The first week home

Benjamin's first adventure after arriving home

(don't judge my size, I am swollen!) and meeting Portos and Wallace

was watching the Packer game that his mom and dad were supposed to be attending.

He luckily was exposed to plenty of cheering and routing in the womb so wasn't at all disturbed by the cheering. He even liked to wear his green and gold.
His Nana and Grandpa - that is so weird - were here from Wisconsin since the delivery and helped us out the first couple of days. We couldn't have done it without them!


On Tuesday poor little Mino had his first doctors appointment and was subjected to his first bath at home. He is on the sponge bath route still because his little umbilical nub is still attached. Martin and I had to rock paper scissors to see who was going to wet him and who was going to hold him. I got the wetting :(

On Thursday his Abuelo and Abuela arrived from Argentina!
Luckily they were able to come on short notice before Martin's sister gives birth and they need to help out with her kids. (Also, luckily they came in October because a first visit to Minnesota in January could have been traumatic for them!)
On Friday his Auntie skipped school and flew to MN to meet him for the first time.

She couldn't wait until Thanksgiving to get her hands on the little bugger. She was more than willing to volunteer to help with the diapers but was unable to contain the pee streams that are inevitable during every diaper change. . .

Benjamin also got to go for his first walk. Both sets of grandparents were concerned about taking the baby out, but in my mind it is only going to get colder so we have to capitalize on these beautiful fall days.

We had a full house for the first week but it was fantastic. We are so lucky to have family that is able to come on such short notice and help us and meet him during his first few weeks of life.

Benjamin's Arrival

So what better way to start then to tell how Benjamino entered this world:
On October 20, 2011 at about 9 am my water broke while cuddling with Portos in bed. It took me a while to convince myself that it actually happened but after gchatting with my mom and a phone call to the babyline it was decided to head to the hospital to confirm. I called Martin who managed to make it home in record time and we were off to the hospital around noon.
We checked in to triage and it was confirmed that indeed my water did break and we were admitted. I was given the worlds largest maxi pad and a gown and the long stay began.

I was not having regular contractions so was told that I was going to need Pitocin to get the ball rolling, afterall I had 24 hours from when my water broke to when we needed Benjamin out to avoid infection. Around 4 pm after an ultrasound to find my vein for the IV, the Pitocin started and I started to have contractions.
Mom arrived around 5 pm and we were just hanging out in labor and delivery. The brilliant Martin thought to bring Flight of the Conchords so we had entertainment. Luckily our OB was on call starting at 6 pm so I was very excited to know that I was going to deliver with her. Things were going smoothly until around midnight when I started to get uncomfortable and tired and decided that it was time for the epidural. Ask and ye shall recieve, the anesthesiologist was there in record time and before I knew it I had a catheter in my back among other places.
About this time baby Benjamino also started to not like the contractions so as soon as I would get comfortable the nurse would come in and ask me to reposition to help him get enough oxygen. I was given an oxygen mask . The hours ticked on and I was slowly progressing and he was slowly dropping but we were working against the clock. I was slowly developing a fever as well.
At 6 am on October 21 Dr. Ramirez checked me and said it was time to start pushing. I did. At 7:30 her shift ended and a new doctor took over. Around 9 am the new doctor decided that based on Benjamin's heart rate and the fact that I was exhausted from three hours of pushing that we could try a vacuum delivery, but he didn't have too much confidence and said that we may very likely be headed to the OR for a C-Section. He said a NP needed to be present to assess the baby because of the vacuum delivery and because I had developed a slight fever.

On the third attempt, at 9:30 am Benjamin finally vacated his home of 9 months to enter the world. He weighed 7 lbs 9.3 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. He didn't cry and wasn't breathing well on his own. The doctor cut the umbilical cord and he went to be monitored immediately. He failed his APGAR test so the NP needed to take him to the Special Care Unit. He was able to be with me for about a minute before he was whisked away.

I needed to stay in L&D to be monitored for my fever to insure that I wasn't developing an infection so Martin went with Benjamino up to special care.

They determined that he had very low blood glucose so he needed to be formula fed and would most likey need to stay overnight. After my monitoring was finished and my fever subsided, I got to go up to Special Care to see Benjamin who was well on his way to recovery. He was discharged after only four hours and our new little family of three was reunited in the recovery room.

All was well and 48 hours we got to go home! I did have to give up my seats to the Packers Vikings game though, luckily a nurse had a family member who really wanted to go, and one of them was a Packer fan so I felt it was OK.