Introducing Cian Brian Blair. Born February 13, 2012 at 4:51pm. He weighed 6lb 13 oz and was 20inches long. We are so in love, he is such a cutie. He was worth the wait, all of the pain and frustration we went through disappeared as soon as I saw his face!
He makes the cutest faces AND the funniest. He makes what we call "Calvin" faces (from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes) and we secretly hope he will be a funny kid like Calvin.
We liked the name Cian (pronounced KEE-an) from the very beginning. We liked that it was an old Gaelic name, it went well with Blair and that it was unique. But we were concerned that our poor son was going to spend the rest of his life correcting people who mispronounced his name so we (OK mostly me, Brian was sold on Cian) kept trying to find another name. We had Colin, Connor and Evan but we kept coming back to how much we loved the sound of Cian Blair. We asked a lot of friends and family what they thought of the name Cian and if it was horrible to give a child a hard name like this and we heard all positive things (so if you lied to us- thanks a lot!). In the end, it was our favorite name and it just seemed like the perfect fit. Hopefully he doesn't hate us after spending years of correctly people! Or he can move to Ireland where its a very popular name! Here is the official background on the name:
Cian meaning and name origin
Cian \cian\ as a boy's name is pronounced KEE-an. It is of Irish and Gaelic origin, From the Old Irish cían, meaning 'enduring, ancient'. This was a common boys name in the O'Hara family. According to Irish legends, Cian was the father of Lugh, and the son of Dian Cécht, the god of healing of the Tuatha De Dánaan.
Although this name would be considered a unique boy name in America, it is actually quite popular in Ireland. According to Ireland's Central Statistics Office, Cian has been one of the top 10 most popular Irish baby boy names for the last four years.
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The delivery
(feel free to skip this part, just including this so its written down somewhere. I am already forgetting parts of the delivery!)
Delivery went really well, although we hit a little snag with the placenta but that thing caused problems the entire pregnancy so not a huge surprise. Oh well, can't complain too much as the placenta's main job is to keep the baby alive and growing, so it did its job very well!
We arrived at the hospital around 10:30pm Sunday, February 12th after a nice dinner at RedStone to enjoy our last meal before we became parents. And of course, it was snowing! We haven't had any snow all winter long but it snowed on our drive to the hospital- cause we weren't nervous enough driving to the hospital to have our first child, let's add snowy roads! I will admit- I over packed. The labor delivery nurses must have rolled their eyes when they saw me wheeling in a huge roller bag and then another bag with two pillows. In my defense, I didn't know better and followed the "what to bring" list the hospital provided. I think I used an 1/8th of what I packed. Next time, I'm bringing a small duffel, I promise!
They started me on drugs to induce labor around midnight, along with a nice sleeping pill and a big old dose of Benadryl since I was lucky enough to be sick with a sinus infection and a chest cold for the delivery. Yeah! I was knocked out by 1am and slept for the most part until morning. Brian didn't have it so lucky on his fold out chair, with nurses coming in nonstop to check on me and the beeping machines. His last night of sleep before Cian became his first night of no sleep.
By 4am I was dilated enough to start Pitocin and get the show started. By 8am the contractions were so intense I got my lovely epidural and then went back to sleep for the rest of the morning, thanks to the Benadryl still in my system which was making me really groggy. Thank god they let me labor until noon before thinking of making me push because I was completely out of it.
Around 2pm I started to push. Had a room full of people since Abington is a teaching hospital we had two students in the room as well as my nurse and doctor. The nurse and doctor thought I would push for 30minutes so I was really excited. Unfortunately, three hours later I was still pushing. Cian's head was turned so he wasn't coming out as easily. I was exhausted but didn't want them to use the vacuum so as soon as I heard that suggested I pushed that baby out. Cian had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck 3 times- the stinker!
Brian went with Cian to get checked out while I had more fun. Let's just say my placenta didn't want to deliver, so it took another hour. And it was painful. The epidural had worn off and I was screaming. Got a little scary for a bit as I was losing a lot of blood and the doctors were unsure if they got all of the placenta out. Brian thought the l&d room reminded him of downtown Fallujah. They brought in an ultrasound machine to check, but with my old scar tissue it was impossible for them to determine what was placenta and what was scar tissue. They were planning on taking me into the operating room for a D&C and made me sign a consent form for a hysterectomy if my life was in danger! Scared the crap out of me and Brian. But in the end, the bleeding stopped and they decided to wait a while to see if I needed a D&C, which I did not- thank you God! I gave the students quite the teaching experience though- ha ha.
Finally after an hour, I was able to hold Cian and we took our first family picture. By 7:45 we were in our hospital room (in the old maternity wing since the new wing was full, which stunk!) and Kevin and Peggy finally got to meet Cian. Kevin had been at the hospital since 3pm waiting to meet his nephew. The rest of the hospital stay was a blur since I was sick and lost so much blood, I was really out of it. It took two months for my red blood count to return to normal! I was so weak and tired for the first month of Cian's life, it was really sad and upsetting for me as I missed so much. I was so pale and lost all the color in my face and my fingernails. I should have stayed another day at the hospital and had a blood transfusion since my hemoglobin level was 6.5! (should be 12 or 13). Oh well, in the end, everything worked out and we got our beautiful little boy : )
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| His poor head with the bump from being turned the wrong way. Thank goodness the bump went away quickly! Look how long his hair is! |
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| Our first picture together as a family! My lips are starting to disappear already :( |
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| Look at all of that hair! No wonder I had so much heartburn |
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| G-ma meeting her grandson. Peggy and Kevin waited in the waiting room all afternoon, waiting to meet this little guy. They finally got to meet him 10 minutes before visiting hours ended! Props to Kevin for not tailgating in the waiting room, which he wanted to do. |
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| Ready to go home! |
