Carson Is Here!

Written by Krista, edited by Chris.

Caleb holding Carson (who is searching for food).

Chris holding Carson (who is searching for food).

The Dial family, January 23, 2009 (imagine you can see Carson's face).

Carson Justice Dial was born on Friday, January 23rd, 2009, at 3:31 pm. He weighed in at 6 pounds 8 ounces (which we were VERY excited about) and 19.75 inches long. He surprised us with a full head of dark, dark hair!! I guess we were expecting bald/blond like Caleb.

Carson is just a name that we liked, though Chris may claim some influence by the late Johnny Carson (you be the judge when you see Carson dressed as Carnac the Magnificent for Halloween. Kody thinks we named him after Carson Palmer. We'll settle this during Halloween!).

The name Justice has a story always worth telling. Chris served his mission with many great missionaries, including one named Justice Parker. Elder Parker was a peace maker and a great missionary: quick with a joke, endlessly happy, a good athlete, and an all around good person. He was without guile and the spirit was strong in Elder Parker's life. Everyone that knew him couldn't help but love him. Tragically, a few months after Elder Parker's return home, he was swimming in an Idaho lake and was caught in a current that pulled him under, causing Justice Parker to drown. Chris thought a lot about the tragedy of this loss. He was going to be the best father, the best husband, the best person. Chris always thought it would be an honor to name a son after such a stalwart individual. We are humbled each time we share this story and hope to help retain the memory of such a valiant, honorable person by raising a son to not only share his name, but to also share his attributes and character.

As for the labor and delivery, everything went pretty well. But, with all the surprises during the pregnancy, who could settle for a perfect delivery? As if it were not enough to vomit every single day during the pregnancy (including one last hoorah after her last meal on Thursday night), we decided we needed a little bit of bonus excitement during the labor and delivery.

We got there and they started the drugs to induce labor and started the antibiotics for the Group B Strep. They weren't in too big of a hurry to speed things along as my doctor was doing a surgery somewhere else that was delayed and we also had to make sure all of the antibiotics were administered before we actually delivered.

Carson's heart rate dropped below the baseline heart rate a few times, indicating that Carson was under stress during the contractions, so they put me on oxygen for awhile and had me flipping from side to side, which seemed to help Carson and we didn't have any more problems that way.

Things were good - until about 1:30pm. I was only dilated to a 4 and 50% effaced at that point. My doctor came to break my water and said I shouldn't really notice too much since I already had the epidural. That was my first clue. I definitely felt that. Then the contractions came very hard and very fast and I could feel everything. (It is important to note that there were two nurses working in our room - a 22 year seasoned veteran and a 2 week unseasoned newbie. The noob should have had more training, but we'll get to that). Finally they called the anesthesiologist back in who gave me another dose and said to let him know if it didn't work in 10 minutes. 20 plus minutes later the nurse (noob) called him back and he tried a stronger dose. Again, he said to let him know if it didn't work in 10 minutes. 25 plus minutes later the nurse (noob) called him. He came back and checked it and realized that the catheter on the epidural had completely come out. So he hurriedly put it back in. Meanwhile, I was in a lot of pain and had told the nurse (noob) that I felt like I needed to push. She said whatever I did, not to push or it would tear my cervix. So I was laying there just trying to breathe through everything and trying to convince myself that epidural would kick in soon. When the anesthesiologist left for the last time, the nurse (veteran) started to check me and realized she could see Carson's head. So she paged my doctor (whose office is just next door) who said she was on her way and to go ahead and get me ready. I had been laying on my side, so the nurse had me roll over and basically, Chris said he could see Carson's forehead. The nurse (veteran) told the other nurse (noob) to push the Staff Emergency button since she (veteran) didn't have any help (editor's note: the two weeks of experience that the new nurse had was no help) and about a dozen people rushed in. My doctor saw all the people rushing in and ran down the hall, too. She had just enough time to put some gloves on and grab Carson. The epidural worked just in time to keep me numb for awhile after labor. Obviously, if it was known at that point how far things had progressed, they wouldn't have done the pointless last epidural. Oh well! The list of things I would do differently next time is a mile long...but I guess all is well that ends well, right?!?

Chris teased that we wouldn't be able to beat our record of only having to push 2-3 times with Caleb. But somehow we managed with no pushing this time. :) (Note: I wanna see how you break that record. Maybe our next one can come out by Star Trek Transporter Beam. Maybe we can also have a Star Trek Replicator and drink all the hot cocoa we want while we wait for the nurse to push the Staff Emergency button.)

Carson's kidneys are looking a lot better, but not completely all better. So they will be watching them closely during the next little while to see what will happen. We're still hoping they'll clear up on their own! :)

Caleb is giddy with excitement to be a big brother. Here is a little video of when he met him at home:



We can't thank enough the Plumlees who watched Caleb while we were at the hospital. He loves being at their house and the week leading up to it, he kept asking when he could go to their house. It was such a comfort knowing Caleb was being so well taken care of and that he loved being where he was. Thanks again, guys!

We were lucky enough to be able to head home late Saturday night. We are very relieved that he is a healthy little boy and we are very excited to have this cute little boy with us in our family.