To My Parents

My parents were here for 3 weeks, they arrived a week before Dominick's arrival and were here for 2 weeks after.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thank you so much for coming and spending those three weeks with us. During that last week of pregnancy you made our days so much easier. Even though I worked, it was nice to be able to spend lunches and the evenings with you. I hope you enjoyed exploring the desert and going to different places.

I am not sure how we would have survived the first couple of weeks after Dominick was here without you. You made our transition to parenthood that much sweeter and so much easier. Knowing that we could count on you to love on our boy, answer new parent questions and reassure us that we were doing things right meant more to us than you'll ever know.

We loved our few day trips that we took even though the Farmers Market was nothing like we expected and our original plans {San Francisco, San Diego and Catalina} didn't pan out, maybe your next trip.

I don't know if we can really put into words how much your stay meant to us. We know it wasn't much of a relaxing vacation since mom, you cooked, cleaned and did laundry every day you were here and dad you fixed mowers, hung shelves and put together baby products but we hope you had just as good of a time as we did.

After we dropped you off at the airport and we made our way back home and our house was empty, our dogs didn't know where you were and we were left to be parents without help I think for a brief moment we both wondered how we were going to do this without our family and closest friends. Somehow our transition is working and we're all still surviving. We know that no matter how far apart we are, you are always a phone call, text message or video chat away. We all miss you so much and look forward to our visit in November.

Again, thank you times a million. I'm so glad you were able to meet Dominick minutes after he was born.

All our love,
Ryan, Allison, Dominick, Calli and Rocky

Dominick's Arrival

Since it's been over 2 weeks I thought I should write this down so we don't forget.

My parents arrived on the 25th of August and I honestly thought Dominick would be here by then. I had been experiencing Braxton Hicks for quite a while and had already showed progress every time I went to the doctors. My due date was the 30th and it came and went. Ryan's promotion ceremony was also this day. My parents were able to go and I'm glad that they were. I think they enjoyed being able to see that and I know Ryan appreciated having them there.

On Saturday (September 1st) we all went into town and ran some errands. I was having lots of cramping and pelvic pain, but at this point I was already over due and didn't think anything of it aside from maybe I over did it. The next day I was extremely uncomfortable. We did some things around the house, had lunch and I told Ryan that I think we should go into labor and delivery because I was in lots of pain and had some spotting. We headed in around 1. They told me I was having some contractions, but nothing to write home about and I wasn't dialated enough to keep me. They said that if I started having contractions that I couldn't breath through or started bleeding like a period I needed to return (it's about a 45 minute drive each way). Needless to say I left in tears. When we got home we had dinner and I laid on the couch feeling pretty miserable until bed.

Around 1 AM I woke up to go to the bathroom and noticed I was bleeding pretty heavily. I woke up Ryan telling him that I was bleeding and was having really bad cramps. He told me to wait for a couple of hours and if it's still happening we'll go back into labor and delivery. I laid in bed with a heating pad and soon realized the cramps were actually contractions. About an hour and a half later I woke him up saying I was having contractions and the bleeding was worse. He got up and got around, I finished packing our bags and woke my parents to tell them that we were going into the hospital. The drive to the hospital is pretty fuzzy, I was just praying the whole way there that I had progressed enough and that they wouldn't send me home...again! Since it was just 12-13 hours prior to that we had been there.

We arrived at the Women and Infants Pavilion around 4 and they took me back to triage. I was in labor, contracting every 6-8 minutes and was 5 cm dialated. They were going to admit me. It took about 30 minutes for me to get my laboring room and about an hour until I could get my epidural. Once I got my epidural my blood pressure dropped and I got really sick to my stomach. They gave me a zofran to help with the nausea. After this point I pretty much slept the entire day aside from when the nurse would come in to check on me. At 8 AM they started me on pitocin so I would continue progressing. It was a SLOW, SLOW, SLOW process. Every 2 hours I would only progress 1 cm. Thankfully I was comfortable and not in any pain.

 Finally around 6 PM I was 10 cm and they broke my water. They wanted me to start pushing, but since I had the epidural for so long I had no feeling or urge to push. They made me continue pushing for about 45 minutes before they decided to turn it off completely. The doctor got there around 8:45 and by  9:10 PM our baby boy was finally here! They took Dominick and cleaned him up and let Ryan see him while they fixed me up (which took much longer than they anticipated).

After they cleaned the room up, my parents were able to come back and finally meet their newest grandson. They let us all have an hour together and then it was off to our post delivery room. My parents and Ryan left to go home around midnight and Dominick and I finally were able to get some rest.

Dominick Thomas

7lbs 13 oz

22 in long

9:10pm, 3 Sept 12