Welcome to our world, Declan!
Declan is now eight weeks old, so I suppose the time has come to write the story of his birth, yes? Actually, I’ve been lecturing myself for the last six weeks to get this written, but I hold up the three kid defense: this is tough as heck!
First of all, whoever conned me into believing that three kids is less of an adjustment than two LIED! They lied, they lied, they lied. And even though things are getting a lot easier, I still have to throw that out to anybody who is pondering having three kids. Just so there’s some honesty. Actually, a guest pastor at our church said something that made me want to hug him: it’s tougher to go from two kids to three than it is from zero kids to one. Can I get an amen!?
The birth process itself was easier than either of my other two. Except that they let me go a week past my due date, and I was tuckered! Caleb had been coughing for a couple weeks and we’d been chalking it up to allergies…until we all got the same cough. So the last full week of my pregnancy, I was coughing my head off, and every cough felt like it was going to shove a baby out. I honestly don’t know how it failed to break my water.
I called on the Monday four days AFTER my due date to make sure that they could induce after my appointment on Friday, which would have been 41 weeks and two days, but the scheduling lady offered to get me in on Wednesday! Hooray! But the hospital was way overbooked, so we sat around all day Wednesday, waiting for them to let me know I could come in. My baby sis Meg was stuck with us that day – and I fear I was NO FUN. The whole few weeks prior, I had scheduled just about every minute so that we never had too much time to be bored. But since we were supposed to be having a baby that day, it wasn’t planned! Meggie took the boys to the park and we played a lot of games, but I was just so pissy about not having a baby that I wasn’t very good company.
Finally, we were given the okay to get ourselves to the hospital at 7:30. Hooray again! They got us checked in and started doing the hookups and whatnot ~ and Jonathan and I caught the last few minutes of my favorite show, So You Think You Can Dance. I mention that because it was the next to the last week of competition. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been so obsessive!
So we hung around the hospital for a while before the doc came and talked to us. I asked for an epidural before any induction processes started. The doctor and nurse were kind of startled by that idea, which I thought was perfectly reasonable. I had been dilated to five for weeks, ninety percent effaced, so it wasn’t like it was going to slow progression. But after I talked pretty hard and fast, the doc agreed. The anesthesiologist came along an hour later, and he was super – except that he had to stick me TWICE.
Oh, and Jonathan was so interested in what the guy was doing that he abandoned me to WATCH. Jerkhole.
So then around 11:30, they gave me the pitocin and broke my water…and I fell asleep. Nice! Seriously, anyone who isn’t ideologically opposed to epidurals should consider getting them before labor starts. It ROCKS.
The only craziness that happened during labor is that the epidural or pitocin lowered my blood pressure, so I had to get dosed a couple times with ephedrine to bring it back up. Then I got all itchy. I FORGOT how itchy the stupid epidural makes me. (The next morning, I was bruised from all the clawing at myself I did!)
At 2:30, they called the doc, who arrived shortly thereafter, and we got ready to push. (Oh, and Jonathan has just about all of the previous part on video up on the website – seriously, a four minute video would be a lot quicker than reading all of this because I’m so wordy!) That little one popped out after slightly less than ten minutes of pushing – maybe four good pushes? And there was my baby: Declan Angus Zakai Fashbaugh, one of the three most beautiful babies God ever put on this earth.
The next few hours/days/weeks were kind of a blur for me. That’s the trouble with not blogging often enough. I’ve lost that time completely almost. I do remember that Caleb and Gavi fell as deeply in love with him as Jonathan and I did. As soon as Caleb met him, later that morning, he sang Rock A Bye Baby and did “This little piggy” with his toes until we had to forcibly remove him. And Gavi kept trying to hand him the balloon he brought to the hospital – “Here, Deckun, boon!” Ohmigoodness, I’m so glad I’m remembering these things. Thanks, Lord!
I can’t believe how amazing this sweet baby is. We started noticing pretty much from week one that Declan is far mellower than his big brothers were. Of course, Gavi was kind of a handful from the very beginning and we could see his strong will. Caleb was sweet, but when he was upset, he let you know about it. Declan is calm nearly all the time. If I had to put a percentage to it, I’d say probably 95% of the time. Seriously.
I made jokes when Gavi was born about how I DESERVED a better sleeper than Caleb ~ who was still up two times a night until he was nine months old ~ and how God loved me too much to give me another kid like that. Then Gavi was almost as bad. (Although I cut him off from two feedings a night at four months! I can’t fake my way without sleep with kids like I could at my mortgage job!) But from week two, I worked with Dex on the Babywise theory of wake/sleep/eat cycles, and I truly believe that it has made an amazing difference. Dex is consistently sleeping six and seven hours a night, and I can’t tell you what a difference it makes.
He started smiling for real about three weeks ago. It took me a while to think to get it on camera, but I’ve got a couple good pics of it finally. He’s so stinking SWEET! I almost feel guilty having such an easy baby! If he were an only child, I would assume that parents that had trouble with their babies were doing something wrong. THANKS LORD, FOR KNOWING THAT THE THIRD ONE NEEDED TO BE THE EASIEST! I swear, he is no effort at all. Even when he was waking me up a lot at night, I was never upset with him, because it was the most trouble he was causing me! He started crying at our friends’ house last Friday night, and I was almost bewildered by what to do. He had never cried without being hungry! It’s an absolute blessing.
And his big brothers continue to adore the tar out of him. Gavi actually sings Rock-a-bye baby to him now. And Caleb is his protector – when a couple of little girls cooed at him too long at church, Caleb inserted himself between them and the baby, put his hands on his little hips, and said, “Okay, that’s ENOUGH.” The three of them are too cute for words. It’s good that I have such great times with them, because the bad times are REALLY bad! Caleb and Gavi have started fighting…well, like BROTHERS, I guess! I’m trying to stop intervening so often so that they quit running to me every time there’s a teensy disagreement. My being occupied feeding Declan has enabled them to bring chaos into our world like never before. We’ve cleaned up quite a few foam soap messes in the bathroom, lotion messes in the bedroom, and broken dishes in the kitchen!
How I love them! And how I love my life! I guess it’s a good thing that I waited this long to finish this, because I was feeling pretty overwhelmed for a while. Even if I’d made the time to write (which I couldn’t!) it wouldn’t have been very uplifting to read. Or remember, since as you know this is my version of a scrapbook.
Now that I’ve FINALLY finished this post, I’m going to start trying to post quickie short ones more often. (I hear all y’all out there laughing at the idea of Amanda being brief!) Our life is truly blessed, and we know it.
This in parting: I know, I know, I KNOW that I reminded myself earlier about not having any more babies. But even though I’m still sane enough to remember how much I hate pregnancy, I’m acci-sorta-dentally starting to think that the idea of four kids sounds pretty good. Jonathan better get snipped!
posted by Amanda @ 2:40 PM
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