A Baby Story

Here it is! My first post-baby blog post. March has been quite the whirlwind month for our family, with a new baby, and family coming in and out to meet our little one. At the beginning of the month it felt like I was never going to have the baby, but all of that changed in an instant.

 Here is our little one's birth story, I'll be sure to spare you all the tiny details. Just a heads up this might be a lengthy post.

March 13th, just before 7am: I woke up with a killer charlie horse in my calf and I was pretty sure my water had broken but of course I wasn't sure. Thinking back on it it probably broke much earlier in the night, but then again I dreamt of having the baby too. Justin was just leaving for work and I hesitated telling him. Since I wasn't 100% sure I sent him to work (looking back probably not the best idea) Next I ate a bowl of cereal, showered, packed my bag and the diaper bag, did the dishes, and did a load of whites before calling my mom to figure out if my water had broken.

Around 9am (all the times are estimates): I packed the car, installed the car seat base, and even recorded a short video on our new video camera. Then I drove the 5 minutes to the hospital and checked myself in. They ran a few tests, hooked me up to the monitors and confirmed my water did break and I wasn't leaving the hospital without a baby. (I wasn't having any contractions at the time)

11:30ish Justin grabbed a few things from our house and came to wait it out in the hospital. Sometime around then the placed an IV in my arm and started me on a Pitocin drip (makes contractions stronger or starts them)

1pm: I was having contractions and was only dilated to 1cm, the same as the 2 weeks before at my doctors appointments.

Sometime in between: My contractions were getting stronger and were consistently 2-3 mins apart. The doctors were having me flip from side to side and they even brought in an exercise ball to get me moving  and keep the baby's heart rate down.

6pm-ish: I started shivering and felt super cold, apparently I had a fever from my water having broken so long ago. I broke down and got an epidural, I would have liked to be able to do without it but I was still only 1cm and the nurses said I probably wasn't going to have him until probably 2am... The epidural didn't hurt but it felt weird like a bubble popped in my spine... right after the initial dose it worked really well and evenly. The only problem I had with it was that it made me even more cold than I felt before (apparently one of the side effects) Justin's Dad and Kathy came for a visit and ate dinner with him in the cafeteria.

(all of my IV bags attached to me... Fluids, fluids with sugar, fluids for the baby, antibiotic #1, antibiotic #2, epidural meds and last but not least pitocin my oh so favorite at this point. I was also on oxygen for quite some time since the baby was having late decels in his heart rate and this helped it to stabilize.)

8pm roughly: They checked and I was dilated to a 4, which was probably the best news I heard at that point. The night dragged on for me, I tried to rest but it was hard with the noise from the oxygen mask. My epidural also started to wear off on my left side while leaving my right side virtually numb.

maybe around 1:30ish: I was talking to the nurse about my epidural problems and she suggested that she check me because if I was dilated far enough I would be able to start pushing, and that might alleviate my pain a bit. She checked and I was! so she started getting a table with stuff together and setting up my room for delivery. Justin set up a chair for himself near the head of my bed when the nurse asked him what he was doing. He was planning on holding my hand helping coach me along. The nurse however had other plans for him... he was going to hold my leg and coach me from there.

After maybe an hour of pushing our lovely little boy was born at 2:36am without any complications for either of us, other than having us both having a fever. Justin even cut the cord! He was much bigger then I had anticipated, at 8 pounds 7 ounces, the doctor even asked where I had been hiding all of him. When he was born he had quite the cone head which is hidden by the hat in the next picture.

4:30am we moved to the recovery room, I was a total zombie! luckily they took the baby for a few tests and to get cleaned up so that we could get some sleep.

 We named him James Jack Hugie, James was simply a name we could agree on and a strong one in the scriptures. Jack is for Justin's grandpa Hart a wonderful kind and caring man. The next day (Wednesday) sometime Justin's Dad and Kathy came to visit and meet JJ. Later on the nurse took JJ's temperature and it was low, so they took him for a few tests and discovered that his blood sugar was low. He was having trouble nursing as well which wasn't fun for either of us. Thursday night Justin went home to sleep since he had to return to work the next day. JJ and I were discharged on Friday morning.

Thankfully my mom came out Friday afternoon to help me with the baby. The next weekend my family (mom, dad, and brothers) came out for a week. Next Justin's family (mom, ed, jolie, becky and makua) came and overlapped with mine for a few days. We were able to have JJ's baby blessing on the Saturday of general conference while most of our family was here. Over Easter weekend more family came (grandma and papa Looney, and the Irving clan) We are so grateful to everyone that came out to meet him, but we're also glad to slow down and enjoy time with each other.

 I will be sure to post more pictures of our family adventures and our growing little man, so stay tuned!