Worlds best Christmas present!

Brenden Todd Behen
born Dec 24th @ 9:03 pm
8 lbs 6.1 oz
21 inches long

Birth story
Around 11 pm on Dec 23rd I started having very mild yet consistent contractions. By around 3 am we decided to head to the hospital. I was 9 days overdue but somehow thought they were still going to send me home. We arrived at the hospital to learn that I was only dilated 1 1/2 cm and not yet in active labor. Just to cover all the bases they decide to monitor us for an hour before making their decision to keep us or not. During that hour Brenden's heart rate dropped dramatically 3 times...so they chose to induce labor rather than send us home. No less than 10 minutes after starting pitocen, my water breaks thus putting me in active labor. My epidural was started about 20 minutes later thank goodness. Brenden continued to struggle through some of my contractions so they had to insert an internal monitor on his head to keep a closer eye on him. Around 7 pm I was finally 10 cm dilated yet we learned Brenden still had not dropped. It took another hour of odd positioning to finally convince him to enter the birth canal...and an hour later of pushing he arrived! The NICU staff had to check him out before I could hold him since he had pooped out meconium in the womb and may have aspirated some. Thankfully we learned that his lungs were clear and he was healthy as can be. Being 9 days late he came out wide-eyed and nice and plump...definitely did not look like most newborns! He scored a 9 and a 9 on his Apgar tests...this is out of 10, so great scores. After a few min of bonding with our adorable son Todd and I opened up the doors to the packed waiting room of family that had been patiently awaiting his arrival since early that morning. By midnight we were finally transferred to our new room for the night. It all begins to blur at this point when night became morning as we were up every hour for something. We were discharged around 7 pm on Christmas day to head home and begin life as a new family. I don't think we realized what hit us until we got home with him. We didn't get any sleep that night, but it was all definitely worth it!


Our first week at home!
Over the course of the next few days we had a lot of family around which was a huge help. Day 4 is when reality hit of just how much this little guy means to us. We spent an entire night of no sleep with what I was worried was a dehydrated baby. I called the pediatrician early that Friday morning to get him an appt. Sure enough he was dehydrated and had dropped more weight than he should have. So now feeling horrible that he's dehydrated since my milk hadn't come in in time, we head over to another dr. appt where we are meeting with a lactation specialist and nurse to see how everything is going since we left the hospital. We thought we left that appt on a positive note only to get home to have the pediatrician call us back and tell us that the nurse had called her concerned that she observed Brenden having a seizure. This put both Todd and I over the edge and the waterworks began. We take him back in to see the pediatrician late that afternoon where she observes him for awhile and shares with us what we need to be aware of and look for. She also spent a great deal of time trying to convince us that he was just fine and that the nurse was just being overly cautious. That made me feel some better, but still petrified that he might be having seizures. Our homework for that first weekend was to feed him every 2 hours and observe his behavior as much as possible and go back to the doctor on Monday. On Monday we learned that our little Brenden had not only gained more than the expected 1 oz per day...but 11 oz in 3 days and was no longer dehydrated and back on track as far as his weight went. The pediatrician again tells us not to worry about the seizure concern as she was convinced that Brenden was just fine. However she does tell us that he has a very small umbilical hernia that may or may not need surgery when he is about a year old and he may have hip dysplasia...both minor problems and easily corrected...but still something neither Todd or I wanted to learn. Finally at his first "official" newborn appointment we got a clean bill of health with no new concerns added to the list and learned that Brenden now weighed 8 pounds 7 ounces and had surpassed his birthweight at 10 days old when that doesn't always happen for a few weeks.

Our 2nd week at home!
Brenden is now 2 1/2 weeks old and thriving! He eats a lot, is growing quite nicely and loves sleeping on mom and dad's chest. He's not a huge fan of sleeping in his bassinet, but prefers to sleep with us or on one of us. Today we decided to stop fighting his sleep desires and bought a little co-sleeper to put in-between us in the bed so he can safely sleep with us. As I'm typing this, he is sleeping on my chest all curled up awaiting his next meal which I anticipate is quite soon.