June 12, 2014

Introducing...

Cooper Bennett Dunaway

Born June 12th, 2014 at 9:31 am

8 lbs 2 oz

19.5 inches long

 

We checked in to the hospital at 7:00 am on Thursday, June 12th. My C-Section was scheduled for 9:00 am that morning.

 I was so freaking nervous! The car ride to the hospital was torture! I cried because I was scared, I cried because I missed the twins and was worried about being away from them for several days, and I cried because I still couldn't believe this was happening. We were getting ready to meet our miracle baby. Yes, all of our babies are miracles, but this was different. This one we did on our own. David and I made this baby on our own! How did that even happen?!?

 

So we checked in, got me hooked up to the IV and just waited, nervously.

 I was nervous because having already been through it, I knew what to expect and I knew it was going to be painful and I knew the recovery was going to be hard. I was also very excited to finally know if we had a boy or girl!

 

This is us waiting...

 

Finally it was time. They wheeled me back, made David sit outside while they prepped me and gave me my spinal. When I was sitting there with the nurse waiting for the doctor to give me that huge shot in my spine, I felt like I was going to throw up. I was literally trying to figure out where my vomit would go so I wouldn't just cover the nurse in it. Then it was done, it was painful, but done. And I got a little sick but thankfully never threw up.

 Then they laid me down, put the sheet up and let David come in. It was time to meet our baby.

 

It went pretty quickly after that. The whole time the doctor was just chatting away with the nurse, like we weren't even in the room (he did this last time too). So when the baby came out, we were expecting this big reveal. We were waiting for the doctor to say "IT'S a ____!" But that never happened. He never even said anything about the baby except that he was a big one.

 So I knew the baby had come out, but I was still waiting to hear what it was. I kept asking David "what is it? what is it?" But he didn't know either. He was trying to see the baby but couldn't tell.

 

When they took him over to be cleaned off I heard him screaming and crying, so I knew he was ok. Finally David got to go over there and ran back to me and said "It's a boy!" I lost it. I don't know what I was expecting either way (even though we were guessing it was a boy), I just got overwhelmed with finally knowing. I cried and cried. I didn't ever have that moment when the twins were born. I expected to have that moment because we had waited so long for them, and I even didn't wear eye makeup because I knew I would just cry it all off. But not one tear. I think I was just in shock and drugged up. But not this time. I was overcome with tears and I was shaking and I was just so happy. Really, truly happy.

 

I also got to hold him right away and that was amazing. Last time, I didn't even get to see the twins for the first 12 hours so this was amazing for me. I was shaking and weak and drugged up but I held on to him with all of my might.

 

Then they took him to our room where my parents were waiting and David got to be with him immediately while they finished me up. The details right after that are a little fuzzy to me, the same thing happened the last time too, but I never went to sleep. I was up for all of it and I'm so happy that happened. I got to see the excitement on everyone's face and I got to hold my baby the whole day. I even got to try breastfeeding immediately and he latched on pretty good.

He has tons of hair and is dark like Connor was.  He looked so much like Connor when he first came out.  Everything except his mouth, it looked like Chloe.  I even kept calling him Connor by mistake.  The nurses probably thought I was crazy because I didn't even know my own child's name!

 

Later that day, my parents brought the twins up to meet their new baby brother. I didn't want to be holding the baby when they walked in because I knew they would want to come up and hug me and I didn't want to chance them getting upset that I was holding a baby instead of them in the first place. But Chloe didn't even make it to me before she saw Cooper and she wanted nothing to do with me.

They both were very excited to touch him and hold him.

Chloe would even pout when it wasn't her turn to hold him.

We talked a lot about the baby coming before he was actually here. We would tell the twins that mommy and daddy would go to the hospital and the doctor would get the baby out of mommy's belly. So when my parents picked the kids up from school that day, their teacher asked where they were going and Connor told her that they were going to the hospital. In fact, even that morning when my mom took them to school, Connor said they were going to the hospital and she had to tell him that they would go after school.

So when the twins actually came up to the hospital, I knew they knew what was going on when Connor kept asking where the doctor was. He saw the hospital, he saw the baby, but the doctor part was missing and he didn't understand. So we just told him that the doctor went home. He would continue to ask where the doctor was each time they came up to visit too.

Chloe was pouting that she wasn't holding the baby and Connor was actually saying "Cheese!" for the camera.