The Lewis Family Blog: Cameron Michael Lewis has Arrived!

My doctor called me Tuesday, November 9th, to let me know that a spot had opened up the next day to have me induced. I was excited! We were able to wrap things up at home, go out to dinner one last time as a family of 3, make arrangements for who will be taking care of Sascha (Grandpa and Grandma Lewis saved the day), and we were at the hospital the next day at 7am. Surprisingly I even got sleep that night, and I wasn't that nervous. I guess I felt ready...

We arrived at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, got checked in, and were shown to our room. Our nurse Kelly was super sweet, so we knew we were in good hands.

Once we got settled in, they attempted to put in my IV to draw blood as well as administer an antibiotic, but once again my veins did not cooperate. I got poked 3 times, and on the 4th time they just did it in my hand.

I had some contractions on my own (the ones I've been feeling all last week), but once I was on Pitosin, they started to get more regular and more real. Dr. Nguyen checked in on me in the morning and then again at 11:15 to break my water. That was really not very pleasant. She said the baby was super low which is why it was so uncomfortable. I was only 2-3 cm. 15 minutes later contractions got a lot more intense. I got an epidural an hour after my water broke and felt much better by 1pm. They checked me once again and I was around 3-4cm. It seemed like things were moving a little slow. Well, half an hour later after I was feeling really good (and we even watched an episode of Seinfield on the laptop), and I started to feel my contractions again. They had me push the button 4 times which was the max for the hour, but I was not feeling any better. So the anesthesiologist came back to give me some stronger stuff. I was so numb in my legs and feet, but I still felt the contractions which was weird, they were tolerable, but very close together. They checked me again and I was 10cm at 3:30. Wow, no wonder I was feeling those contractions! He was ready to come out.

My doctor seemed to appear in our room almost instantly and said "Well, lets have a baby!" That's when it hit me. I am about to meet my baby boy. I immediately got very emotional and Jeromey grabbed ahold of my hand to reassure me that everything was going to be perfect. I remember at that time I stopped feeling all the contractions, or may be I was just so overwhelmed that I stopped noticing them. Once everything was ready to go they had to tell me when to push since I no longer had any idea if I had a contraction or not. Lucky for me, Cameron was out in just 2 pushes! Sascha was out in 3, and Cameron in 2. These babies seem to just jump out of me which is so awesome because I know so many people who have to push for hours. I definitely feel extra lucky to have them out so quickly. Hopefully that means quicker recovery.

They immediately placed him on my chest and that's where tears came pouring out... my tears. There he was crying on my chest, a perfectly healthy baby boy. Could we be any happier? We are the lucky parents to another little baby! He stayed on me for a little while longer and the nurse cleaned him off a bit and made him cry some more so that he would get some color and less purple.

He came out at 3:55pm November 1oth (His birthday is 11/10/10 which is kind of a fun date) and weighed in at 7 lbs, 3 oz, and 20 inches long. Sascha actually came 9 days before her due date, and Cameron had his birthday 9 days before my due date of the 19th. Little brother was over a pound heavier!

Now onto the name, which we've been deciding on for the last 9 months. We had such a hard time with it. We finally picked Cameron to have a "C" name after Jeromey's grandfather Carl, but the middle name we kept going back and forth on between Michael and my maiden name Rendler. We waited another day at the hospital until we finally came to a decision. We ended up going with Michael after my grandfather as well as my dad. Rendler would have been really great too as well as unique since my dad was the only child and had 2 girls, we thought it would have been cool to have Cameron have that middle name and it would be more unique, but ultimately we decided to go with Cameron Michael.

Back to the delivery... since I got super numb right before the actual delivery, I was not able to get up right away. I had to wait until the evening when the epidural finally wore off. We got some visitors that evening. Unfortunately Baba came down with bronchitis and could not be there, but we had lots of other visitors including Deda who was there 15 minutes after Cameron was born and later Inna & Aaron came, as well as Grandpa who brought big sister Sascha over to meet her little brother Cameron.

Sascha walked in looking bewildered. She started to look even more worried when she saw me in the hospital bed and then saw the IV in my hand. I wonder if it brought back bad memories of her stay in the hospital a few months ago. I tried to reassure her that the IV doesn't hurt, but then just ended up trying to hide it under the sheets so that she would focus on something else. Grandpa Dave took her to the store to pick out a gift for Cameron - it was a superman rubber ducky, while we had brought a small gift to the hospital to give to her from baby brother. Another big gift was waiting for her at home... yes daddy likes to spoil his little girl. She was thrilled to open it, it was all the Mickey playhouse characters in a box. After a little while Sascha was back to her smiley self and even wanted to hold her baby brother all by herself.

We stayed at the hospital 2 nights. You did really well and hardly ever cried. The diaper changes were a bit hard since we're not used to changing a boy. You would soak your clothes and we didn't notice it each time. We had to be really careful since you got circumcised and you can say we were a bit paranoid trying not to touch the area.

The pediatrician was also able to order an ultrasound of your kidneys while we were at the hospital, (I was very pleased because I really didn't want to take you to Children's hospital for this) since that's what was recommended based on some of the measurements they took during the 28 week ultrasound and the VUR history with Sascha. We finally heard about the results 5 days later and everything looks normal and checked out ok. What a relief to know we won't have to go through the same thing and hopefully never have to think about it again.

We stayed the 2nd night mainly to make sure that your jaundice was under control. Apparently the interaction between our blood types (A-) which is daddy blood type, and mine which is (O+), has a higher risk of jaundice and it peaks on the 3rd day. On Friday, they pricked your little foot again and the level was safe so we were good to go home.