Life Update

Can you believe it's been almost 5 weeks since our newest little guy was born? In fact, it will be exactly 5 weeks ago tomorrow that he made his grand entrance. Boy, have we been busy since then. Adding a third child is a HUGE adjustment...much bigger than adding the second child. I hear that the third is the hardest, and after that, it's a piece of cake. So, if we do happen to have any more children (depending on my MS) at least I have hope :)...

So, to start off, here's the birth story (the clean version :) ):

On Friday, November 5th, early in the morning, I started having some hard contractions, they just never really got closer together, so I pretty much ignored them as much as possible. For anyone who has ever experienced painful contractions, you know how "easy" it is to ignore them ;). During the night, they did finally start getting closer together, and more painful. So, on Saturday morning, at 7am, I woke Erek up and told him we gotta go to the hospital, we're having a baby. When we got to the hospital, my contractions were 3 minutes apart, lasting for like 30-60 seconds. Unfortunately, they weren't doing anything. I wasn't dilating at all, or effacing. But nothing would get the contractions to stop, so the Dr. knew they weren't braxton Hicks. He said I was defnintely in labor, but for some reason my body was not cooperating and doing what it's supposed to do. I do have VERY LONG labors, so this was no surprise to me (why do you think I waited for over 24 hours before going to the hospital.

After monitoring me for an hour, and nothing happened, my Dr. made the brilliant decision to give me pitocin to speed things along. However, since I was tested positive for the Group B Strep, they had to give me the antibiotic first. The antibiotic had to run for 4 hours before I could deliver, in order to have the best chance at preventing any problems. At 2pm, the 4 hours was up, and they were able to start the pitocin. They said to expect to deliver in the next couple of hours. At this point I mentioned to the nurse that there was a kink in the IV, and asked if that was going to cause any problems. She said it's fine, and shouldn't cause any problems with the IV. An hour later they came in, still no progress. So, the dr. broke my water to speed things along. Another hour, still no progress. Contractions were staying the same. They were more ainful, but not any closer together. At about 5pm, a second nurse saw that the Pitocin was not going in, so she started a new bag of pitocin, to see if there was a problem with the initial bag.I showed her the kink in the IV and asked if that was the problem. She said that wouldn't be the problem. At 7pm, still no progress. The third nurse came to check everything out, and figure out why the pitocin wasn't doing anything. She looked at the bag, and looked at the line. She found the kink and said "well, there's the problem". she unkinked the line to let the pitocin through and start doing what it's supposed to. About 2 minutes later the nurse came running in, and said she needed to move the heart monitor on our baby because she can't hear the heartbeat anymore. about 30 seconds later 2 more nurses and my OB came running in. They put an oxygen mask on me, turned me further onto my side, gave me a shot in my arm, and the dr. kept scratching the baby's head to get our little guy to move. They said the 5 hours worth of pitocin going into me all at once caused a 5 minute contraction, which cut off circulation to the baby, and stopped his heart. The shot they gave me was to stop the contraction. The Dr. was trying to get the baby to wake up, and get his heartbeat back. They said everything was prepped for an emergency C-Section, and may have to take our baby out in order for him to survive. As they were getting ready to take me to C-Section, our strong little guy finally came to, and they got the heartbeat back. I was so glad! What a tough baby we have! I really don't know how long this whole thing lasted. I was crying from pain (So glad I had an epidural at this point), and the thought that my baby may not make it, so didn't really watch the clock, but it seemed like FOREVER!

Once our little man was ok, they gave him an hour to recover, before starting the pitocin again. At 8pm, they started the pitocin, this time without the kinked line. Finally, shortly after 9:30pm, Dallen Ray was born. They couldn't get him to cry at first. after a bit of annoying the kid, he let out a little cry of "leave me alone, I'm sleeping" and that was it. After a little more of annoying him, he finally cried a bit more. Once they gave him to me, the crying stopped again, and he just chilled while they took his vitals, cleaned him up, and did all the newborn checking. He's still not much of a cryer. He cries in the evenings from his gas (he is a very gassy child), and he cries when he's hungry, tired, has a bubble, or is getting a diaper change. But for the most part, he is a pretty calm baby (at least compared to my other 2 children).

And that's Dallen's grand entrance, not one that will be easily forgotten. Now we are slowly adjusting to the demands of a baby along with the demands of a 3 and 6 year-old. Let's just say we are constantly busy at our house, and still have not had any free time to even setup our Christmas stuff. We are hoping to be able to do that tomorrow.

Other stuff that has happened since Dallen was born:
1) I had a birthday :)
2) We have spent many days at the lactation specialist for my lack of milk supply. Hoping 3rd times the charm for getting my body to produce more milk.
3) We went black friday shopping (of course)
4) Brock has started potty training (3 days so far of being dry, except for nap and bed)
5) I survived the baby blues :)
6) Braedyn is still being a trouble maker at school, but is doing great at reading (still not very good in spelling and math).

I think that's everything that has happened. However, I am going on just 3-4 hours of sleep a night, so things do tend to leave my mind very easily...