Three months later...this is another long one!

Well, as any new mom can attest, the first 3 months are like nothing you have EVER experienced...and I mean, EVER.  Luckily, we have quite the little angel on our hands with little Everett Cruz...more on that later...but I still found myself wondering while on maternity leave what our days were filled with each night when we would lie down to sleep...if only for a few hours.  But here we are, 3 months later, full of love and blessings, and I'm going to go back to where it all started...here is the story of how we met the love of our life.  Inspired by my friend Heather who finally wrote a beautiful version of her Mirabelle's birth story (and she's actually a month younger than Everett):

http://anewmomsjournal.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/mirabelles-birth-story-short-version/


When we went to the doctor on May 15th for my 40 week +6 day appointment, my doctor made it pretty clear that I wasn't going to be allowed to keep this baby in my belly much longer.  We already had an induction scheduled for May 16th, and I had just been praying that we wouldn't make it that far...I guess our little one had other plans.  I liked to think that my beloved Grama Hope, who we lost just after I announced my pregnancy, and who loved babies more than anyone I have ever known, was holding our little angel up in heaven, not wanting to let him go.  I could just imagine her saying "please, just one more day".  So, that gave me a lot of peace, believing his little sould was in her arms. :)
Still, I was pretty upset about an induction - since I'm not really in to using medicine to make your body do things it should on its own.  But after talking to my cousin who is a labor and delivery nurse, (thanks, Kathleen!) my friend Mandy (thanks!) who went through this with her little one, and various other people, I was ready to go for it.
So, Wednesday, May 16th...off we went to the hospital to get checked in...

It was definitely a little weird to just hop in the car to go have a baby...but also very exciting.


Things got started around 8pm with the initial induction meds, and I was able to get a good night of rest.  Again, really strange to have Juan Pablo sleeping on the little couch beside us, knowing that it was the eve of our whole life changing!  The next morning my doctor came by around 730 and they started me on pitocin.  Well, that was the end of that.   Apparently the two drugs together kicked my body in to high gear, and at 8am, the contractions started - they were TERRIBLE.  They were about 2 mins long with NO break in between...just on and on and on.  I had really planned to labor as long as I physically could without drugs, but that proved impossible, as I had heard to be the case with a lot of medically induced deliveries.  I had told the nurse that I didnt want the epidural yet at about 8:15am.  But by 8:30, I was begging for the guy to get in there! 


I got the epidural at 8:42 and was sure I'd been in labor for hours - the longest 42 minutes ever.  After that, I just labored easily until 3:15pm...when we started pushing, and this is when things got hard.  I was so so glad to have had the epidural because after 2 hrs and 30 mins of pushing every 2 mins (side note: I have the most amazing husband ever - he was there, holding my legs and coaching me through every single contraction...I couldnt have done it without him)...when my doctor got there, they realized the baby had flipped sunny side up (knowing my little man now, this makes sense - he's a crazy man!!).

So at 6pm, she gave me the option of using the vacuum, or I could push for 15 more minutes unassisted, before we'd have a c-section.  As soon as she said that c-word, I agreed to the vacuum, and then I pushed with everything left in me...there was NO way I was going to recover from a c-section and 3 hrs of pushing.  Luckily, he came out immediately and there we had our beautiful baby boy.  (although, I don't even remember wondering the sex, I was so relieved).  He had to go to the table right way because he had pooped during the long labor, but of course, I just lost it (and so did Juan Pablo).  I never in a million years could have imagined what it felt like to bring a baby in to the world...nothing will ever prepare you for that.

The first picture of our little angel - Everett Cruz Mancia

I learned that it does not matter how your baby gets here...it matters that he or she gets here.  Looking back, I can be grateful for the experience, even if it was not as I expected.  Since I cannot recount them all...here are some of my favorite moments from those first few days:

Seeing Juan Pablo become a dad...and knowing he would make a perfect one.  When the nurses asked to know his name, my sweet husband couldn't even get the words out - it was a special moment that I will never forget.

Everett meeting my dad for the first time, and getting to tell him that after 4 sisters, 2 daughters, and only gaining a son-in-law 18 months ago, he finally had a grandson, who is named for him. :)

My sister becoming an aunt and my mom becoming a grandmother.

My best friend since I was 18 months old driving all the way from Myrtle Beach to visit us in the hospital for only a couple hours, because she was "closer" than she would have been in her hometown of Greensboro.

And many many more...



I will admit that I was a little shell-shocked those first few days.  It was hard to really conceive of the fact that this little baby was somehow ours - people always talk about how it was instant love.  I don't know that I could really say that, because it was all so surreal...but after many moments like this, that all changed... 

I practically sat on top of him on the way home from the hospital, desperate to protect this little person who had forever changed our lives.  Here we are arriving home!







And that was that...we went from a family of 2 adults and one puppy, to a family of 2 adults, one puppy, and a baby boy...and we've never looked back!