We’ve had our baby!
At 11:32 pm, on Monday, June 20, 2005, Dominic Andrew Schuetz was born. At birth, he weighed 7 pounds 10 ounces (he’s since dropped to 7 lb 4.5 oz), and was 20.5 inches long. He’s doing really well, though being born so close to midnight seems to have put him on a schedule counter to ours. He’s awake non-stop from midnight through 5 each morning, and we’re getting kind of, well, tired. Still, when he’s curled up in your arms, opens his eyes, and looks at you, well, it makes it worthwhile. Even if you can’t see him clearly because it’s 2:00 am. <!–break–>
We had a LONG day that Monday. We arrived at the hospital at about 6:30 am, registered, and went upstairs where we were placed in Labor and Delivery Room 1. The hospital (Inova Fair Oaks) has really nice labor / delivery rooms, with fold-out chairs for the hubby to sleep on, baby monitors, klieg lights, etc. At about 8:00 (we think, it’s kind of blurry), Andrea was induced (that is, they started feeding Pitocin into her IV drip). The Doctor ruptured her membranes at 2:30, and that’s when all hell started to break loose. The contractions that Andrea had been feeling before, that were all “okay, I can handle this” suddenly became “Oh, ****! That hurts!!” After about a half hour of this, she cried Uncle, and the angel — er, anaestesiologist — gave her an epidural at about 3:30. At this point, things got really exciting, as her blood pressure dropped (not really sure why), the baby’s heart rate dropped, and the nurse scrambled for an oxygen mask while the angel (I’m not typing anest-whatever again) pumped some ephedrine into her IV. Problem was, the nurse couldn’t find an oxygen mask, so she hit the emergency button, and in about 5 seconds three other nurses ran in. (I’m standing in the corner, trying to stay out of the way). Anyway, the oxygen came on, the drugs took hold, her pressure stabalized, and everything was fine.
So, crises averted (Andrea refers to it as a “drill” she pulled on the staff. They passed.) We kept on waiting, enduring contractions (Andrea), enduring hospital food (David), and generally trying not to look at the clock. Finally, about 9:00, she was almost completely dilated, and at 9:30, what had been an exercise in breathing became, well, I’ve no words to describe it (and, honestly, I hope never to find those words.) After about 90 minutes of active pushing, the epidural ran out, but at that point they didn’t want to give her any more because it would interfere with the pushing. Problem was, Dominic simply didn’t want to come out — he was quite happy where he was. Finally, at about 11:20, the Doctor offered three choices: Keep pushing, try with forceps, or go to a ceasarean. Andrea looked at me, and I punted (hell, it’s her body, whatever recovery method she wants to do, I’m just there to help). She asked the Doctor for his recommendation, and he suggested that we try forceps, since he’s “old school” and quite comfortable with them. Just 10 minutes later, well, we had a baby.
At this point it really gets blurry. I think they held him up, offered to let her hold him, and we both said “just take him over there and do whatever you need” because (a) we’d gotten the impression they wanted to start tests ASAP, and (b) we’d already agreed that we’d rather hold a clean baby. They did the basic bunch of tests, wiped him clean, put tags on him (and, at some point, matching tags on us), and clamped the umbilical cord with, of all things, an RFID device (just like at the mall — it sounds the alarm if we try to leave the ward with the baby). It took a little while to get Andrea all patched up, after which they put Dominic, all wrapped up, in her arms and I took the picture of Mommy and son.
So now we were coherent enough to make a couple of calls. Of course, it’s also after midnight. We called my mom, talked a few minutes, and told her “yes, we have a name, but we want to wait to tell anyone. We’re not really, well, thinking clearly, and we want to be sure it’s the name we want.” Then we called Andrea’s mom, told her the same song-and-dance about the name, and ordered some Taco Bell (the only place still open). Finally, we tried Andrea’s dad, but I had some trouble with our phone card (and also, apparently, I had the wrong number written down !!) Fortunately, Andrea’s mom called him later that morning so he knew pretty quickly, too.
They finally moved us down the hall to a recovery room about 2:00 in the morning. As we were getting settled, they took some foot prints of the baby (on scrapbook paper for Andrea), I pulled out a chair/bed to sleep on, and we took a long, deep breath. We also called the Conners in England, thinking, well, it’s 7:00 there, and he can get an email out to all our work friends. Again, with the name. Then, to sleep. At 4:00. Awake at 5:00. Out the door at 6:00, compose an email to everyone with the picture, forget to actually send it, sleep for three hours, wake up, shower, correct the snafu with the email, send more detailed info to close friends and family (with hospital phone, etc.), and back to the hospital to see Dominic (and Andrea).
Oh, yeah, the name. We’d been kicking around names for some time, and had a few we liked. Then at some point, Dominic got into our subconcious (it was my Father’s middle name, and also his grandfather’s name). The more we narrowed our list, the more we liked it, and finallly we’d pretty much settled on it. But we wanted to wait until we saw him (don’t want to call him Dominic if he looks like a Jim). And then we wanted to be sure we weren’t just drugged and tired. But the next morning, we still really liked it. It just felt…right. It’s also nice because it’s different (I doubt there’ll be 5 Dominics in his kindergarten class, the way there were 5 Davids in mine). But it’s not “weird” — it’s different, but still classic. And having a family connection (especially to my dad) was a nice bonus. The middle name was just a name we liked, and had wanted to use, but didn’t want as his first name because it’s so similar to Andrea.
Anyway, that’s how Dominic came into our lives. We’ve been turned upside-down ever since, but generally are doing well. Both moms are in the area, and have visited and offered to help. We saw Andrea’s grandmother and uncle today, have talked to most everyone from her office, received lots of emails from people, and even showed him off to a couple of neighbors. We’ve had our first dinner out (lunch, really, at California Pizza Kitchen, yesterday after his first checkup). We’ve gone shopping with him, and even taken him on a brief stroller ride. So, I guess you could say, we’re all doing just fine.
Naturally, everyone’s clamoring for photos. So here are a bunch — enjoy!! (If you want to print any, use the “orig” link below each photo to save the image locally, and then you can do whatever you normally do to print pictures…hopefully that’ll work for everyone.)
