Baby #2: Part 3

*** SO Sorry this took so long to finish!! Turns out having two kids, working, and a husband who works full time and goes to school full time is kind of a time killer. As always, never a dull moment....anyway

Needless to say I didn't get very good sleep that night. I ran to the car trying to cover up my sobbing until we were in a private place. There were so many thoughts running through my head.

I didn't like knowing that this was our last night as a family of three. This was the last night I would be reading to Addyson as she falls asleep next to me. The last time I would feel those kicks and hiccups before we would bring this baby into the world.

Induction.

One word I hoped to never hear.

With Addyson I had a completely natural child birth, no pitocin to progress labor, no epidural to take the edge off, no nothin. And that was my intent with our second baby.

The most prominent thought in my head; I am scared to death. What scared me most was not only the health of our baby but the road to getting that baby out. I was afraid of the un-predictable part of induction because it's not your body telling you it's ready, it's medicine making your body do it. I have only heard horror stories of Pitocin. If I had to be induced I was going to try other methods to get labor going without the use of Pitocin. My midwife understood my concerns and introduced a cervical ripening gel to get things moving. This gel was used to help me soften or "efface" since I was only at 50% when checking in and you can't dilate if you are not effaced. I was administered the first dose at 9:30pm and it was not a pleasant experience. I'm not going to go into the details but it's not something I would wish on anyone. Good news is the "issue" didn't last long and I was able to try and get some rest before the next dose would need to be given.

It was a sleepless night. I was hooked up to monitors and every time I turned over something would get messed up so the nurse would come in to adjust things. So I tried to stay as still as possible and that meant being severly uncomfortable and staying up most of the night. At 3a.m I was given another does of ripening gel, this time a different brand, and things went much better. By 7 a.m I was in active labor. I was feeling great so we walked around the hospital many may times and progress was starting to slow. With the threat of pitocin looming over my head we continued to walk and pray until we decided to have my water broken in order to see if things progress. Can I just mention that my nurse during this time was amazing? She totally knew what I needed to hear during each part of this ordeal and I couldn't have asked for a better experience.

After getting my water broken things started to pick up again and get more painful but we continued to walk, and walk, and walk until the nurse wanted me in bed to be on the monitors for a while. I was at 5 cm at this point and getting very frustrated with the lack of progress. All of the sudden the contractions started stacking up but my monitors were not reading them so no one believed me =) I really felt like I needed to push. Of course my nurse went on break at this time so I had to have someone else check me and she said I was only at 6 cm and I guess that made me mad because 25 min later I was at 10 and ready to push. This is probably going to sound weird but that first time I pushed it felt amazing. My midwife just kept saying do what your body is telling you and it felt so nice to have that control. That with each contraction I knew what I needed to do without someone telling me it's time to do this. And 3 pushes later...

Landon Thomas was welcomed into the world at 2:37 PM on May 7, 2011

5lbs 12oz and 20 inches long

Love at first sight. He's my boy and I feel so blessed to have him in our family. Labor was so much better then with Addyson despite all the complications leading up to this point. And just for future reference I adored having a midwife over an OBGYN. The one-on-one contact and personalized experience made everything just amazing.

He passed all the tests with flying colors and we were able to bring him home after a total of 4 days and 3 nights in the hospital (I tested positive for strep b so we had to stay until he was 48hours old).

Landon is very bald, he is just long and skinny (but eats like a champ), and I find it hard to remember life without him.

Hope that didn't draw out too long! I have a lot to share and so many details to never forget.

Until next time...

Baby #2: Part 2

We had an ultrasound when we reached week 36 and baby was still breech so I had no choice but to schedule a C-section. That meant having to switch to a doctor after meeting with a midwife the entire length of my pregnancy. We scheduled the C-section for May 1, 39 weeks, so that I could have the doctor who I saw with my first pregnancy deliver baby boy via C-section. After a few more appointments were set including pre-op and regular visits we had one more ultrasound to check position of baby. And wouldn't you know it at 38 weeks, just 3 days before my scheduled C-section, baby boy flipped over and all bets were off. We were back with the midwives to wait out his arrival.

At my 39 week appointment, Wednesday May 4, I measured at only 35 weeks. Our midwife was concerned so she had me schedule an ultrasound for the following day just to make sure that the baby's fluid levels hadn't dropped making it necessary for actions to be taken. On Thursday we had our ultrasound and fluid levels were within the normal range so she decided to do some additional measurements. I thought ok, i'm just going to have a small baby and he'll come when he wants to come everything is great. That was until she came back into the room and told me that my midwife wanted to speak with me.

Devastated. It turns out my baby boy was not growing like he was supposed to and it was a bigger issue then I thought. Out of concern for the health of the baby it was decided that I was to be induced on Friday @ 7 pm.

To be continued...

Baby #2: Part 1

After getting married Adam and I knew we wanted to expand our family, and we wanted to get started as soon as possible. Doing the math from conceiving right after our wedding our children would be exactly 3 years apart. (Conceive in early June, due Early March).

Well...things didn't work out that way. I don't know why it bothered me so much, I guess I just thought things happened so easily with Addyson (especially since she was completely un-planned by us) that things would be just as easy with this one. We only tried for two months and by the end of August (my 24th birthday to be exact) we found out that #2 was on his/her way! Our due date being May 8th, which is my parent's anniversary and mother's day 2011!

This pregnancy was different then with Addyson but similar in other ways. Physically the symptoms were the same; exhaustion, nausea (no vomiting), occasional headaches, and losing weight instead of gaining for a while. Emotionally it was much different...It's difficult to recall because I don't want to remember how hard it was for me the first 12 weeks. But we don't need to get into that.

We made the decison to find out the sex of the baby but we were due to find out just before Christmas so figured, why don't we just wait and have it be our present to eachother. We had the ultrasound technician write the gender down and we trusted our good friend Julia with the results until Christmas eve when I would bring them home to open in the morning. I would like to say we could trust our family but I have a feeling they would just pretend they knew and make me angry for a few weeks until we found out ourselves =)

So how did I feel about having a boy? The initial few days were filled with anxiety and worrying. I don't want to say I know how to raise girls because I don't know how by any means, it's just what I am familiar with because of having Addyson first. I felt so overwhelmed with the idea of having a boy; all the new clothes we would have to get along with crib set, car seat, stroller, etc. It seemed like a huge weight in my pocketbook in addition to the weight in my tummy and given my un-stable emotional state I had a bit of a breakdown. As time went on my excitement grew and I couldn't wait to bring our boy home.

Baby boy was measuring small from 30 weeks on, I would measure about a week behind what I was supposed to be at. I wasn't alarmed at all because I had the same issue with Addyson. It just means getting a couple more ultrasounds to measure growth right? Well at our 30 week ultrasound baby boy decided it was best to be feet first. I knew we had plenty of time left for him to switch around but as weeks passed and he never turned I started to feel discouraged.

More later, must get back to work!

I will do better

So I haven't been on here in too long to mention.

We are now a family of four. Adam and I welcomed our son, Landon, on May 7 and he is absoultely perfect. I feel like our family is where it's supposed to be now. Does that mean we are done having kids? I'm not sure yet. But at the moment our family feels like the puzzle is complete and I am loving it. I really want to post more on my pregnancy, the struggles/emotions/joys/pain of this past year but it will have to wait.

This blog really is for me now. I have been struggling lately trying to find an outlet to vent while also trying to seek advice from other mothers and women of Faith. I need a forum to get emotions out when I can no longer hold them in. I need this. When I was here before I felt like it was just trying to compete and post pictures not really getting deep into anything really. Although when I did dig deep people got offended and things got confusing and really too much for me. Now I just don't care.

So, until next time...