Adventures of the Alcocks: Introducing Mari Hayashida Alcock

We have a baby!

Today, Mari is almost 5 days old. She was born on August 12th, 2012 at 9:14 PM and weighed 9 lbs. 7 oz. Yup. 9 lbs and 7 oz!

We have been so blessed with people asking how we are doing and calling and checking in with us. I feel horrible for not being able to return calls and messages but I know everyone understands! I want to try and take a few minutes to update everyone while Mari is sleeping and apologize if you have called/written and I haven't called back!

At our doctor's appointment on August 10th, our doctor (who is amazing... absolutely love her) gave us the option of inducing or waiting a little longer. At this point, I was 41 weeks along and showing no signs of labor. After going over the pros and cons of each we decided to schedule an induction for Monday the 13th. It was a hard decision because I didn't want to be induced (and some people are SO passionate about telling you why you shouldn't induce) but after speaking with the doctor about risks either way, we felt it was the best decision for us. However, Sunday morning around midnight I started to have contractions. They weren't crazy strong but they were very consistent. We called our doctor and finally went to the hospital around 4 AM. My contractions weren't strong enough to start active labor yet but since I was to be induced the next day they went ahead and told me to stay. Around 9 AM they broke my water and gave me an epidural. LOVE epidurals. LOVE. Progress was still slow, so around 1:00 PM they started pitocin to induce labor. So, I guess I was induced, just a day earlier than we scheduled. Still, even after pitocin, progress was slow. They'd check me every couple of hours and I would progress about 1 cm each time. Around 8:30, a nurse came in and as we chatted she said we could probably expect a baby after midnight, especially since first time moms usually push for a couple hours. Yikes. We contacted our family and told them to go to bed because it was going to be a late night. At 9:00 PM our doctor came in to check me again, and asked, "Are you ready to be a mommy?" We were both blown away since we were expecting a late night! At 9:00 I started pushing and at 9:14 she was born. 14 minutes of pushing and our baby girl was here. All in all, it was a great experience. It was a long day, but I didn't care, I had an epidural!! I was good to go. However, after delivery I was very tired and my heart rate was going crazy. I am sure it was from getting no sleep (just couldn't sleep when my mind was racing!), no food since dinner on the 11th (not allowed when you are in labor), and my body working so hard. Around 1 AM the nurse offered to watch Mari so we could get some sleep. Bobby and I slept for 3 hours and it was amazing. We were so blessed to have awesome nurses at St. Elizabeth. Our experience couldn't have been better.

We came home from the hospital on Tuesday the 14th. Mari had been really fussy the day before and just wanted to eat, eat, eat all day, but when I would feed her she'd cry. While in the hospital we decided to start supplementing with formula. I know there are different opinions on this as well, but we made the best decision we could and our doctor even suggested supplementing just because Mari was so big and would want to eat more. When I got home, I discovered my body wasn't really producing much. I am so glad we decided to supplement. My body wasn't kicking in and my poor HUGE baby was just plain hungry! Since supplementing she has been so much happier. We want to get off the formula supplements soon. Right now, this girl just wants to EAT so much and my body is still getting used to that (in other words, my boobs are so tender right now!!!)

So here we are. A family of 3 and a dog (who has been great but SO jealous! Poor guy!) Bobby has been absolutely amazing. A better father and husband than I could have even imagined. It's really funny because he is SO interested in breast feeding. We joke that he should be a lactation consultant. Haha!

Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers! I hope as things settle down to be returning phone calls soon!! But right now... the baby is fussing and I know she wants some breakfast. :)