I'll begin by saying, "this is a Thank You" to; my Mom, who always knows what to do, my Dad, who sees everything that I don't, and my In-Laws. Susan and Dempsey's formal titles have In-Laws in front of them. I started courting their daughter when she was 16, that statement by itself sounds creepy but it is not because I was 17 at the time. They endured years of corny jokes and witnessed countless attempts at failed wit. However, those years did not prove fruitless. Just ask them, but when you do please refer to them by their newly minted informal titles of Nana and Poppy.
The love and support of family is a blessing a million times over because there is no end to what our parents will do for us. I might insert one of those bad jokes here about walking on the other side of the law as a possible "line in the sand" but depending on the circumstances, I'm not sure even then they wouldn't oblige.
Our four parents watched us grow up together which helped change the dynamic of how we all interact. They spent time at: dances, graduations, celebrations and now vacations and Holidays. The most recent gathering is one that I bet we never forget.
Thank You to all four of you for all of the little and all of the big things that you did for me, for Ashleigh and for Pierce this last week. I am glad that you could all be apart of September 21, 2010. Your individual contributions helped enhance this event, which speaks volumes because the event itself stands alone as one of the most euphoric moments in life.
PZH is a blessed grandson!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Culmination part 2
We headed down Man O War Blvd as the lead car in a caravan of three. The elevator doors opened to the second floor of St. Joseph East's new Woman's Center at 10:30 PM. We were escorted in to a registration office. Here we are, my poor wife absorbing contractions every 240 seconds and the admin lady is asking us for our licenses and insurance card, all while fighting with her printer.
After checking in to our room and meeting the RN assigned to us for the night, the first order of business was to determine at exactly what point Ashleigh would be getting the epidural? As it turned out, she ended up being the lucky recipient of TWO EPI SHOTS. The second shot came at about 3:00 AM which is when things began to intensify. Fast forward an hour, it was 4:00 AM when contractions started to come on top of each other.
I hesitate to attempt describing the cinematography of it all because re-telling it, hardly does it justice. The two grandmothers to be, stood off to the side holding each other tight. I was on Ashleigh's left side, the RN on the right and it goes without saying where our midwife (Nancy) was positioned. A few other support staff were in and out, the only other person worth mentioning is the pediatrician (Dr. Ang). I greeted him in between pushes, the enthusiasm that I expressed was not reciprocated, it appeared as though they had just woke him up.
Nancy would ask Ashleigh to push and she would oblige by putting her chin in her chest and squeezing my hand while I counted to ten. She never yelled or screamed or called me names, she was perfect. Beauty is subjective but any man who's stood by his wife's side, held her hand while counting her through pushing your son out of her body knows that it is the most beautiful event you can ever witness. The feeling that I experienced as Pierce was being delivered was a combination of almost every emotion I've ever felt in my existence raised to the tenth power.
After the final push, the newest Hernandez entered this world. I was instantly put under a spell of euphoria. The cord was clamped and clipped and our miracle was walked to the doc. With my heart thumping more rapidly than ever before and two or nine tears trickling down my cheek I rested my forehead on Ashleigh's and told her that she did it (like she didn't already know). As I gave her a kiss, we heard him say, "well, he has his Daddy's nose" it appeared Dr. Ang had finished his cup of coffee.
The culmination of 41 weeks: imagining, anticipating, preparing and believing was realized. I stood next to him, watched him get cleaned off, talked to him for the first time. Harnessing the jubilation of it all proved to be overwhelming. I picked him up, held him, I made a promise to him, walked him over to his mama and placed him in her arms.
After checking in to our room and meeting the RN assigned to us for the night, the first order of business was to determine at exactly what point Ashleigh would be getting the epidural? As it turned out, she ended up being the lucky recipient of TWO EPI SHOTS. The second shot came at about 3:00 AM which is when things began to intensify. Fast forward an hour, it was 4:00 AM when contractions started to come on top of each other.
I hesitate to attempt describing the cinematography of it all because re-telling it, hardly does it justice. The two grandmothers to be, stood off to the side holding each other tight. I was on Ashleigh's left side, the RN on the right and it goes without saying where our midwife (Nancy) was positioned. A few other support staff were in and out, the only other person worth mentioning is the pediatrician (Dr. Ang). I greeted him in between pushes, the enthusiasm that I expressed was not reciprocated, it appeared as though they had just woke him up.
Nancy would ask Ashleigh to push and she would oblige by putting her chin in her chest and squeezing my hand while I counted to ten. She never yelled or screamed or called me names, she was perfect. Beauty is subjective but any man who's stood by his wife's side, held her hand while counting her through pushing your son out of her body knows that it is the most beautiful event you can ever witness. The feeling that I experienced as Pierce was being delivered was a combination of almost every emotion I've ever felt in my existence raised to the tenth power.
After the final push, the newest Hernandez entered this world. I was instantly put under a spell of euphoria. The cord was clamped and clipped and our miracle was walked to the doc. With my heart thumping more rapidly than ever before and two or nine tears trickling down my cheek I rested my forehead on Ashleigh's and told her that she did it (like she didn't already know). As I gave her a kiss, we heard him say, "well, he has his Daddy's nose" it appeared Dr. Ang had finished his cup of coffee.
The culmination of 41 weeks: imagining, anticipating, preparing and believing was realized. I stood next to him, watched him get cleaned off, talked to him for the first time. Harnessing the jubilation of it all proved to be overwhelming. I picked him up, held him, I made a promise to him, walked him over to his mama and placed him in her arms.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Culmination part 1
You watch television and movies or read stories and imagine the event happening to you. How will it unfold: will you be eating at a restaurant when your water breaks, will you be at a sporting event and have to be taken by ambulance to the hospital because you parked too far away or will you experience contractions watching the latest blockbuster at the theater?
We were hoping to provoke the miracle by putting ourselves in those less than convenient situations because we desperately wanted to meet our little man. To be fair we were SEVEN days past our due date, we just figured that we could tempt fate and at the very least, we'd have a jaw dropping story to tell about the circumstances surrounding our labor.
Many of you already know the play by play, but seeing how that this is my journal of sorts I'll proceed like you don't so that years later I can look back and get a warm dose of nostalgia when reading this.
Monday morning was here, the start of the work week and I decided that even though Ash was not in labor or even showing any signs, that I would not go in to work. Being seven days over due, there was no end to the question from my co-workers "George, when you gonna have that baby? I couldn't take another day of it. Don't take me wrong, I am grateful to all that were concerned and showed genuine excitement for me but that question got to be the equivalent of hearing nails run down a chalk board that stretched a city block.
I knew that we had a doctor appointment early Tuesday morning, and more than likely we would be induced if we didn't go in to labor on Monday so Ashleigh and I decided to take advantage of one more "George and Ash day". After a morning filled entertaining anything and everything that we heard would induce labor no mater how ridiculous it seemed, (walks, pregnant break dancing, massages, chiropractic alignments and other "activities"), we decided to catch an early movie.
After the movie was over and the nearly full bag of over priced popcorn and soda were tossed in to the waste basket we headed home. It was still late afternoon, we had a snack and watched the season finale of Top Chef (an under whelming season). While my parents, (whom were staying with us the last days to help out) were making dinner, Ash and I ventured on yet another walk around the neighborhood and that is when she told me that she had a few contractions. Not wanting to get too excited over a few contractions we tried not to talk about it but it became apparent that this was not false labor, we must have stopped four or five times for her to absorb the 20-30 second bursts of pain.
Upon arriving home my parents surprised us with what they made, a romantic "dinner for two". Sweet of them right? We decided not to share the news until we were absolutely sure. As we ate our meal, the contractions started to come closer together. After dinner we headed upstairs to our bedroom and looked at the previous hours' statistics (which we kept via an App from the android marketplace). The stats warranted a call to Ash's parents which was around 7pm, Susan answered and I asked "are your bags packed"?, "yeah, why?" said Susan "because we're having a baby".
Susan and Dempsey arrived from Ashland around 9:30. I put the bags in the car, locked in the Chicco infant car seat and went back upstairs to check on Ash. After laboring at home in the bath and on the yoga ball, contractions started to come more rapidly, four minutes apart, lasting for an average of 90 seconds. It was time to head to the hospital.
cont.....
We were hoping to provoke the miracle by putting ourselves in those less than convenient situations because we desperately wanted to meet our little man. To be fair we were SEVEN days past our due date, we just figured that we could tempt fate and at the very least, we'd have a jaw dropping story to tell about the circumstances surrounding our labor.
Many of you already know the play by play, but seeing how that this is my journal of sorts I'll proceed like you don't so that years later I can look back and get a warm dose of nostalgia when reading this.
Monday morning was here, the start of the work week and I decided that even though Ash was not in labor or even showing any signs, that I would not go in to work. Being seven days over due, there was no end to the question from my co-workers "George, when you gonna have that baby? I couldn't take another day of it. Don't take me wrong, I am grateful to all that were concerned and showed genuine excitement for me but that question got to be the equivalent of hearing nails run down a chalk board that stretched a city block.
I knew that we had a doctor appointment early Tuesday morning, and more than likely we would be induced if we didn't go in to labor on Monday so Ashleigh and I decided to take advantage of one more "George and Ash day". After a morning filled entertaining anything and everything that we heard would induce labor no mater how ridiculous it seemed, (walks, pregnant break dancing, massages, chiropractic alignments and other "activities"), we decided to catch an early movie.
After the movie was over and the nearly full bag of over priced popcorn and soda were tossed in to the waste basket we headed home. It was still late afternoon, we had a snack and watched the season finale of Top Chef (an under whelming season). While my parents, (whom were staying with us the last days to help out) were making dinner, Ash and I ventured on yet another walk around the neighborhood and that is when she told me that she had a few contractions. Not wanting to get too excited over a few contractions we tried not to talk about it but it became apparent that this was not false labor, we must have stopped four or five times for her to absorb the 20-30 second bursts of pain.
Upon arriving home my parents surprised us with what they made, a romantic "dinner for two". Sweet of them right? We decided not to share the news until we were absolutely sure. As we ate our meal, the contractions started to come closer together. After dinner we headed upstairs to our bedroom and looked at the previous hours' statistics (which we kept via an App from the android marketplace). The stats warranted a call to Ash's parents which was around 7pm, Susan answered and I asked "are your bags packed"?, "yeah, why?" said Susan "because we're having a baby".
Susan and Dempsey arrived from Ashland around 9:30. I put the bags in the car, locked in the Chicco infant car seat and went back upstairs to check on Ash. After laboring at home in the bath and on the yoga ball, contractions started to come more rapidly, four minutes apart, lasting for an average of 90 seconds. It was time to head to the hospital.
cont.....
Pierce Zachary Hernandez
Born September 21, 2010 @ 4:47am
He weighed in @ 7lbs 14oz and measured 21 inches long.
P - patient
I - independent
E - engaging
R - rational
C - consciences
E - empathetic
more to come....
much more...............
He weighed in @ 7lbs 14oz and measured 21 inches long.
P - patient
I - independent
E - engaging
R - rational
C - consciences
E - empathetic
more to come....
much more...............
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