changes in just 20 days..

i can't believe costin will be 3 weeks tomorrow. already he is growing extremely fast. when marcas and i left from the hospital on january 30th, he had lost weight (which is normal) and was 6 pounds, 10 ounces. by that monday when i took him to the doctor to be checked for his jaundice level.. he was 7 pounds, 3 ounces. they were surprised and told me that i was doing an excellent job breastfeeding. i took him again yesterday for his two week checkup and he is 8 pounds, 7 ounces and 21 inches long. every day i can see him growing. he started smiling a week ago and i can already tell he has his dad's sense of humor. :) he likes to play a game with me already. he acts like he is hungry and when i get ready to feed him.. he doesn't want it and just gets a huge grin on his face. it's cute.

he's the best baby a mom could ask for. we are truly blessed. he's never fussy unless there is something wrong. either he needs a diaper change, he's tired, or he's hungry. sleeping through the night is getting better. last night he slept until a little after 4:00 am. it was so nice getting some sleep!

i love being a mom! it's stressful but has so many rewards. he has the cutest facial expressions and gestures. here are some pictures showing you them: (i think he enjoys getting his picture taken) haha

labor and delivery..

i went into the hospital on january 27, 2009 at 5:00 am to start the process of being induced. my midwife decided to induce me a week early because of having high blood pressure and horrible swelling towards the end of the pregnancy. i had already been on bed rest for the past month. (it was not fun at all...) by the middle part of the day my blood pressure was on the high side and they started to give me medicine to lower it in my iv and i had to get a catheter. (talk about extreme pain.. that was one of the worst parts of having a baby) the rest of the day went by without me dilating. i started to have a few small contractions by the end of the night but still without any real progression. my midwife checked on me tuesday night and told me that she would go ahead and break my water the next morning. early wednesday morning i was far enough along to go ahead and get an epidural. i wanted one before the real pain began and before my midwife arrived to break my water. around 5:00 am (exactly 24 hours of being in the hospital) they gave me an epidural. marcas had to leave the room.. i wasn't happy about that but i guess that's the procedure there. the epidural went ok but the nurse hit a nerve while she was trying to administer it and i ended up nearly jumping out of the bed. once she finished my body for some reason acted weird towards the epidural and my blood pressure dropped to extreme lows. i started to go in and out of consciousness. i remember laying there and hearing the nurses arguing about what to do with me and saying that costin was up high enough if they needed to palpitate him. that freaked me out... i didn't care what was going on with me... all i wanted to know was what was going on with my baby. since my blood pressure dropped so quickly, costin went through stress and had a bm inside of me. (they found out that after they broke my water) they didn't act too worried though. they got my blood pressure to come back up by giving me some medicine through my iv and taking me off the high blood pressure medicine. at 8:30 am my midwife broke my water. i loved the epidural because i didn't feel any of it. around 11:00 am i had only dilated a few centimeters. by the early afternoon my epidural started to wear off and i asked for more medicine. i started to feel contractions getting a lot stronger and hurting more than anything i could ever describe. when they gave me more medicine.. it numbed my legs and upper body but not the area it needed too. they thought i had a blockage but they wanted to regive me more medicine sitting up to see if it that would work. thank God it worked because i did not want to have another epidural put in. around 3:00 pm my midwife came to check on me and i had dilated to 7 centimeters. after she left i kept getting stronger and stronger contractions. i told my nurse who had just started her shift and she asked me when i had been checked. i told her it had only been about 15 minutes earlier but i knew something was going on. the nurse who had been taking care of me the previous shift came back in to change my iv bag right before leaving and tried to get into an argument with my new nurse about rechecking me again. thankfully my new nurse (sherri) listened to me and rechecked me. in just 15 minutes i was dilated to 9 centimeters and in just 30 minutes after that.. i was completely dilated. sherri called my midwife and she told her to go ahead and prepare me for labor. my midwife wasn't going to get there until after she finished up her appointments at the office. around 5:00 pm i started to practice push with sherri and she felt costin's head. my midwife got to the hospital just in time for me to deliver. my beautiful little boy was born at 5:59 pm on january 28, 2009.