Time has gone way too quickly the last six months! I let my fears rule my life for a few of them; the fear of childbirth. Well, she is here and she is absolutely perfect. I will be telling my birth story in this entry and I will also attempt to share how Christmas and our New Year went. It is tough to keep everyone up on all the news with so much going on. I know that keeping up on my blog is not my strong point but I really want to try harder again this year.
The week before my dear Daphne was born, I had the opportunity to have our little Justin's pictures taken for free. They were taken by Melanie Dunbar. She is a student at BYU-I and she was so kind. You can reach her at
http://www.melaniedunbarphotography.com/p/infants.html I was excited with the results.
On Friday December the second, I had a regular day. Nathan was off of work and we did a little shopping and hung around at home. My boys were both in bed asleep as I sat awake, winding down, doing a crossword puzzle. You see, I have the goal of completing one of the local newspapers crosswords at some point in my life. I was feeling very awake around 10:30 pm when I began to have mild contractions. I had been having contractions for weeks so I really didn't think it was any big deal. I paced the house, had some yogurt and even attempted to take a bath. While in the bath I sent a text to my cousin, Natalie, to tell her that I thought this might be it. I really needed someone to talk to and tell about this since my hubby was lost in dreamland. I called my Mom at around 11:30 to talk to her. I had her tell me some stories about her birth experiences with my siblings and I. I continued texting Natalie while I was on the home phone with Mom. I paced the living room while on the phone and my contractions were slowly getting stronger and closer together. At about 12:50 Mom said that she had been timing my contractions while I was talking and that they were coming about two minutes apart. She told me to get Natalie to come and stay with Justin, and wake up Nate! I did. My dear Natalie was here super fast and we were on our way to the hospital.
I was pretty nervous as I did not go into labor on my own with Justin. When we got to the hospital at around 1:30, I remember standing close to the wall holding on to a bar waiting for a contraction to pass before I could follow Nate down the hall. Then when we got there the Nurses acted like it was no big deal. We were put in a labor and delivery room, and when the nurse checked me I was very disappointed to find out that I was only dilated to a three. I had been at a two just four days earlier at my doctors office. So I was feeling really stupid about going to the hospital, however because this was a VBAC the nurse felt that I had done the right thing. When she called Dr. Leavitt he told her to definitely keep me at the hospital for observation. Because this was a VBAC and my dilation had changed. They hooked me up to the monitors and I was emotionally feeling like I should have been at home. In fact, I even texted Natalie at around 2:30 and told her I wish that I would have stayed home!
However, the nurse came and checked me at 3:30 and told me that Dr. Leavitt was on his way in. I was now dilated to a four. Dr. Leavitt came at about 4:10 am and we discussed what was happening. He said that he felt things were moving a little slow, and I might want to think about an amniotomy (breaking my water) but that whatever I chose to do was fine. I asked him why I would want to have my water broken, and he said that it would take hours off of my labor. At 4:15 he broke my water to find that there was meconium in it. This meant that I was not able to hold my dear little Daphne the moment she was born. Instead she would have to go across the room with a nurse to have everything checked out with her breathing.
Dr. Leavitt went ahead and put the internal fetal monitor into Daphne's head to watch her heart and stress level, and he also put the pressure catheter in to watch how much pressure my contractions were producing. Things seemed to be very busy and when he checked me again at 5:00 am I was at an eight. Nate was a wonderful help providing support and counter-pressure to my lower back. By this point, I was having a very hard time relaxing during contractions and I asked to have an epidural. Nathan stayed the entire time, as I was pushing my head into his tummy and holding his belt loops during the epidural. He did wonderfully! By the time the anesthetist finished, I was complete and Dr. Leavitt was ready to have me push. I remember saying some strange things to my doctor; one about his beard and how I was glad he had shaved and the other was about how half of my neighborhood all goes to him. I was showing signs of being tired to Dr. Leavitt and he suggested after about ten minutes of heavy pushing that we use the vacuum extractor. Once he hooked that up on Daphne, She arrived with two contractions. I tore and he had to sew me up, but I was able to watch what they were doing with Daphne so I was distracted. When they finally brought her to me and I looked at her tiny sweet little face, I began to cry. Nate thought that something was wrong, but I was just so happy that I didn't have another C-Section and that she was healthy. She was born at 5:39 am at EIRMC, weighing in at seven lbs. one ounce and was twenty inches long.
It has been a whirlwind since she was born. Her first doctors visit went really well. She was given a completely clean bill of health. At just seven days old we had these family pictures taken so that I could send out Christmas cards with her included, and so that I could get a good start on decorating her bedroom. That was completely wishful thinking! :) As for our beautiful son, he seems to be adapting to having a sister rather well. He is able to sleep through her sleepless nights, which is great! He also really loves to give her little kisses and to "hold" her. He will come and sit next to me while I am nursing and snuggle with her as well. He has also shown that he just all around loves babies because he wants to kiss his cousin Eva too! He had a wonderful Christmas. He was very spoiled by his Aunts and Uncles. He also had lots of fun Christmas morning playing with all of the fun toys and learning tools that Santa brought him. I think that his very favorite thing is his alphabet magnets made for the fridge; this toy actually tells you the letter and the sound that the letter makes when you plug in the letter. I thought this would not only help him learn his alphabet, but I also feel that it will be a good jumping off point to teach him his phonics when it is time! He is so bright. I really think that once he is talking a little bit more I will be able to begin teaching him how to read. He also really loves the chance to read after his bath in the evening. We read as a family almost every night, which is the highlight of my day. I love having the four of us cuddled up together on the couch sharing stories that we love.
Time has gone way too quickly the last six months! I let my fears rule my life for a few of them; the fear of childbirth. Well, she is here and she is absolutely perfect. I will be telling my birth story in this entry and I will also attempt to share how Christmas and our New Year went. It is tough to keep everyone up on all the news with so much going on. I know that keeping up on my blog is not my strong point but I really want to try harder again this year.
The week before my dear Daphne was born, I had the opportunity to have our little Justin's pictures taken for free. They were taken by Melanie Dunbar. She is a student at BYU-I and she was so kind. You can reach her at http://www.melaniedunbarphotography.com/p/infants.html I was excited with the results.
On Friday December the second, I had a regular day. Nathan was off of work and we did a little shopping and hung around at home. My boys were both in bed asleep as I sat awake, winding down, doing a crossword puzzle. You see, I have the goal of completing one of the local newspapers crosswords at some point in my life. I was feeling very awake around 10:30 pm when I began to have mild contractions. I had been having contractions for weeks so I really didn't think it was any big deal. I paced the house, had some yogurt and even attempted to take a bath. While in the bath I sent a text to my cousin, Natalie, to tell her that I thought this might be it. I really needed someone to talk to and tell about this since my hubby was lost in dreamland. I called my Mom at around 11:30 to talk to her. I had her tell me some stories about her birth experiences with my siblings and I. I continued texting Natalie while I was on the home phone with Mom. I paced the living room while on the phone and my contractions were slowly getting stronger and closer together. At about 12:50 Mom said that she had been timing my contractions while I was talking and that they were coming about two minutes apart. She told me to get Natalie to come and stay with Justin, and wake up Nate! I did. My dear Natalie was here super fast and we were on our way to the hospital.
I was pretty nervous as I did not go into labor on my own with Justin. When we got to the hospital at around 1:30, I remember standing close to the wall holding on to a bar waiting for a contraction to pass before I could follow Nate down the hall. Then when we got there the Nurses acted like it was no big deal. We were put in a labor and delivery room, and when the nurse checked me I was very disappointed to find out that I was only dilated to a three. I had been at a two just four days earlier at my doctors office. So I was feeling really stupid about going to the hospital, however because this was a VBAC the nurse felt that I had done the right thing. When she called Dr. Leavitt he told her to definitely keep me at the hospital for observation. Because this was a VBAC and my dilation had changed. They hooked me up to the monitors and I was emotionally feeling like I should have been at home. In fact, I even texted Natalie at around 2:30 and told her I wish that I would have stayed home! 
However, the nurse came and checked me at 3:30 and told me that Dr. Leavitt was on his way in. I was now dilated to a four. Dr. Leavitt came at about 4:10 am and we discussed what was happening. He said that he felt things were moving a little slow, and I might want to think about an amniotomy (breaking my water) but that whatever I chose to do was fine. I asked him why I would want to have my water broken, and he said that it would take hours off of my labor. At 4:15 he broke my water to find that there was meconium in it. This meant that I was not able to hold my dear little Daphne the moment she was born. Instead she would have to go across the room with a nurse to have everything checked out with her breathing. 
Dr. Leavitt went ahead and put the internal fetal monitor into Daphne's head to watch her heart and stress level, and he also put the pressure catheter in to watch how much pressure my contractions were producing. Things seemed to be very busy and when he checked me again at 5:00 am I was at an eight. Nate was a wonderful help providing support and counter-pressure to my lower back. By this point, I was having a very hard time relaxing during contractions and I asked to have an epidural. Nathan stayed the entire time, as I was pushing my head into his tummy and holding his belt loops during the epidural. He did wonderfully! By the time the anesthetist finished, I was complete and Dr. Leavitt was ready to have me push. I remember saying some strange things to my doctor; one about his beard and how I was glad he had shaved and the other was about how half of my neighborhood all goes to him. I was showing signs of being tired to Dr. Leavitt and he suggested after about ten minutes of heavy pushing that we use the vacuum extractor. Once he hooked that up on Daphne, She arrived with two contractions. I tore and he had to sew me up, but I was able to watch what they were doing with Daphne so I was distracted. When they finally brought her to me and I looked at her tiny sweet little face, I began to cry. Nate thought that something was wrong, but I was just so happy that I didn't have another C-Section and that she was healthy. She was born at 5:39 am at EIRMC, weighing in at seven lbs. one ounce and was twenty inches long.
It has been a whirlwind since she was born. Her first doctors visit went really well. She was given a completely clean bill of health. At just seven days old we had these family pictures taken so that I could send out Christmas cards with her included, and so that I could get a good start on decorating her bedroom. That was completely wishful thinking! :) As for our beautiful son, he seems to be adapting to having a sister rather well. He is able to sleep through her sleepless nights, which is great! He also really loves to give her little kisses and to "hold" her. He will come and sit next to me while I am nursing and snuggle with her as well. He has also shown that he just all around loves babies because he wants to kiss his cousin Eva too! He had a wonderful Christmas. He was very spoiled by his Aunts and Uncles. He also had lots of fun Christmas morning playing with all of the fun toys and learning tools that Santa brought him. I think that his very favorite thing is his alphabet magnets made for the fridge; this toy actually tells you the letter and the sound that the letter makes when you plug in the letter. I thought this would not only help him learn his alphabet, but I also feel that it will be a good jumping off point to teach him his phonics when it is time! He is so bright. I really think that once he is talking a little bit more I will be able to begin teaching him how to read. He also really loves the chance to read after his bath in the evening. We read as a family almost every night, which is the highlight of my day. I love having the four of us cuddled up together on the couch sharing stories that we love.
You guys are beautiful! What a great story! I'm so glad it went better! I'm proud of you! It takes a lot of strength to overcome the fear and emotional parts of labor and you did awesome. I hope to meet her soon. Stay healthy!
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