Tuesday, August 17th 2010

***There has been some question as to how you pronounce Kelan's name. It's pretty simple. Most often, you might see it spelled "Kellen". It rhymes with Helen, Melon, etc. Not to be confused with Kee-lan. Steve wasn't into the double L because he felt it was kind of feminine... Hope that clears it up! :) ***

Kelan Dean Sonnenberg arrived weighing in at 8 pounds even and 19 inches long! He beat Kanyon and Scarlett's weight by an ounce, so he is officially my biggest baby.

I was scheduled for an elective induction after my appointment with the doctor on Monday. I was already dialated to 3cm and still 75% effaced and I just decided that I was ready to get this baby out. I went to the hospital Tuesday morning at 6:30am and was admitted and started on Pitocin finally by 8am. My doctor broke my water shortly after. I waited on the epidural until the contractions were pretty uncomfortable and I couldn't sit still anymore during them. I was at 4+cm then and it was just about 11am.

After the epidural (which was really uncomfortable to get this time around), I just relaxed and tried to sleep. Tried is the key word... I never can seem to actually fall asleep when I'm in labor. It must be the adrenaline/nerves or something. It could also have been Steve walking in and out of my room to the nourishment room across the hall and bringing back soda and cookies... crackers and pudding, etc and eating it all right in front of me. :P Oh well... luckily Orem Community Hospital added a new option for laboring moms and that was the flavor that you could put into your ice... like lime, watermelon, and cherry. It was kind of like eating a sno-cone. :)

I steadily progressed and felt the need to push at about 1:30pm. But my nurse was in delivering with her other patient at the time and my doctor wasn't right there yet. So, I was told to not push and just wait. That is really hard to do! Finally everyone got in and got setup for delivery and I pushed through 2 contractions... one for his head and then one more for his shoulders and he was out. It was really an easy delivery.

Because he came out so fast and because his head was turned just slightly in the birth canal... he had some pretty bad bruising on his face and head. He actually cried that first day for a couple hours whenever you moved his head. The nurses finally took him to the nursery to give him another thorough exam and make sure there was nothing broken or out of place that they might have missed the first time. They didn't find anything though, which we were glad. He was just in some pain and we figured it was a headache. He would just wimper as you rocked him and it was hard to get him to nurse or anything that first day. :( Luckily by the next morning he was good as new and a happy little baby.

The kids came to visit him that night, but because he had been in so much pain that day, we didn't get him out of the little crib and just let them look. That was hard for Scarlett and she was just giddy looking at him and how little everything was. Cohen didn't pay much attention to Kelan and was more interested in making as big of a mess as possible in the shortest amount of time in my hospital room. ;) Kanyon just had a lot of questions about the whole process which was kind of interesting to try and explain without getting into too much detail.

Here are a few pictures of the minutes after Kelan was born...

This guy is the respiratory therapist and he has been the one to work on each of my 4 kids once they were born. I think that's kind of fun.

My favorite nurse from this baby was Andra... pictured on the left. She was awesome through labor and delivery and I even got her back on the day that I was leaving the hospital. That was really nice.


Kelan - fresh out of the oven and using his lungs.

My first moments with Kelan after he got cleaned up and I was taken care of.

My hospital room... huge, right? It was awesome.

Here are a couple pictures from the next day once Kelan was bathed and he and I were just hanging out.



I'll have lots more pictures to post... I just need time to get them off my camera!