Introducing Tristan

Our Birth Story............................Labor began about 9am Friday morning on the 14th of January. I had plans to go to breakfast with some friends at our local favorite spot. Knowing from 5 weeks of Lamaze class that labor could take a long time & last 6 to 10hrs, I decided to join them to take my mind off of things. Brett joined me and I had some blueberry pancakes while we all joked around and my friends timed my contractions.  I knew that I was already dilated to 2cm and 80% effaced from my previous DR exam. At the restaurant I serendipitously ran into the acupuncturist that was going to treat me during labor. She was pretty excited to treat a patient that was actually in labor (I know we sound granola, but my best friend just received her degree and has introduced us to this culture...seems to be something to this ancient art). I figured why not get all the help I can ...I have heard from many that giving birth is not a Sunday drive. The acupuncturist arrive at my house about 12pm to begin...she focused on relaxation points, did reiki and massage. She also placed tiny pins in my ears and magnets in my wrist that I could push on periodically to increased relaxation etc...Brett also got some needles to relax as the nervous daddy to be.  At one point, she asked me if I would like to speed up labor as she knew some points that could make the labor go quicker...I thought to myself why not get this over with?  About an hour later I was getting uneasy about being at home & decided that Brett and I better head to the hospital which was at minimum 20minutes away.  This was about 3pm and we ran into bumper to bumper traffic...what Luck! This was definately the worst part of my labor...It was really hard to relax in the car and the tension was rising with the heavy traffic. Brett, My awesome coach was coaching me and timing my contractions in the car. We both realized that I was probably in stage 3 labor, but neither of us said anything as to try not to add to the stress of the drive. We were however preparing ourselves for the Dr to tell us we were only dilated to 4 and I had several more hours to go.

We Finally arrived at the hospital at 4pm after a 1hr drive. The Dr checked me and stated that we were dilated to 10cm and the bag of water was bulging. There was no chance for pain meds at this point, but the Dr. assured me that it didn't get any worse than it is now.Comforting words as I press my acupuncture points . After breaking my water bag we started pushing. After about 2.5hrs of pushing, little Tristan arrived at 7:20pm. He was 8lbs , 21inches long with a 14inch head. He is a spitting image of his father right down to his freakishly big feet.

Whats in a name?

During our pregnancy we had been kicking around alot of different ideas for names but seem to keep coming back to the name Tristan.  We had pretty much established Tristan as the name until daddy started to have doubts two days before the birth...it's so permanent.  We re-opened the books and started looking again but couldn't really find anything that grabbed us...during labor (as random as it sounds) Brett had the name Jackson pop into his head between pushes which was never on the original list...we kicked that around for a day or two but he didn't seem to look like a Jack...he eventually started looking more like a Tristan and we settled back on Tristan as our final name (yes that's our final answer...it's official and on paper)  and put Jackson in as his middle name.  It turns out that Jackson was debated as a name for multiple people in the family....hopefully it will get used as a fist name before too long.

We were discharged home on Monday the 17th after spending an extra day in the hospital for jaundice. Since then the Dr has been threatening us with readmitting the baby a second time for high jaundice levels. With the help of my hospital we have borrowed photo therapy equipment and initiated home treatment which has kept little Tristan out of the hospital.  The plan is to treat  for 1 more day at home to drive down the levels back to normal,. then hopefully we can start getting into the rhythm of life with a baby.