Snuggling with Mom

Just before his first successful feeding, Delton spent some time snuggling with his mom this evening.

Snuggling with Mom from Tom Carmony on Vimeo.

Introducing Delton Thomas Learned Carmony

After 29 long hours of labor, our beautiful baby boy, Delton Thomas Carmony made his grand entrance at 7:19am today, Friday, October 5th. Dianne was tremendous, working through more than three hours of pushing to get the little guy out. His final exit was aided a bit by a vacuum suction cup to the noggin (much like the “toilet plunger” Dianne always jokingly threatened to self-employ if he stayed too far beyond his due date) to cover those final precious few inches.

He was a bit “out of it” initially, probably due to a combination of the long labor and tough exit, as well as the amount of pain meds administered to mom throughout the whole process. As the initial minutes passed, though, he began to perk up and become more responsive to the pokes and prods of the nursing staff. He was popped on the scale and measured eight pounds and 20 inches in length.

Because of his slow start, along with the long period of time between Dianne’s water breaking and Delton’s birth (29 hours), it was decided that he’d move over to the Special Care Nursery for some testing and observations. The toughest part was watching the little guy get pricked for blood tests and have an IV inserted (primarily to give him sugar if needed, as there was some concern about his blood sugar levels right after birth). He proved to be quite the trooper though, as he clearly reacted to everything, but wasn’t overly fussy about it.

As Day One progressed, he was looking better each time we checked in on him. By mid-morning, his color was great, blood sugar was good and all the vitals were looking strong. One of the staff’s concerns was that he may have been exposed to bacteria, due to the long period of time between the water breaking and delivery. The standard here at Group Health’s Family Beginnings is 18 hours as the cutoff for concern over bacteria/infection exposure. Because of the length of Delton’s journey (29 hours), they administered a couple different blood tests for various infections, all of which (thus far) have come back negative.

By evening, Dianne was able sit down with Delton in the nursery and start working on breastfeeding. Their initial foray didn’t lead to much, but a second go-round roughly two hours later hit the jackpot; he latched on and fed for roughly 15 minutes. A third evening session netted 30+ minutes on the breast. Yes, Delton is indeed apparently a “breast man.”

Overall, here at the end of a spectacular day and an exhausting last 48 hours, we’re thrilled to be getting to know this new addition to our family. He’s already amazing us with his physical strength (including the ability to turn his head when he’s laying against one of our chests), his inquisitiveness and his laid-back attitude. We’re just so incredibly thrilled to be starting this journey with him!

Here We Go!

Things weren’t looking all that rosey about 18 hours ago. After waiting throughout most of the day Wednesday for a chance to get checked into Family Beginnings at Group Health to induce, we finally got our spot at 8pm. We’d initially been slated to go in first thing in the morning, but had been bumped by a rush of deliveries (14 babies in the previous 24 hours).

The good news was Dianne was being admitted; the bad news… the nursing staff was anticipating that the induction could take up to five days to reach active labor! It was likely that we’d only be staying the night, then would be sent home the following morning to wait things out. Definitely not what Dianne was hoping to hear.

Turns out any disappointment we had over the timeline was a moot point. After being administered the Cervidil at about 10pm last night, it only took a little over five hours for contractions to begin. This was definitely a surprise, as it’s apparently not that common to have contractions stimulated by Cervidil. Dianne began experiencing contractions at about 3am this morning, and by 3:45am, her water had broken. Things were definitely getting serious and we weren’t going to heading home that morning.

The contractions continued to progress throughout the early morning, and while they were short in duration, were relatively close together. Dianne gritted it out through the first four hours before getting her first pain meds to help take the edge off.

Those meds helped for the next couple hours, and by mid-morning, Dianne’s doctor had given the thumbs up for an early epidural to help her relax and save up her energy for pushing.

That’s where we stand… It’s about twelve hours into labor and we’re just playing the waiting game, as the contractions slowly get stronger and more consistent. Baby Delton’s on his way, it’s just a matter of exactly when he makes his big appearance!