Cooper Rudy Knight's Birth Story

So... my little man is almost one and I have realized lately that I haven't written anything down about his life. I am horrible about writing in my journal and in reading others blogs, I have noticed that some use their blog as a journal. I think I will do this and hopefully get more "journaling" done. This will probably not be the most exciting post for others to read, but hopefully someday my children can enjoy reading little facts about their lives... I may do this in a series of posts since it would be a REALLLLLY long post. As the title states, I am going to use this post to tell the story about Cooper's birth :).

Well, we found out that we were pregnant with Cooper about the middle of February. We had had some false alarms in the past, and so this time I waited extra long to take a pregnancy test to avoid getting my hopes up. We had spent the weekend with some friends for Valentine's/Presidents day and I got seriously sick over the weekend.... I ended up calling in sick to work and staying at my moms for most of the week. I had the most awful cold ever! Once I got home, I started to really wonder if I was pregnant.... but still waited. The next week I ended up taking a pregnancy test, but it didn't have a clear "reading". So... the hospital does pregnancy tests in their labs for $10. I absolutely hate getting my blood drawn, but I couldn't stand not knowing anymore. The hospital confirmed that I was indeed pregnant!! YEA! My first doctor appointment was at about 10 weeks along. That was when we had the first ultrasound and got to hear his heartbeat. It was amazing!! At about 20 weeks, we found out that Cooper was a boy. We were ecstatic. We both wanted a boy first. I will spare you the details about the throwing up, the constant need to use the bathroom, and round ligament pains. I actually ended up having a pretty easy pregnancy. Thank goodness! I was due on October 25th. I woke up on the morning of the 8th and my water had broken. It was 6:45 AM. At first I didn't realize what had happened, but once I did we headed to the hospital where they confirmed that I was in labor. I didn't really start having contractions until a little later and when I did they gave me some pain medication. Around noon, I decided it was time for the epidural. Luckily, I didn't feel a thing when he did the epidural. It was a long day... I couldn't eat and was starving. Plus I was exhausted and couldn't really sleep because I had to lay in an uncomfortable position to keep his heart rate where it should be. About 7 PM the nurse told me that it was time to start pushing. Sometime during the day, Aunt Kara and the Grandma to be arrived. Grandma didn't want to come unless we let her in the room (I think she would have been too anxious just waiting). So we let her in... While giving birth to Cooper, there were 7 people in the room... That's right, 7!!! At this point I didn't care who was there. Cooper was born at about 9:15 PM. He weighed 6 lbs and was 17 inches. Our little bug was here. One of the first things that we noticed about him was his big eyes. He has always been very alert since that very first day. Even in the nursery when they were checking him out and poking him with needles, Aunt Kara and Dad said that he just layed there with eyes wide open.
Having Cooper has been an amazing blessing, but a huge trial at the same time. While we were in the hospital he had low blood sugar, so not only was I trying to nurse him I had to give him a bottle so that he was getting enough to eat. This lasted for about 4 or 5 days and made for LONG feeding times. Then we started the trying to nurse thing, which just never seemed to work that well for us. He also ended up having a yeast infection in the first month, which lead to a nasty rash, lots of gassiness, fussiness and about 10 trips to the doctor. Once that ended we started to figure out that he may have reflux. This lead to lots of projectile vomiting and not a lot of sleeping. Once we started giving him medicine for this, life got so much better and life was much easier.
Milestones-
Cooper smiled within the first month
Cooper laughed at about 3 months and laughs at the most random things
Cooper sat up completely by himself about 5 or 6 months
Cooper got his first two teeth at 6 months
Cooper started crawling at 8 months

He is so beautiful and so funny. He loves to climb on things and has to be wherever you are. He is very social and loves to be cheesy for people. We love him to death! Pictures and more to come.....