Welcome
Matteo Keedwell Nelepovitz
Teo arrived 11 days early, born April 29th at 3:23 am. He weighed 7lbs 15oz and was 20 inches long.
I ended up being in labor for about 5 hours. It seemed much longer to me, but apparently they don't officially say you're in labor until you are 4cm or your water breaks. When I got to the hospital, I wasn't either of those two things. So, they had me walk the halls, I was able to get things going and get checked in. Most importantly I was able to get my epidural! I really thought I would be able to do it naturally this time (haha). However with my contractions being pretty intense and coming about a minute apart, I wimped out, but I'm very happy with my decision.
Teo had a little bit of a rough start. When he came out, he had the cord wrapped around his neck, not once but twice. Plus, it was wrapped around his shoulder as well. Things got a little scary when that happened, we felt like there was a little bit of panic in the room. When they tell you to push, push, push, them suddenly tell you to stop (which is nearly impossible), it worries you a bit. They cut the cord off him, and he was out. He let out a tiny whimper, we could see that he was totally blue, and they rushed him over to the table to try to get him going. After a minute, which seemed like forever, he began to cry. Once he was stable (which was a huge relief) they gave him to me. I'm not sure there's anything better than holding your newborn baby. It truly is such an amazing experience.
In the hospital, we noticed Teo was breathing kinda funny, and snoring. He was also a bit bruised around his nose and under his eyes. When we talked to the nurse about it, she said everything was fine, and that when babies come out as fast as he did (in just a few pushes) they don't always clear everything out of their lungs. We carefully watched our new little man, and constantly made sure he was breathing ok. That afternoon we went home and that night he slept in bed with us. In the middle of the night I woke up to use the bathroom. As I returned to bed, I heard a faint gargling, kinda choking sound. I flipped on the light. Teo was laying on his back, with his eyes wide open, a mouth full of fluid and totally blue. We flipped him over and cleared his mouth. He started breathing again and his color came back. Of course, we called the hospital and the nurse said he would be fine, and it was because of the delivery. We took turns holding him and we could hardly sleep the rest of the night. A person can't help but wonder what would have happened had we have not woke up? It was awful, one of the worst things to happen to us, it's hard to get that image out of your head. It's definitely keeping us on our toes.
The next day we took him to the doctor, which lead to blood work and x-rays. She just wanted to make sure there was nothing wrong with him, and there wasn't. We feel very lucky. It's pretty hard to see your one day old baby strapped to an x-ray table and screaming while getting blood work done. We truly feel for families that go through things like that, we made it out with a clean bill of health, many people aren't as lucky.
Teo is doing great now, he's healthy, happy and growing. Elio and Nico are great big brothers, they're having lots of fun with him and very helpful. We're starting to get into a good routine, I still can't get anywhere on time, but I know, eventually it will happen. Things are good :)
