Adding a New Life to the Family

Well the long day has come to an end. Who knew that you could stay awake for so long doing so much work, and then have the energy to enjoy a nightcap with such an adorable little one? Here's the story of Ivin Register Holt's arrival.

The story starts on Sunday night at the Register Family house celebrating Mom Register's 50th birthday. While we thought this would be a grand day for his arrival and Mom Register was hoping for the great birthday present, it was not to be. Though we all sat around and had quite the talk about the ever increasing contractions and the 4-5 minute regularity of them, Ivin decided it was not quite time that night. However, he did make his presence known by waking his mother and father up with a few large contractions.

Monday morning, Jeremy decided to work from home sure that his son would arrive. Because he was now just over a week late, Jeremy was sure that the baby non-stress test would reveal his near arrival and Kelly would be told to go straight to labor and delivery. Ivin was too relaxed in Mommy's little oven and Mom and Dad were told that while the little guy could come any time, it wouldn't because he was in distress.

Monday after the appointment, we decided to take the afternoon to run a few errands and do a big shopping trip - to prepare for Ivin's arrival. This led to Kelly being bent over the shopping cart at every place we went to. Jeremy started to get in the panic mode not really knowing what to do if there were problems, or a watery mess was left on the floor of the store. And even more nervous when Kelly needed to go to the potty and Jeremy couldn't be right there with her the whole time. With no messes making an appearance at the store the Holts found themselves back home, with no child, but a lot of groceries. The nesting desire snuck back in and we finished a few odds and ends around the house and did a little family night.

After putting everything away and a HUGE dinner of Honeycomb, we decided to watch a movie and to help distract Kelly from the contraction pains. Halfway through "The Incredibles," after starting and stopping the movie and putting all kinds of pressure on pressure points to ease Kelly's pain, we decided to try and get some sleep, thinking that we'd be headed to the hospital in a matter of hours. After a few hours of laying there and pushing pressure points with a little sleep here and there, not to mention 6 hours of continuous 4 minute contractions, Kelly decided it was time to come to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital at about 1:30 a.m. We were checked in and found that Kelly was dilated only to a 3+ by about 1:45 a.m., this was a little depressing. This led to hours and hours AND HOURS of hard work, I think they call it labor. Around 7:00 a.m. our doctor came to see us. We were excited to see her. We love her. At that time Kelly was seriously considering some pain meds, we made a deal to wait until 5:00 a.m. and then reassess the situation with pain and progression. She had been in labor for nearly 12 hours, not counting the whole day before, and we hadn't progressed much at all. So, at 7:00ish when in our doctor came in, we consulted with our her about the alternatives we had available with medications and found a drug that we felt happy with. Kelly was put on a medication that would take some of the bite out of the pain, but still allow her to feel everything and naturally bear the child. We liked this option because it allowed Kelly to perform and be involved in the delivery and also a better recovery than an epidural.

Even with the bite out of the pain, everything got really painful late in the afternoon. At about 6:00 p.m. our nurses came into a room full of a lot of pain and the desire to push little Ivin out. The nurse checked Kelly and found she had progressed to a 9+ and little baby was ready to roll out. No sooner than this great news was discovered, our doctor came in to check us out having heard we were getting close. Our doctor, seeing some weird stuff, decided to check Kelly out again and ended up putting her back to an 8. This was very depressing to say the least. Kelly got an extra boost of energy when she heard we were at a 9+ and ready to go, that was all sucked out with this new news. Our doctor also said we were digressing and a little swollen from length of the labor. To add to that, Kelly's muscles weren't contracting hard enough to get the kid out, because of the hours of labor, and a drug pitocin would be needed to contract the muscles harder. On top of that, little Ivin was trying to come out face first instead of crown of head first. All of this added into the mix, we pulled the plug and opted for the epidural.

Post epidural, things went pretty quick. A shift change 30 minutes after the epidural brought our fourth nurse and the on-call doctor - as our doctor had to leave for a city council meeting she was presenting at. The new nurse checked Kelly and thought things looked good again, just after that the on-call doc came in and checked Kelly as well. They both thought things looked good, but they still needed to get the baby into position. So, the doctor was able to change Ivin's head position a bit and get things ready. Ivin joined us about 30 minutes later with all ten fingers and ten long toes. He's long and skinny like daddy and got all of his good looks from his mommy.

Little Ivin Register Holt joined our family at 8:27 p.m. on March 10th, 2009. He started at 8 lbs. 7 oz. and 22 inches long and it looks like he's got some red hair coming.






Welcome home little Ivin. Welcome Home.