Vincent Is Here!

Vincent Taylor De Leon

May 12, 2008 8:46 p.m.

6 lbs. 4 oz 19 inches

On Friday, Kam was working on getting her grades finalized and turned in and I was home with a pulled back. Kinda last minute, we decided to have one last weekend out of town before Vincent's arrival. So, we decided to go to Fredericksburg.

As the afternoon went on, 5 hours in a car sounded like a long time and we were having a hard time finding a hotel room. We decided to get a room at the Belmont for the weekend and vacation in beautiful Oak Cliff just to have some time away from our lives. They have a secluded property and have a very nice pool. Turned out to be a good thing, because Kam started labor on Sunday morning.

She started around 5 am and we were in the hospital by 7:30 with contractions lasting about 60 seconds and hitting about every 4-5 minutes. Well, they sent us home because she was only dilated to 2 cm.

Here's where the fun starts...she labored this way for 29 hours!! Now remember she is going the natural way, so our doula had her walking and doing some other stimulation exercises to move the labor along and get her more dilated. Who the hell wants to walk around the block when you have something the size of a honeydew trying to make its way out of you?!? She pushed through it and Doula Billie felt like she had made some good progress, so we went back to the hospital around 7:30 pm knowing that we would have a son at the end of the evening.

She was still only 2 cm. They wanted us to stay a couple of hours to see what would happen, but Kam was exhausted and they gave us an option of going home. So, we went home and they gave her some medicine for the pain so she could try to get some rest. The nurse told us she thought she would probably see us about 4 or 5 in the morning. While Kam got some rest, Patty and I tried to get the house put together. (Patty and Terry had to change a Llano trip around and head to Dallas to be here for Vince's arrival.) He's trying to make his appearance two weeks early, so we had all our stuff but we weren't quite organized.

On Monday morning , she was still going strong, so we called the doctor to make an appointment (we were tired of being sent home from the hospital.) We discussed what we were going to do if things still had not moved along. At this point, she had started labor 29 hours ago and we thought she had truly made an effort to have a natural labor but it was starting to become a bit ridiculous for her to still be in pain. Before we had our doctor's appointment, we decided that it was time have him get things moving along and time for an epidural.

She had moved up to 3 cm and he was in stage 0. Hooray...we were checked into the hospital to stay. Kam got an epidural and he was here 10 hours later.

He was a little shaky at first, it took him about half an hour to be able to breath properly. Also, Kam had some complications. She ended up with a large blood clot on her uterus. She was given medicine before having it removed but it wasn't working quite fast enough and they had to do it without it taking effect. Kam said it was more painful than giving birth.

All things said and done, Mom and Vincent are happy and healthy. I am okay too. We spent 3 days total in the hospital and we are home now. Patty is staying with us for a little while, kinda to help us get it all figured out. I'm not sure we would be quite as sane if it weren't for her help.

Vincent is a good, strong name for him and we will probably call him Vin for short. It sort of suits him.

He seems to be a pretty good kid, so far (he's only 4 days old now.) He gets fussy every so often, but we are thinking it may be a gas thing (I understand now that I cannot feed Kam garlic and onions.) He is quite the tooter.

We have been told that he is pretty good looking, we agree. He has a full head of hair. Vin's two weeks early, so he is a little guy. We had to go get him new clothes, the newborn size, because all of his clothes were huge on him. His fingers and toes are long and skinny. He still has a bit of a pointy head but its starting to round off. I'm not sure when his eyes are going to turn to the right color, but they are a steel blue right now.

All of his aunts and uncles have become baby hogs. They don't want to put him down. I foresee it being a challenge to keep him from being spoiled.

Thanks to everyone for all of their support. We are excited to have a new addition to the family and look forward to days to come.

Kam, Teri and Vin