Nolan Donald Ireland arrived on Wednesday, 12/23/15! weighing 8lbs 6 oz and 20.25in long. Head circumference 14in. His hair and complexion are much more fair than Lucas. He is absolutely perfect and such a content newborn thus far. Hopefully it stays that way! He pretty much just eats, sleeps and poops! He really only crys when he is being changed either with clothes or with diaper. Even when he is hungry he doesn't cry much just motions with his hands that he is ready to eat! He is also pretty good at nursing, latched on right away in the hospital without much of a problem!
He surprised Mom and Dad by arriving exactly 1 week early as his due date was 12/30/15.
Birth story: At around midnight on 12/23/15 I woke up with some cramping, that wasn't too painful, which has been normal for me before in the last week or so, but this time I had a little more back pain with it. This continued for about 2 hours at about 5-10min apart, then finally the cramping subsided. I went back to sleep and woke up and felt the same cramping again, at this point I wasn't sure if I was going to go in for my last scheduled day of work. I finally decided I should probably call in sick and called our OB who said I should come in in the morning just to be evaluated just in case. Good thing Tim's brother's family was visiting from WA-- Lucas was able to stay at home with his cousins while we went in! We almost didn't even take our bags with because I figured they'd check me and send me home again to await my scheduled C-section date of 12/28 since my contractions weren't really consistent. When we arrived they hooked me up to the monitor-- baby was looking good, nice strong heart rate and my contractions still weren't super consistent but you could see when they did come they were relatively strong (they still felt like Braxton Hicks to me). The nurse decided to check my cervix and found I was in active labor ha! already dilated to 4-5cm and cervix was paper thin. The nurse and my OB were a little shocked that I had progressed that far at home without much pain. This is exactly what happened with Lucas except he was 3 days over his due date! At this point I almost decided to try for a VBAC due to my progression already and I went back and forth, but figured the same situation could happen with this one, dilate to 10cm just fine and then push forever with baby not being able descend. And I heard recovery was much easier if you didn't push and labor prior to having a c-section so I took that route! Let me tell you, this was 100x better and with our hospitals new c-section protocol it went so well! After my OB came in, she said lets do the c-section within the next half hour since I was already in active labor. They prepped me and got me all ready and then I rode in a wheelchair down the OR-- I can barely remember any of that with Lucas. It was actually a pretty relaxing experience, they had me choose the OR music and got to work, pretty soon after, they pulled down the curtain and I was able to watch them pull Nolan out! He came out crying with his arms up in the air! They checked his Apgar score quickly, which was an 8 and then later a 9. And then placed him right next to my cheek and I was able to hold him. He stopped crying immediately when I was holding him, it was amazing! After I was all sewn up I was taken back to my room with Nolan (with Lucas I had to recover in a separate room and I wasn't able to hold him right away) and the nurses had Nolan and I have immediate skin-skin contact for 4-5 hours without washing him up. We stayed in hospital 12-23-12-26, almost decided to head out on 12-25 but decided one more good night of sleep would be amazing! We ended up having Applebees carried to go for Christmas eve dinner and at at the hospital cafeteria for Christmas day dinner! We all thought that was pretty funny! Overall my recovery has gone so much quicker and I am so thankful to be feeling good so much sooner this round, especially with a crazy active 3 year old at home!
We had an interesting first week home with Nolan! Lucas developed croup on the second night Nolan was home and had a high fever, icky cough, and was quite lethargic, his fever was on and off 2 days! So for two days I had to stay in the basement with Nolan and be quarantined! Ha! This was tough on Lucas as all he wanted to do was hold his brother and have his Mommy to cuddle with him. Nolan and I had a lot of one on one bonding time!! Otherwise for Nolan he has been a pretty great baby for the first week, sleeping 2-3 hours at time, and nursing every 3 hours or so. We really don't have to bounce, rock, or walk him to calm him down too much yet. Seems like he could be a little easier than our first born! Who knows what will happen when the newborn phase is done though!
Here are a few photos of our sweet Nolan's first week of life!
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