Jade Brown - 7lb 15oz, 20.5in long - Born 12-13-17 1:10am
Friday, December 29, 2017
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Birth Story - 39 weeks & 3 days
The past couple weeks prior to delivery, Adams moms health declined quickly. Doctors told us that it wouldn't be long before she passed away. Sunday, December 10, 2017 was an emotional day for the family because she passed from this life. It also happened to be the day marking 39 weeks pregnant for me. The week before that, I had been experiencing contractions, but they would come and go. I have a strong testimony in the Lords timing. As soon as we could tell the time was coming for Deb, my body stopped progressing into labor. No more contractions. Just peace and comfort. We all couldn't help but think that it had to be because Jade needed to meet her grandma Deb so that she could send her off to journey this life. Tuesday was our 5th wedding anniversary. I kept on hoping in my head that I hoped I wouldn't go into labor while Adam needed to be home with his mom (the 10th) or on our anniversary (the 12th). I didn't try to do anything physically to rush things along because I felt that it needed to happen on it's own because of all the craziness happening.
Tuesday, the day of our anniversary, I started physically trying to get contractions going again. I vacuumed our house and went on a couple of walks around the neighborhood. We went ahead and planned an anniversary dinner & movie that evening. My parents watched Damon for us while we went out. We planned seeing the movie Justice League and then going to dinner somewhere afterward. I had been having contractions throughout the day irregularly. From the time the movie started, my contractions were 5-10 minutes apart. I timed them throughout the movie. By 7:30, my contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart and consistent. I told Adam that I had been contracting throughout the movie.. plus he could see me timing it on my phone. So, I told myself we wouldn't go to the hospital till it was consistent for over an hour. We reached that point, but my contractions weren't unbearable. I wanted to go to to the hospital just to be checked and so we had peace of mind so we went ahead and let my parents know. We drove home first to get our hospital bags and Damons over-night bag to drop off. We got to the hospital around 9:30. I actually remembered to register online so checking in was a bit quicker this time, but their triage was full so we had to wait in the waiting room to even be checked. My contractions were getting stronger and more painful just sitting waiting in the waiting room, but I could still talk through them. We finally got a room in triage at about 10:30 where of course they took forever to do everything. They checked me and I was at a 5 and so they called Newman and I was admitted. I told them that my veins suck and that they always have a hard time finding a place for the IV and that last time they had to use an ultrasound to do it and that they should do that again. They tried to insert the IV as regular and failed. I was contracting pretty heavily during all this and even prior. I told them to go ahead and order the epidural even before I got my IV. They of course took their sweet time doing everything and my contractions were getting BAD. They were off the chart on the monitor by the time I got an IV and started to be sent to L&D. I don't know what time it was by the time we were in the delivery room, but I had some pretty intense labor that I never reached with Damon. They finally gave me the epidural around 11:30pm. I had so much going through my head because every time I would get a contraction, my body naturally wanted to arch my back to relieve pain (although it didn't do jack crap) and then in order to insert the epidural, they need you to slouch your back the opposite direction. My contractions were so close together that they hardly had time to insert the needle before my back would try to arch to relieve itself. It was a battle trying to control that and breathe at the same time, I could feel that while they did it, it felt a little off-center. Although, they told me last time when they did it for Damons delivery that my spine was slightly crooked so I didn't say anything. Well, I should have because my epidural only worked on my left side. They had me lay on my right side to try to have gravity pull it over to that side, Before Newman arrived, I kept feeling the urge to push (and some hellish contractions on my right side of course). I told the nurse that and she said I was at a 10. So of course I'm scared out of my mind that she wouldn't get there in time and also that I was definitely not going to numb up on the right side. She finally arrived, but we then had to wait for a student that was shadowing her.. which was a long 15ish minutes more. She finally arrived, Newman broke my water, and 3 pushes later, Jade was born. Weirdly enough, the contractions were worse than pushing.. pain wise. It was more of a relief pushing during the contractions. I didn't expect that. I am grateful I at least had half relief though. She was born at 1:10am on December 13, 2017 weighing 7lb 15.3oz and measuring 20.5in long. She is a dream baby. She is so sweet and still not sleeping through the night, but I'm surviving. Luckily, Adam has paternity leave this time. So the adjustment is easier. He had to use his PTO for Damons birth, which wasn't much. This time, 6 weeks of paternity leave! Jade was 7lb 8oz when we left the hospital. She didn't have a name until about 30 minutes before we left the hospital. We are really bad at deciding on names. Like, REALLY bad. But she's here and we are so grateful. She fills a void we didn't know was there. Damon has been adjusting better than expected. He seems excited about her most of the time. He has moments from time to time where he wants his mommy and is jealous of her, but that's no big deal.The second night in the hospital, I had Adam go home with Damon so it'd be easier on him and then they both came back the next morning to help us get checked out of the hospital.
Tuesday, the day of our anniversary, I started physically trying to get contractions going again. I vacuumed our house and went on a couple of walks around the neighborhood. We went ahead and planned an anniversary dinner & movie that evening. My parents watched Damon for us while we went out. We planned seeing the movie Justice League and then going to dinner somewhere afterward. I had been having contractions throughout the day irregularly. From the time the movie started, my contractions were 5-10 minutes apart. I timed them throughout the movie. By 7:30, my contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart and consistent. I told Adam that I had been contracting throughout the movie.. plus he could see me timing it on my phone. So, I told myself we wouldn't go to the hospital till it was consistent for over an hour. We reached that point, but my contractions weren't unbearable. I wanted to go to to the hospital just to be checked and so we had peace of mind so we went ahead and let my parents know. We drove home first to get our hospital bags and Damons over-night bag to drop off. We got to the hospital around 9:30. I actually remembered to register online so checking in was a bit quicker this time, but their triage was full so we had to wait in the waiting room to even be checked. My contractions were getting stronger and more painful just sitting waiting in the waiting room, but I could still talk through them. We finally got a room in triage at about 10:30 where of course they took forever to do everything. They checked me and I was at a 5 and so they called Newman and I was admitted. I told them that my veins suck and that they always have a hard time finding a place for the IV and that last time they had to use an ultrasound to do it and that they should do that again. They tried to insert the IV as regular and failed. I was contracting pretty heavily during all this and even prior. I told them to go ahead and order the epidural even before I got my IV. They of course took their sweet time doing everything and my contractions were getting BAD. They were off the chart on the monitor by the time I got an IV and started to be sent to L&D. I don't know what time it was by the time we were in the delivery room, but I had some pretty intense labor that I never reached with Damon. They finally gave me the epidural around 11:30pm. I had so much going through my head because every time I would get a contraction, my body naturally wanted to arch my back to relieve pain (although it didn't do jack crap) and then in order to insert the epidural, they need you to slouch your back the opposite direction. My contractions were so close together that they hardly had time to insert the needle before my back would try to arch to relieve itself. It was a battle trying to control that and breathe at the same time, I could feel that while they did it, it felt a little off-center. Although, they told me last time when they did it for Damons delivery that my spine was slightly crooked so I didn't say anything. Well, I should have because my epidural only worked on my left side. They had me lay on my right side to try to have gravity pull it over to that side, Before Newman arrived, I kept feeling the urge to push (and some hellish contractions on my right side of course). I told the nurse that and she said I was at a 10. So of course I'm scared out of my mind that she wouldn't get there in time and also that I was definitely not going to numb up on the right side. She finally arrived, but we then had to wait for a student that was shadowing her.. which was a long 15ish minutes more. She finally arrived, Newman broke my water, and 3 pushes later, Jade was born. Weirdly enough, the contractions were worse than pushing.. pain wise. It was more of a relief pushing during the contractions. I didn't expect that. I am grateful I at least had half relief though. She was born at 1:10am on December 13, 2017 weighing 7lb 15.3oz and measuring 20.5in long. She is a dream baby. She is so sweet and still not sleeping through the night, but I'm surviving. Luckily, Adam has paternity leave this time. So the adjustment is easier. He had to use his PTO for Damons birth, which wasn't much. This time, 6 weeks of paternity leave! Jade was 7lb 8oz when we left the hospital. She didn't have a name until about 30 minutes before we left the hospital. We are really bad at deciding on names. Like, REALLY bad. But she's here and we are so grateful. She fills a void we didn't know was there. Damon has been adjusting better than expected. He seems excited about her most of the time. He has moments from time to time where he wants his mommy and is jealous of her, but that's no big deal.The second night in the hospital, I had Adam go home with Damon so it'd be easier on him and then they both came back the next morning to help us get checked out of the hospital.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
38 weeks 4 days
At my doctors appointment, I was still at a 3 and 50%. She didn't sweep my membranes because she isn't on call this weekend. So, my next appointment is on Tuesday (I'll be 39w 2d by then). She brought up the option to possibly induce if I wanted to. I told her that if I don't go on my own by the due date, then maybe. So hopefully things start progressing. I haven't started taking evening primrose again.. and that could help so I might do that. My MIL who has been battling Parkinson's disease for many years health is pretty bad right now and doctors have told us that it could be any time now that she passes. If circumstances were different, I would be more in a hurry to have this baby. I feel as though I would like to let it happen as naturally as possible just because everything is so fragile in our family at the moment. It's a crazy time for sure. More updates coming..
Sunday, December 3, 2017
38 weeks
Well, this week has been a bit more eventful. I had my doctors appointment on thursday which I went to solo with Damon by my side. He was a champ and just sat quietly while I was being checked. They found that I was dialated to a 3 and 50% effaced. So, from that information, my doctor told me that she would be surprised if I made it through the next week. That nights rest provided some contractions that would wake me up during the night. I wasn't timing them at first, but when it got to the point where I couldn't fall back asleep before the next one started.. I felt that I needed to start timing them (at about 5am friday morning). I timed them for a couple hours straight which averaged about 5-10 minutes apart. After all of that I decided it was time to get up and make sure everything was packed and ready to go to the hospital. For whatever reason, by me getting up and moving around.. it made the contractions fade off a bit. So, I made a quick decision to go retouch my hair while I had the chance (or at least the part that is visible in photos). Contractions continued throughout the day/night and would get more like 5 minutes apart at closest and eventually got to the point where it was getting pretty uncomfortable. I thought FOR SURE that we would be having the baby in the middle of the night. We actually did a temple endowment session in the evening and I didn't wear a watch into the session like I had originally planned to. I lost track of how many contractions I had while in there, but continued to time them after we were done. Eventually they calmed down a bit and I was able to get prettymuch a normal nights rest. I think I only had like 2 or 3 contractions during the middle of the night. Next morning, we had a few things we needed to do around the house like setting up Christmas lights, cleaning, and wrapping Christmas gifts. I thought FOR SURE that being so busy would put me into FULL labor. NOPE. I had basically nothing the whole day. I even lost my mucus plug on Saturday around 1pm. I researched and that could mean I could go into labor right away or it could mean that it'll be another week or something! The mucus plug basically can regenerate as well so who knows! I wonder if my body was contracting on Friday in preparation to release the mucus plug and once it did.. it has been smooth sailing since. So I have no idea what my body is doing. My next doctors appointment is on Thursday the 7th. So we'll see if anything progresses before then. I may update a few times in the last week or whatever I have. So, stay tuned! My belly is out of control.. everyone I talk to just kind of laughs at me because it's all straight forward and basically invisible from behind... plus HUGE. Come on baby girl!!!
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