Colton William Straw

I'm finally getting around to writing about Colton's birth.  I left off the last post with my 37 week appointment.  When I went to my 38 and 39 week appointments, there wasn't much progress with dilation, which disappointed me a bit even though it shouldn't have. I was just so much further than I ever was with Juliet, I think I got overly excited.  At 40 weeks, I was finally 2 full cm dilated and about 70-80% effaced still, so slight progress.  I had discussed with Julie, my midwife, about when we might think about inducing.  She usually did them at 42 weeks, which was fine with us initially.  After we got looking at our schedule and when my parents were going to be able to come from AZ, we decided that inducing at 41 weeks was way better for us.  I felt bad making that decision because I know that babies will come when they are ready, but Julie reassured me that I wasn't being selfish and that it was ok to induce at 41 weeks.

On my "due date" - my last day of work

When did this girl get so big??!!

So my parents drove up from AZ on Wed, April 30th and we ran some errands to finish getting ready for the baby to come.

She was SO excited to see them!

Grandpa is so much fun!

 I had an appointment with Julie that morning and I had progressed to 3cm dilated, so that reassured me that this baby would be coming soon on his own even if we didn't induce.  The next day, Thursday, May 1st was the date set up for my induction.  I knew I would have a hard time sleeping the night before because my mind would be racing (I was as excited as a little kid the night before Christmas!), so I took some Benadryl and had an amazing night's sleep. We called the hospital at 6:00am to make sure there was still room for me since I was being induced.  After they confirmed, we got up and got ready to go to the hospital.  Of course, we were running late and Chase and I made it to the hospital at 7:20 (we were suppose to be there at 7:00).  They admitted me and showed me to my room.  I changed into the beautiful hospital gown and they took all my vitals, hooked my belly up to the monitor for the baby, and hooked me up to an IV.  Julie came in around 8ish, checked my progress (the same as the day before at my appointment) and they started me on 4 units of pitocin.  I laid in bed for about 30 minutes before I got antsy and needed to get up.  I spent the morning in a squatting position, rocking my hips back and forth, and walking the halls.  Chase and I still had to make a decision on his name, so we discussed it during this time and decided on Colton William Straw.  We were also thinking of naming him Blake.  Both are great names, which is why it was so hard to decide. Every 40-60 minutes, my nurse came in to increase my pitocin.  I went from 4 to 8 first.  The last 10 minutes of being on 8 units, I was finally starting to feel the contractions getting a little stronger.  I was still only at about 2 out of 10 for pain, so they increased my pitocin to 12 units.  On 12, I was still walking around and talking through my contractions and so after a little while, they increased it to 14.  At this point, I was finally starting to feel a little bit more pain and would have to stop walking during the contractions.  My mom came down to the hospital in the late morning while I was walking the halls.  She had been helping at home with Juliet and then finally left her with my dad so she could be at the hospital with us.  We loved having her there to share in this special experience with us and to take some amazing pictures!  Thanks Mom!

Before we left for the hospital

Hospital selfie!

Wearing two gowns and a portable monitor so I can walk the halls.

Taking a break from walking

On her lunch break around 1:00, Julie came back to my room to check my progress (I was now dilated to 4cm) and break my water.  This is where things got real! My SIL, Stacey had told me that usually when your water is broken and you are on pitocin, you should turn the pitocin down because your body usually starts producing its own oxytocin.  This tends to make the contractions super strong and makes it less likely that a laboring mother can continue labor without pain medication.  So I discussed this with Julie and she had said that she tends to leave the pitocin on in the beginning, just in case the body doesn't produce the oxytocin right away, so doesn't want labor to slow down.  So we decided to leave it on at 14.  My first contraction after she broke my water, I remember saying something like, "Oh my, those are a lot stronger".  Well it progressed very quickly from there and within 45 minutes I was bawling my eyes out and shaking through every contraction.  After an hour of these horrible contractions, Chase and I decided to have the nurse check my progress.  Before she did, Chase had asked me how dilated I would need to be in order to just continue labor without pain medication.  I told him 8 cm and he kind of laughed a little thinking that was highly unlikely.  He was right.  I was still at a 4, so I decided to get an epidural because there really was no way I could do that for even another half hour.  I mean, I'm sure I could have, but my body was tensing up so much during each contraction, it would have slowed my progress down a bunch.  During this hour, before I decided to get the epidural, Chase told his sister Stacey, who was my doula, that we would probably need her soon.  It just so happened that at the same exact time one of her other clients (one that actually pays her for her doula services) needed her at the hospital too, so of course, she had to go there. 



So the anesthesiologist came in to get started.  Man, I really didn't like that guy....he reeked of arrogance, even when we saw him in the halls.  He came in during a contraction telling jokes and making me feel bad that I couldn't carry out my plan of having a natural childbirth.  During one of my contractions before he put my epidural in, he came in front of me and baby talked to me asking me if I wanted a pain medication in my IV in the mean time.  I told him no, the baby didn't need that and I could make it through a few more contractions until he got the epidural in.  For some reason, he waited until I was in the middle of a contraction to do any work.  I wondered if it was so that the things he was doing would "hurt" less compared to a contraction.  Who knows, but I think it was a bad idea since it is so hard to sit still during a contraction.  He also decided it was a good idea to try to make jokes during said contractions and then was joking that he was offended that I didn't think he was very funny.  Um yah, I'm in the most pain I've ever been and you think this is a good time to make jokes? Anyway, he finally got it in and it took a few contractions for it to work, but it worked like a charm and I was a happy camper before too long (especially when he left the room!).  Now that I think back, I didn't realize that the contractions could have been a little easier if we had backed off the pitocin when they got that bad, so perhaps I could have done without the epidural, but I forgot about that, so oh well!

Look at how Chase reacts to me being in so much pain....Ok, so maybe we were pretending and I already had my epidural....

Everyone is happy and out of pain.

Just waiting....

So about an hour after getting the epidural, nurse Katie checked my progress and I was 7cm dilated. Woo hoo! So much progress!  So I continued to labor for another hour and she checked me again.  This time I was fully dilated to 10cm and fully effaced and so we decided to give the baby some time to descend a little more.  This happened to be perfect timing for Julie because she was just finishing up with her last patient in her clinic.  So she came over after finishing there, checked my progress, and said, "Let's have this baby!"  At 5:30pm, after she got everything set up, including getting Chase set up in his delivery gear, she had me start pushing.  After the first push, his head was out and she handed him over to Chase to deliver him the rest of the way.  I think Chase really enjoyed that!  Together, Julie and Chase placed the baby on my chest and, after a minute, Julie had Chase cut the cord.  They cleaned the baby off and then took him over to weigh and measure him.  He weighed in at 8 lbs 15 oz and 20.5 inches. After he was all cleaned up, they brought him back to me to hold.  Such a beautiful little boy!  I noticed that he had lots of hair (not as much as Juliet did though) and was long and skinny.  Most of all, I noticed that he didn't look much like Juliet at all! When you are expecting your first baby, you have no idea what you expect them to look like.  When you are expecting your second baby, you kind of just assume they will look a lot like your first one.  He just looks so much more "boy" than Juliet, which is good, of course.  But he just looks so different than she did, but still so stinking cute!

Ready to have this baby!

Chase all gowned up ready to help deliver his boy!

Chase did a great job!

Happy Mama!

Cutting the cord

They never changed it over to pounds from kg, but this is equivalent to 8lbs 15oz.

Falling in love!

Proud parents

My great nurses and my wonderful midwife, Julie!

After that, we got some more pictures and then waited in the delivery room for a while.  They actually had me in there for a few hours because my transfer time hit right during the shift change for the nurses, so I had to wait an extra hour.  During that time though, we had our first visitors.  Chase's mom and sister, Melissa, came to see Colton.  They noticed that I was way more coherent than when they visited after Juliet was born.  I agreed and realized how much better it was to have a  9 hour labor than the 48 hours of labor I had with Juliet. So they stayed to visit until they were ready to move me to recovery.

Lucky number 13 grandchild for this grandma!

My kids "favorite" aunt!

After they moved me over to my new room, my dad come down with Juliet to meet the baby.  She was a little confused at first to see me hooked up to monitors and laying in a bed in a strange room, and she had fallen asleep in the car on the way to the hospital, so she was a little stand offish when we first showed her to her new brother.  After a little bit of time, she got a little more curious and wanted to sit in bed with me and see what I was holding in the bundle of blankets.  She did great with her new brother and laughed when he made a noise.  She loved exploring this new room for the rest of the night. Shauna (Chase's sister) and Kyle came down also to meet the little guy.

An edited video of Juliet's first meeting with her brother. (It's an "auto-awesome" made by Google+)

My loves!

Feeling happy!

Brother!

I spent the night alone in the hospital both nights so that Chase could get some sleep and so that he could get Juliet to bed.  I spent the days with my mom and Chase mostly, with some short visits from my dad and Juliet.  My dad did a wonderful job hanging out with Juliet for the entire week and she had such a blast! He spoiled the heck out of her, which is exactly what grandpas are supposed to do! Thanks Dad!

She learned to say Weeee!!!

Proud grandpa! Happy to get another boy in the family!

Our family of four!

Hanging out with mom.  She loved having her own water cup with straw.

They match! Proud grandma loves her grandbabies so much! #5 for her.

I hate the socks on the hands, but he was born with such long fingernails and they didn't have any clippers in the hospital.

Everything went great with the labor and delivery.  I was pleasantly surprised! My nurses were all wonderful, my midwife was great, and the rest of my support team were everything I needed.

That's one proud dad! So happy he got his boy!

Ready to go home!

Comforting brother on his first car ride.

Welcome home!!

We went home after 2 days in the hospital and my parents stayed with us for a week.  My recovery has been a million times easier this time around.  I was up and showering every day, helping with Juliet and the housework, and walked down to the park within a day or two.  We even went to the Thanksgiving Point farm one afternoon.  My parents left after a week, and then I had my first day on my own with two kids.  That took a little adjusting! I did great at first, then emotions started playing with me and I was feeling bad that I couldn't attend to either kid as soon as I wanted and that Juliet's world was changed so suddenly.  I know she'll be happy to have a sibling later on, but right now, it's a little hard for her to get used to.  So that was a long day, but the next day, Chase was home from work and then my sister, her husband, and their little girl came in from AZ for the week.  It was so great to have the company and the help while Chase worked the next several days in a row.  We had a good time and the girls had fun playing together.  Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy most of the week, so the girls were cooped up in the house during most of it.  I was sad to see them leave the next week, because then I was really on my own.  Luckily, my emotions were more in check by then, so it was more bearable.

Cutting of the hospital bands

Grandpa is so much fun!

And grandma is the perfect person to take a nap with!

First time holding her brother.

Cousins shopping!

Uncle James and cousin Emmalee

Silly girls before bed - matching jammies!

Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy most of the time they were here so the girls were stuck inside a lot.

Snack time!

Grocery shopping

Playing with (or fighting over) toys.

Sharing!

Sleepy boy!

We went to garage sales and got a bunch of clothes for the kids.

This girl.... <3

We went out riding quads one afternoon. Fun times!

Juliet LOVES riding with Dad.

He's been a pretty good baby thus far.  He does have some pretty bad gas pains that make him uncomfortable quite a bit, including the middle of some night.  We started him on simethicone drops and recently on probiotics.  We're hoping those will help, otherwise, we'll have to look into other options.  Juliet does pretty well with him.  She likes to "help" a lot with feeding him a bottle, giving him his pacifier, and burping him.  She gets a little jealous when I can't attend to her while I'm feeding him, but she's not doing too bad.  She wants to be in all the places where he goes.  She sits in his swing, the stroller, his car seat, and his blanket.  Hopefully she'll learn to like him more as he gets a little older.

We love our little boy and are still shocked that we are a family of four!  We're glad everything went well and that we all came out healthy.  We are so incredibly grateful to our family that have sacrificed to help us so much.  We are grateful also to those neighbors and friends that have brought us dinners and have offered to help with Juliet at any time.  We love you all!