Introducing...

Cash Michael Holtmeyer

Last Thursday, October 10 was my last scheduled doctor's appointment. I wasn't dilated at all, but my blood pressure kept creeping up. Dr. Su felt more comfortable if I went ahead to be induced. So that evening Mike and I arrived at the hospital to start the process. They inserted a strip of medicine called cervidil to help me dilate and thin my cervix. It had to stay in my body for 12 hours. Didn't sleep at all. I was already having contractions before the process even started and didn't know it. By 1a.m. I could feel the contractions. My contractions during the whole labor process was just extreme pressure, no cramping like I was expecting. By 9 a.m. Friday morning, they removed the cervidil to only find out I was just dilated to barely 1cm. Talk about a huge disappointment. With the contractions very close together, I thought for sure we would be welcoming our child by that afternoon. 

Around 2 p.m. my body made no progress so I had to walk around the hospital for two hours. Contractions were getting more intense and were 2-3 minutes apart every time. So I knew we were getting close. After the two hours, still no progress and still just dilated to a 1. 

By 6:30 p.m., Dr. Su came and broke my water. Went from 1 cm to immediately 4 cm dilated. By Saturday at 7:35 a.m. after pushing for about an hour, we welcomed our sweet little boy, Cash Michael Holtmeyer. Cash weighed 7lb 3oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. 

Cash had meconium (his first bowel movement) during delivery; therefore, Mike was unable to cut the umbilical cord as he needed to be rushed to the pediatrician in the room to be cleaned and checked out. He got the clean bill of health and was put on my chest to keep warm. Cash laid there calm as could be and started to fall asleep until he heard his daddy's voice. 

Due to the meconium, they wanted to keep him as a precaution till Monday. Cash had also ran a temperature of 100.4 on Monday and lost 9% of his birth weight. So we had to stay even later. His temperature was normal later. I think the extra swaddling along with blankets the nurses wrapped around him to help with gas made his body temperature go up. Due to the low birth weight, we had to wait on him being circumcised. 

Breast feeding started off very good. By Saturday evening, our little boy was too impatient. Tried working with him on the feeding as well as having the nurses help. They all agreed I was doing everything right and said I just had one stubborn, impatient little boy. Poor guy just screamed and screamed. By Monday, after learning of his low birth weight and still screaming... I asked the nurse to bring a bottle. Very emotional seeing your little boy suffer and there was nothing more to do. After his bottle, we noticed a huge change. Wish the nurses would have just suggest for me to do that on Sunday instead of insisted the breast feeding because it is better for him. Nothing is better if he won't eat.

Daddy feeding Cash his first bottle.

So 'happy' to be leaving the hospital. :) 

First night home, he still had a lot of gas in his system due to screaming his head off at the hospital. Luckily throughout the night, he was up every three hours and the last feeding I had to wake him up to eat so we could see the doctor. Completely different baby on Tuesday. Only cries when he is hungry or getting his dirty diaper changed. 

Plan to still work with him this week on the feeding, so far he is still too impatient. Probably will resort to formula. All we care about is having a happy, healthy, feed baby. So nice to have my sweet baby back that we first met on Saturday. Getting lots of snuggle time in this week.