Matthew's Blessing

We had Matthew's blessing the Sunday after he was born.  He was only 5 days old!  Luckily, we were able to have my parents and Steve's parents here.  We also invited Ken and Kate, Uncle Paul and Aunt Diane, and Allison.  Bishop Jarvis and Brian Ricks also came.

Steve gave a wonderful blessing and Matthew was great.  He didn't cry once.  He looked adorable in his little white knitted outfit.

After the blessing, we had a lunch of baked potatoes and cake.  Then, Allison took my parents to the airport and Steve's family all went to church.  I stayed home with Matthew.

Welcome to the Family, Matthew!

 I thought I'd write a little bit about Matthew's birth.  First, many of you know that I switched doctors at the very end of my pregnancy.  I was hoping to have a very calm birth with the ability to walk around if I needed or wanted.  My first doctor wouldn't allow it, so I decided to switch.  My new doctor is Dr. Eldad Vered.  He's an older gentleman and very nice.  The thing I like most is his comment to me that as long as what I wanted wasn't dangerous, he was ok with it.  Yay!  That's just what I wanted to hear.

Now on to Matthew's birth.  As you know, his due date was January 22, but he wasn't having any of that.  We finally induced labor a week later on Tuesday, January 29.  Anna went to the Rick's home Monday night and spent the night.  She stayed with them all day on Tuesday.

Steve and I arrived at the hospital at 6am.  It was very quiet.  There were a few other moms there, but we never saw or heard from them.  I got my first dose of antibiotics and was introduced to our nurse, Barbara.  Dr. Vered came at 8 to break my water.  Even then, labor was slow in getting under way.  Dr. Vered said he'd give me 4 hours.  So, during the next 4 hours I walked the halls.  I walked and walked and walked.  Mom walked with me and Steve walked with me.  We got to know those short halls really well.  I just started having the contractions 5 minutes apart by the deadline.  Phew!

Labor progressed well for the next couple of hours.  However, once I hit 8cm dilated, I stalled.  I stayed at an 8 for almost 4 hours.  The hypnobirthing breathing and Steve helped a ton with getting through the contractions, but I was getting tired.  By that time, Dr Vered said we had to start pitocin.  At that point, I asked for an epidural.  I could have finished with the contractions as they were, but not any more intense than that.  Funny thing, though, when I got the epidural I almost immediately went to a 10.  I actually had very little pitocin.  I had the epidural at 5:30 and Matthew was born at 6:30.





One nice thing that Dr Vered let me do was pull Matthew out myself.  It was a great experience.  The nurses took Matthew very soon after he was delivered because he was a little blue, but gave him back as soon as possible.  He ate right away and is such a cute little man.