The newest member of our family!

Devin Matthew Clark 

Born at 3:54 p.m. on Friday, September 10th 2010 in Cleveland, Ohio.

8lbs. 6oz. 20inches long.

He's our little chunk.

And as you can see he as two dimples!

The proud parents.

This was taken shortly after I delivered and it felt good to be done!

We discovered that he has quite a bit of hair, at least for our family.

I have more pictures that I need to upload that were taken after his bath. The nurse brought him in and said, "I combed his hair back, do you like it?"

Hair? What hair?

Sure enough we pulled off his hat and he has a good amount of brown hair!

Luke loves his little brother "Debin." 

At least for now. 

And, here's what happened, for anyone who is interested!

(this might be really long)

Thursday morning I went in for my last Dr's appt and was dilated to a 3.5. We're pretty sure my doctor stripped my membranes, without telling me. I had constant, semi-painful contractions every 8-10 minutes until the early evening, then they became closer, 5-7 minutes.

One thing I really wanted to do before he came was go to our Relief Society's dinner. Even though I had to drag Luke along (thanks to the elders for babysitting!) and could hardly get myself in the car, I was determined to go! They are always so fun and do such a good job. Plus, I haven't been able to go to RS for over 3 years, since I've been in Primary. So, we went and I knew something was up because the delicious food was really hard for me to eat. Once my contractions became 3-5 minutes apart, I decided I should probably go home. I think everyone else was a little freaked out that I was there as well! Haha. 

I got home, was really uncomfortable and Matt said I was most likely in latent labor. I took a hot bath, walked around and decided to just go to bed. I didn't sleep a whole lot, but was able to get some rest that I was very thankful for! 

The next morning before Matt left, he checked me and I was dilated to a 4. My contractions were 5 minutes apart. He left, I slept for a while and then I decided to get up and clean up a few things while I still could. 

My contractions were 3-5 for an hour or so. Matt was with my doctor at the hospital, doing rounds, and he said that I should just come in. 

We packed up and loaded up the car. I drove to my friend Debbie's house (Luke really wanted to play with her son Parker, so I thought he'd be happy there), we loaded up her kids and she drove me to the hospital and then watched Luke the rest of the day. THANK YOU DEBBIE!

Matt met me at the doors and we headed up to Labor and Delivery. It was really weird for Matt, because he's usually the one running around, not the patient just sitting around. I think he was bored most of the time, haha. I was still dilated to a 4. The admitted me and decided to break my water and get things going a little faster. The resident had a hard time breaking my water and as a result Devin has about five or six scrapes along the top of his head. Apparently she was digging his head with the hook! Poor guy.

Shortly after that I decided I wanted the epidural. I wanted to enjoy it this time around. I think I was close to maybe a 5 when I got it. The epidural made things slow down quite a bit, so a few hours later they started me on some Pitocin.

Dr. Weight checked me and I was at a 6. Forty minutes later I was feeling a lot of pressure and the contractions were very uncomfortable. I thought the epidural wasn't working or something. My doctor came back in and checked me and I was complete and ready to push! We didn't expect it to happen so quickly. They got things together quickly and after what seemed like a very long six minutes of pushing, he was here!

From the time I was admitted to the time he came, we were there about five hours.

My doctor was AWESOME! I loved the doctor I had at the beginning of this pregnancy (Dr. Reider), but now that I have someone to compare him to, I liked Dr. Weight more. My nurse was also really great! The L&D part was just awesome, compared to my experience at UH. 

When I delivered Luke there were way too many people (including med students) in the room, it was chaotic. After I delivered him, they let me see him for a minute and then took him away, gave him back and told me to feed him, without any help and everyone left the room. It was like I was part of an assembly line. Maybe they were just really busy that morning? 

This time, it was only Dr. Weight, Matt and my nurse in the room. It was slow and controlled (no tearing!). They gave me the baby and didn't take him away for at least 30 minutes or more. I didn't even know how much he weighed or anything. They told me just to feed him and then they took him and cleaned him up a little. It was a really relaxing and calm atmosphere. They weren't rushing to get us out of there, like they were when I had Luke. However, I must say that postpartum was way better at UH.

We came home about 27 hours after I delivered. It was so nice to be home! At Metro they really encourage the moms to keep their babies in their room all night long. I spent a lot of the first night taking care of him on my own (Matt went home with Luke), which isn't the easiest after giving birth and having an epidural wear off. The food was awful too! What kind of new mom would want to eat a kielbasa sausage with horse radish and iced tea?! Gross. I figured I'd rather sleep in my own bed, eat my own food and if anything happened I at least had my "in house" doctor around.

So far recovering is going a million times better this time around. It's true, the second one is way easier than the first!

We love our new little Devin. He is such a sweet, little baby!