Darion John Schweigert

Well needless to say there should have been much more updating going on here. However with moving in to a new place and being extremely pregnant it was hard to find time to do anything in the past month or two it seems like.

Jake and I successfully moved into a nice little 2 bedroom house that we are renting. We have our room and then the baby's room. It's nice cause we can keep all his stuff in there(and believe me there is A LOT of stuff). We are also using his closets for storage space. Haha. Poor little guy. Which brings me to the story of a lifetime for me!

On November 20th at 4:39pm CST Darion John Schweigert was born via C-section at St Mary's Healthcare center in Pierre, SD. Our wonderful unplanned little bundle of joy finally decided to show himself after hours of induced labor. After I did not progress past 3cm dialation and after being on pitocin for nearly a whole day (21 hours) they finally decided to get him out of there.

We went in on November 14th because of bad back pain. I was afraid I was in labor since I'd heard so much about bad back pain with the first child. The pain was in short stabs and so I was sure that I was having bad contractions. This of course started when we were 3/4ths of the way through the movie 2012 in theaters. We finished the movie and then went home where I was in pain for another 2 hours. We then decided to call into the hospital and go in. It turns out it wasn't labor or even really contractions. My kidneys were very upset with something that I ate. We assume it was the greasy popcorn and Diet Coke. So I vowed not to have any more until this kiddo was out of me.

November 17th was my last prenatal appointment. I was still 1-2cm dilated and so my doctor told me that she'd like to induce labor since they were afraid that he was getting too big because of my gestational diabetes. We agreed that that would be fine and so we made an appointment for the next morning to be in the hospital by 5am to start on the drugs and everything that hopefully would have brought my child into the world. We were up early and ready to go on the 18th getting to the hospital on time, finishing all the pesky paperwork, and getting me all hooked up to the machines that they needed me on. They started the Pitocin at about 10am. For those that do not know Pitocin is something that the body produces naturally but the artificial stuff they pump into you more or less just helps your labor along and gives the body signals it's time to get the baby out. Or... it's supposed to anyways. So after 14 hours there and not much to show in the way of dilation they sent me home. Not going to lie... I was really bummed out. I thought I was finally going to be able to hold my little guy that night. They set me up so that I could come in to do this all again the next day (Nov 19th). This time though they were going to start me on low doses of something that was going to get my cervix more effaced at about 8pm and then on the 20th we were going to see how I was doing. Poor Jake was with me through the whole 14 hours. He slept a lot on the lame "couch" that was in my room and we watched A LOT of Family Guy. Haha.

I stayed the night there alone after they had given me an Ambien to help me sleep. Jake went home to get a good night's rest to be ready for the next day. At about 4am on November 20th they started my Pitocin again in my IV. At 7am my doctor broke my water hoping that it would help along labor if it was broken and my body would kick start itself past 3cm. After after 10 hours of laboring after my water was broke (probably like... 5 of them being the WORST pain I have EVER felt in my life) they decided to go ahead and do a c-section to get him out of there. They gave me a Demerol shot and from there things are a little fuzzy for me since pain meds make me completely drunk-like. I do remember things, but I had absolutely no concept of time at all while that drug was in my system. It was about an hour or two before they got me down to surgery. To me it felt like minutes. Jake said that I was slurring my words a lot and that I was just generally out of it. Haha.

I remember them shooting the intrathecal into my spine. I remember laying down on the table and Jake being there. We got some pics of this and I don't remember him holding my hand through the whole surgery but apparently he did. He was a very good sport and took a lot of pics for me. And finally I remember my baby crying for the first time. I remember Jake smiling at me and giving me a kiss. We were parents and while it was scary there was a love and a happiness there that can't even be measured to anything that I've ever felt before. We had our little boy. I was so scared that I was going to drop him when they laid him on my chest because my arms were slightly numb and tingly (I really couldn't feel ANYTHING from like my chest down). Jake later described to me how it looked while they were pulling him out and stuff like that but I'm not going to gross anyone out with that. I also have pics of that. :p

I gave him his first Mommy's kiss and then Jake followed as they took Darion out of the room. They sewed me back up and had me head out to recovery. They wheeled me out and I got to go past him in the nursery and I held my hand up to the glass where he had his hand out as well. To me it seemed like minutes but again it was a few hours. They loaded me into my bed in my room and I had all of Jake's family there with me (Mom, Dad, Stepmom, Grandma, and Grandpa), which was nice. It took a while before they brought him into the room to be with me but I have never been so in love with anything in my entire life. I loved just holding him and just hugging him and Jake close to me. I love my Schweigert men. I love my little family. And of course. I cried.

Seeing as this post is monstrous enough as it is I can chronicle the rest of the hospital visit later. I just figured that since most of the details were all fresh in my mind that I needed to get them out there!