasn't aloud to because I wasn't dilated enough. The options were a c-section or redo the epidural and see if that helped. Regardless I needed a new epidural especially for a c-section. I told the nurse lets do the c section cause at this point I had been in labor for 24 hours. The nurse called in the midwife and she checked me one more time a YAY I was 10cm dilated and they said I could start pushing!!! I was like thank goodness. They asked if I wanted to redo the epidural and I said no cause I wanted to meet my little guy. I pushed for an hour and a half and he finally came out. So the birth was yes all natural since the epidural didn't work...I achieved my goal. At one point the midwife had to call in help because he was big they though his shoulders wouldn't fit out of the birthing canal and he would have shoulder dysplasia. Luckily, he mad it without that complication. It took him a minute to start screaming and perk up but once he did he was a nice pink color with really healthy lungs. Parker James Lalla was born 5.12.2012 at 408 am. He was 8 pounds 7 punces and 20 inches long and he is absolutely beautiful and perfect. Now on to his first days of life. Because I am diabetic he had to have his blood sugar check every three hours for what seemed forever. So his heel was sliced a number of times. And because I am a nurse I know what a heel slicer is and they are awful...we rarely use them on the floor I work on for sugar check, because they don't need that much blood, but I asked one of the nurses and she said that is what she had to use...she was not on my good list. Then they checked his bilirubin level because he came out with a lot of bruising it is a concern that his bilirubin level would get high and sure enough it was elevated and the second night he had to stay on the bili light bed. Well in the morning it wasn't any better and we bought ourselves an extra night. In addition Parker lost about 9% of his birth weigh which is too much and I had to start supplementing with formula to get his weight to even out. And that caused me some stress cause I was agains formula, but I of course want what is best for Parker. So we are supplementing with formula and I am pumping every 2 hours and it is a process. I am hoping his bilirubin checks throughout tonight will be good and he can go home tomorrow. In addition, he got circumcised this morning and I know it is an elective thing but man that looks painful and Jake keeps telling him he is sorry and that it must be terrible! This has been our experience so far...I will say Kennestone is really nice and we have had some great nurses. Some are excellent and some I have not been super impressed with but I am sure that is how most hospitals are and I am a critical judge since I am a nurse! Stay tuned hopefully we can go home tomorrow. There are a number of photos posted to facebook. Here is Parker giving us the finger for messing with his penis! http://i.imgur.com/QC9VS.jpg