Time is flying

It is hard to believe we are coming up on a month with the little guy now. Time has definitely flown and it feels like we are living life in 2 hour increments between feedings. Speaking of feedings, we have had a whole new crop of challenges this time around including thrush (again!), low supply in the beginning, low milk transfer & slow weight gain for Roscoe. Luckily all of the same people who helped me through it last time are helping again. I am hopeful that everything will get resolved and I will be able to breastfeed Roscoe just as successfully as I did Hazel.

Marshall is now back at work for two 10 hour days a week which has been great since he is such a wonderful hands on dad. We are also attempting the seemingly impossible by flying to Seattle at the end of the month with two kids under 16 months, which should be an adventure to say the least. Of course the reason we are flying up is incredibly wonderful as we are throwing my best friend a baby shower for her son due at the end of November :-)

We had the photographers out for Roscoe's newborn photo shoot two weeks ago and can't wait to see the final results. There is a sneak peek of the photo shoot on their website: www.idropphoto.com and it is just making us more excited to see the rest of the pictures.

The Birth Story - Finally!!!

Roscoe Marshall Schott

Born: August 19, 2010 at 12:27 pm

8lb 3oz, 20.5 inches long

Roscoe’s birth story:

So here we are two weeks after Roscoe's arrival and I finally have found the time to write about his birth. These first days have been both exhausting and amazing. Marshall and I still can't believe that we are now a quartet. Here's how his entrance into the world began (warning... it is very long!!)...

Since we really sped up the moving in process and got everything unpacked, it really felt like we were just sitting around and W-A-I-T-I-N-G for our little boy to make his grand appearance. The week before the due date I had been feeling contractions off and on for a few days and kept wondering if they were ever going to become consistent. While everyone had their guesses as to when Roscoe would be here, this whole time I really felt like it would be on the 18^th (maybe because I have two friends with birthdays on this date?). Either way, on the night of the 18^th with no signs of impending labor, Marshall and I decided to go out to dinner at BJ’s. We had been talking about doing it for the last week since BJ’s is where we ate the day before Hazel was born and our friend Loralyn also went into labor at a BJ’s, so apparently there is something in their food that induces labor J. We went out to eat and I really enjoyed myself eating pizza, salad and an Oreo pizookie for dessert. Marshall kept asking me if I had any contractions and sadly there was nothing to report. That night we went to bed and still I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary except that I was quite full. I’m not sure exactly when it happened but in the middle of the night I really started tossing and turning. It felt like the food we had eaten that night wasn’t agreeing with me. Around 4:15 am it became more and more obvious that I was uncomfortable and that is when Marshall finally popped his head up and told me to start timing these “stomach cramps”. Sure enough, they were all about 6-7 minutes apart and it was at that point that we started to get excited that this might be it. Marshall asked me if I was for sure going to have the baby that day before calling in to work and I told him I couldn’t provide any guarantees! At that point, the contractions were becoming stronger and that is when I decided to take a nice long hot shower while Marshall continued to time the contractions and also called our doula, Natalie, to let her know what was going on. When I was in the shower the contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart and getting stronger still. I did not notice any water breaking but I was definitely bleeding which is something that I never noticed happening when I was in labor with Hazel. Once I got out of the shower we decided to load Hazel in the stroller and go walking out in front of our house to help things to keep moving along. As we walked the contractions varied in intensity and duration and I just keep wondering/worrying whether or not they would stall out and result in false labor. Sometime around 9:00 am Natalie showed up and joined me in walking outside. She later told me that at that point she wasn’t sure whether or not I was going to have the baby that day based on the contractions I was having. Once we got back Marshall fixed me some eggs and toast and at that point it really didn’t feel like much was happening. At about 10:00 am Natalie suggested that we go to the back room and see if we couldn’t get the contractions stronger and longer by hooking me up to the breast pump for 15 minutes. This most definitely did the trick. Within minutes the contractions got incredibly strong and close together. Since I had an appointment already scheduled with the midwife at 10:45 am and my contractions had really ramped up we decided that Marshall and I would head over to the appointment in our car (packed with our bags of course) and that Natalie would head over separately. Marshall’s sister Melissa and her boyfriend Joe stayed home with Hazel as we gave her a kiss goodbye. As we drove to the hospital my contractions were still going strong as ever. On the way there, immediately after having a contraction we got in a phone call to Aunt Sheila, my mom and Aunt Patty to let them know what was going on. Once we arrived at the midwife’s office (which is located right next to the hospital) my contractions were so intense that I did not want to go inside for fear of scaring some of the “less pregnant” women waiting in the lobby for their appointments. Marshall left me in the car and ran inside to talk to the front desk. They told him to take me over to labor and delivery immediately. We were over there in a matter of minutes and even though I had pre-registered at the hospital, they still had me “take a seat” in the lobby. It really wasn’t possible or comfortable for me to just sit there so I was just out in the open having these intense contractions with everyone watching me with their eyes wide open and wondering if I was going to have the baby right there in front of them. Luckily Natalie showed up quickly and went to speak to someone about what they were making me wait for (Marshall had wandered off to purchase a sandwich at this point, not knowing when his next meal was going to be). Within minutes I was being escorted up to L&D (unfortunately it was hospital policy for me to be wheeled there in a wheelchair which was quite uncomfortable) and we arrived in our room around 11:15 am. Once in L&D they first said that they didn’t have an open room but I made sure to be quite vocal about my contractions and lo and behold a room was ready for me. Once in the room the nurses started getting things set up and wanted to check my progress as my contractions were clearly causing me a great deal of pain. At the first check the nurse announced that I was a “good 8/9” and once I heard that I started crying tears of joy/relief that this baby was really on his way. I was also so happy about having labored to this point without any medication as it had been my goal to have a natural childbirth. As they scrambled to get things ready for me I was still bleeding more than they would have liked which I later found out had made Marshall quite nervous. Natalie told us that she thought the bleeding was more due to the fact that Roscoe was really making his way down quite quickly. I continued to have incredibly strong and painful contractions for the next 45 minutes, which felt like an eternity to me. Natalie and Marshall were so instrumental and supportive that I honestly don’t know what I would have done without them. As I could feel each contraction coming on I remember thinking that there was no escaping and I wasn’t sure if I could handle that pain one more time. At this point they called the midwife (our midwife was on vacation so it was the other midwife, Allyson, who was on call that day) and found out that she was already at the hospital assisting in a C-Section. The nurse checked me again and stated that she really only thought I was a 6/7 and I became incredibly discouraged. Natalie thought that it had more to do with the fact that my bag of water hadn’t completely broken that was stalling me a bit. Once I became discouraged Natalie got right in my face and gave me the best pep talk ever, motivating me to continue on. A little after 12:00 pm is when Natalie asked me if I had the urge to push and wanting it to be true, I said yes and started trying. A few contractions later I actually did feel the urge to push and my body basically just began pushing on it’s own. There was no stopping the pushing and it really felt like an out of body experience. I’m sure that Marshall will never forget the sounds I was making as I was trying to push our baby out into this world. It was pretty clear that Roscoe would be coming quickly and they had to call the midwife out of her surgery to come in for the delivery. I honestly don’t remember how long I was pushing, but as his head was coming out I had never experienced such pain/pressure in my life. Marshall exclaimed that Roscoe was definitely on his way out and one push later I experienced the greatest sense of relief of my life when he was born! As we had expressed in our birth plan, they put Roscoe right on my chest and let me snuggle and bond with our baby immediately, without any other interventions. At this point the placenta delivered quite easily on the next contraction and the midwife numbed me a bit to do a few stitches, which she said weren’t too bad since the tearing was minimal. Roscoe laid there with me for almost an hour before they came and asked if it was ok to wipe him up and find out how big he was. The midwife had said that he was a big boy but I still never thought I would have a baby over eight pounds, so I was definitely surprised to hear that he was 8lb 3oz and 20.5 inches long! We stayed in the labor room for about another hour while they brought me some lunch and let Marshall and I bond with our baby boy. I can’t express how euphoric I felt and what a natural “high” it was to not be medicated AND no longer be pregnant!

We were then wheeled over to post partum recovery where we spent the day with our son and had family & his big sister come visit. I stayed the night at the hospital with Roscoe and we took him home the next day. All in all, it was an incredible experience and I’m so happy to be a mommy to two cuties now!