Welcome Cooper Lee Robitaille!

I suppose this posting is a little late, but it's better late than never!  As you would imagine, life has been pretty busy around here since the birth of our son.  I haven't had a lot of time to blog.

Cooper Lee Robitaille was born on March 6, 2013 at 9:50 a.m.  He was 8 lbs 11 oz and was 21 inches long.  As Cooper reached his due date and continued growing in size, the doctors recommended induction.  On March 5 (Cooper's due date), Amanda was admitted to Aultman Birth Center.  Oxytocin was administered to induce contractions.

It took a few hours for the oxytocin to deliver its full might.  Amanda practiced some exercises to help coax Cooper down.  Although the contractions were becoming more regular, Amanda was taking a long time to dilate.  The doctors helped things along by breaking her waters.  This definitely intensified the contractions.  By the afternoon, the oxytocin was dialed up nice and high, which caused Amanda's contractions to hit with brute force.   Amanda was is in absolute agony.  I've never seen someone hurt so much.  I spend a few hours helping Amanda get through the contractions by using breathing methods and patterned hand squeezing exercises.  Even with my help, Amanda was in extreme pain.  She was completely exhausted and still had hours to go.

At only 4 cm dilation, Amanda's contractions were so painful that she waved the white flag and asked for an epidural.  It took the doctors three tries to get the epidural right.  Once they got it right, though, Amanda finally had some real relaxation.  The contractions continued to intensify, but Amanda didn't feel them.  Amanda even closed her eyes for an hour or two as we turned off the lights and took a break.

We were up all night with constant doctor checks and an intensifying barrage of contractions.  By around 6 a.m. it was time to push.  A bunch of doctors came into the room and got Amanda into the delivery position.  I took over as coach and helped hold her left leg as she pushed with all her might at every contraction.  Amanda and I locked eyes, and I timed her pushes by counting to ten during every contraction.  This went on for three hours.  Amanda was exhausted, but she got a burst of energy when I told her I saw the head coming out.  With a few giant pushes, we welcomed Cooper Lee into the world.

Cooper came out purple and crying, a perfectly healthy boy.  The doctors handed Cooper to Amanda where he rested on her chest and we gawked in awe at our perfect baby boy.  The room was full of tears of joy and huge sighs of relief that Cooper appeared healthy.  I got to cut the cord.  Cooper had some health checks, and he was soon placed in Mum's arms again for lots of cuddles.  It was an absolutely magical experience.  No words can describe it.

Cooper stayed in the hospital for three nights because of jaundice, but otherwise he was a perfectly healthy boy.  We have now had Cooper home for over a week, and he is doing quite well.  We are working on some feeding issues, but from what we hear this is perfectly normal baby stuff.  Cooper's main objective now is to put on some weight.  At the moment, we are supplementing his diet with formula.  Once he becomes better at nursing and he gains some weight, we should be back on the right track.  Otherwise, he is a perfectly healthy baby.

Amanda is recovering well.  It will take some time for everything to heal, but she is doing great.  Her biggest issue is getting enough sleep.  Cooper is a 24-hour job.  He requires feeding every couple of hours, day and night.  There is not a lot of down time with a newborn.  Things will start to calm down, though, as we all get into our new groove.  We would definitely appreciate if Cooper would not spring to life at 3 a.m. every night!

I am planning to keep this blog alive with Cooper updates, photos and videos.  The link below is a live website that I update with photos nearly every day.  Have fun looking through the photos we have so far.  Then enjoy a slide show below that I made of Cooper's first 13 days of life.

https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A85oqs3qNu5oh