The "Story", First Week, & The Culprit Revealed

WARNING: This post contains material which may be inappropriate for children, or men who are not my husband. In other words, if you don't want to hear about labor and delivery, just scroll on down to the cute pictures!

Well we've made it, we have survived our first week of the "Newborn Phase"! (Almost 2 now!) Before too much time flies by I wanted to write down a little about Jensen's big arrival day. Which we have to start with the week before....
Along with being totally uncomfortable I was getting nervous about when the baby would decide to come. Pierce came 9 days early and Madi came 10, perfect. I was really expecting about the same timing with this baby, so I had been hoping for a delivery as soon as school was out, giving me Ryan home for the Memorial Day weekend, and school being out. Then I found out Dr. Lunt was leaving town the day after school got out, the day I was really hoping to deliver (which was 10 days before my due date and quite likely). This was totally throwing off my plan, so I just started hoping that the baby would come a few days earlier and would arrive before the 26th. And in reality, I was so miserable that everyday for the last 2 weeks of the pregnancy I was hoping that today would be the day, everyday. There were several days during the week before I delivered that I was having regular contractions for a few hours, and I'd be hoping they were the real thing, then they would stop. After being checked on Wed. the 19th, (and being dilated 3+ and 70% effaced) I had regular contractions for several hours that afternoon. As much as I was hoping it was real labor...Pierson had his piano recital on Thursday evening and I didn't want to miss that, and my wonderful friend, Kathryn, had planned a little party for me on Friday night...so I started thinking- Friday night would be PERFECT! Make it to the recital and the party, go into labor as soon as the party is over! Perfect plan, right?! Right! But really, who goes into labor the day the want to? I was sure hoping! I don't know how I got so lucky. Friday night came and I drove my car down the street to Kathryn's for the party. She lives a whole 3 houses down, but I was just that uncomfortable. I was totally spoiled by all of my cute girlfriends! We enjoyed delicious desserts, great conversation and of course oooohed over all the cute and tiny outfits I received. And it being a baby shower and all, and me being miserable, and having 3 other pregnant women in the room of course we talked all about labor and delivery and all of the "old wives tales" to get labor going. I had told Ryan earlier that week, I don't think any of those things really work, but now I can see why so many women try them, we are just SO desperate to get. it. out! I was contemplating going for a long walk after the party and mentioned to the girls that in my pregnancy book it said that most of those things probably don't work, but the one that might is, well, ya know. Having your husband try to help you out a little. Andrea swore that this worked and I decided that I might just have to give it a try! (Impossible as it seemed!)


Here are the party comers: Kathryn (wonderful hostess), Stephanie, Jana, Kara, April, Ashley, Laura, Lynds, Mel, & Me
Angie, Katie and Baby Leila, Traci, Staci, Andrea & Brooke - What a cute group of friends I have! Thanks girls for such a fun night! I love you all!


And here I am with my fellow pregnant friends, Kathryn, Jana, Stephanie and Me. I was practically gagging at my hugeness when I came home and put these on my computer that night, and thought no way would I post them! But, I've changed my mind since thankfully this become my last night and the last picture of me as a pregnant lady!

So...after the party I came home and gave Ryan the full report and told him we were going to try "it". Of course, he quickly agreed. Now I'm really wondering if it really does work or if it was just a very lucky coincidence, but it seemed to do the trick for me, so I would definitely recommend it!

I woke up for the first time with a contraction about 1:30 and wondered it it was a "real" contraction. I went back to sleep and then for the next couple hours I would have a contraction that was enough to wake me up every 30 - 40 minutes. At 4:00 AM they started coming quicker and I sat in bed staring at the clock for the next 30 minutes, timing them and thinking- these are really starting to hurt! But also thinking- there is just NO way it's really going happen now just because I wanted it to! At 4:30 I finally woke Ryan up and told him they were coming pretty close together and were getting pretty painful. He called his Mom and she was on her way over! I wanted to wait until 5:00 before we decided to go to the hospital, I didn't want to go in and be sent home so I thought I'd give myself a full hour of really good contractions. By 5:00 they were pretty intense and I was getting anxious. We drove to the hospital and I think I was in disbelief, so anxious to not be pregnant anymore, but overwhelmed at the thought of really having another kid. Wow. We arrived at the hospital and I was anxious to see where I was too. I was dilated to a 5. Great, give me the epidural! Was all I cared about! Things went well from there. I had been progressing at a pretty good rate, but the contractions slowed a bit after having the epidural. They gave me some pitocin to keep things moving, but then noticed Baby's heart rate was dropping quite low with each contraction. This had me nervous for a bit, His heart rate was dropping down to 60, but then would recover quickly. The nurse thought maybe the cord was around his neck or something and so she eased up the pitocin and he did better after that. Things moved quick enough and before long it was time! After just 3 pushes our little boy was here! Dr. Lunt said he had a "body cord", I'd never even heard that before, but his heart was fine and he was perfectly healthy. I was so releaved! Smooth labor and delivery and a perfect little boy!

Now here we are, he is already 12 days old! Here is a little glimpse of his first week...

He has been pretty busy, lots of this...
Oh so tired! Could he yawn any bigger?

A little of this...





































It only looks sad. He has the cutest new born cry ever!

And lots and lots of this...


And of course lots of peeing and lots and lots of pooping.
Amazing how much you can love someone so much when all you do is feed them, clean up everything they pee on, change their poopy diapers and then feed them some more. in the middle of the night. when you are about to fall over. because you are so. so. tired.

I love him.

AND, in all of the baby excitement I failed to post the true culprit of Pierson's black eye a few weeks ago.
Believe it or not, it was-
Madi
In the Backyard
With a Croquet Mallet!