Baby Day Stories: Jen

While I’m off getting the house a little more put together (at least as much as you can without any stuff!), I’m sharing some of my wonderful blogger friends’ Baby Day Stories.  To read my Baby Day Story, click here!  Today, I have Jen, who writes over at It’s My Life.  Let her know how much you enjoyed it!

I’m Jen from Illinois. I blog at It’s My Life.  I am the mom of two great kids!  A son (Ryan) who is 19 and a daughter (Sara) who is ALMOST 9.

I had my son when I was 19. He was a planned c-section because he was breech.  But he decided he wanted to come earlier than scheduled. A week before I was supposed to have him, I went into labor, my water broke and he arrived. The night he was born, there were 8 babies delivered, 7 of them boys by cesarean. We lived with my parents until my husband and I married. Without them, I don’t think we would have made it.

I met my husband when Ryan was 2, he willing accepted us as a “package deal”. He has always been Ryan’s father figure and they get along well. We married when Ryan was 4.

When Ryan was 10, we found out we were pregnant with Sara – surprise!  I can assure you that the 10 years between my pregnancies made a huge difference. I didn’t deal with the second one as well and it took a lot longer to get back to feeling like myself. I really wanted to deliver her naturally, if possible. I did but she, too, was 3 weeks early.  I did deliver her quickly and with no drugs. She gave us a scare as she wouldn’t breathe on her own for a couple of minutes. They finally got her going and spent a few hours in the oxygen tent the night she was born.

The present stage we parent in is so different from the babies we had hoped both the kids would stay in. We deal with paying for college, Barbies, what classes to take and what major should be declared, American Girl dolls, a girlfriend, Littlest Pet Shop, call us if you’ve been drinking, tap and ballet dance all over the house.  I can honestly say, there are very few dull moments in our lives, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Baby Day Stories: Chantal

It’s Moving Day!  We’re headed to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for the evening and will be more than a little busy driving (well, I’ll be asleep… thank you, husband, for being okay with that!).  So, today is the first day of Baby Day Stories!  To read my Baby Day Story, click here!  Today, I have my dear friend, Chantal, who writes over at Scattered Seashells.  Let her know how much you enjoyed it!

Hi! I’m Chantal and I blog at Scattered Seashells! I’m wife to Brandon, an Apache helicopter pilot-in-training, and mom to Penny, a crazy one year old that rocks my world. We currently live in pretty southeast Alabama.

Caitlin asked me to share Penny’s “birth day” and my experience, and I
couldn’t say no!

I’m start this story by saying… everything went completely opposite
how I wanted it to. That’s how it goes right? The best laid plans…

We were going to have an all-natural birth. I’m the crunchy, hippy
type of mom who does everything all-natural (well, most things…) and
I really wanted that natural birth, for my own reasons. It just felt
right for us. So I signed us up for the Bradley Method class and
prepared for the birth. Birthing ball, massage oils, calm music…
everything!

And then, at my 39 week appointment, we found out that my baby was
breech. She had turned around sometime after my 38 week appointment,
where she was for sure head down. Eep. Breech is a serious thing
nowadays because doctors don’t know how to deliver one, and especially
with such short notice… what were we to do?

The doctor’s really wanted us to schedule a c-section but we resisted.
We wanted to give Penny all the time we could to turn back around. We
tried to help her out too – inversion tables, chiropractors,
acupuncture, everything!

December 15 came and I went into early labor. She was still breech! We
got to the hospital by 7pm and resigned ourselves to fate – I was
going to have a c-section.

Penny arrived at 1:05am on December 16 via c-section. Of course, as
soon as I held my little baby, I wasn’t worried about how she came. I
was a mom now!

Now, over a year, I am a bit sad about how it all went down, because I
did really want that all-natural birth or even a “regular” birth. But
I look at my baby and can’t help but be fine with how it all went
down. I have her now, after all, everything else doesn’t matter!

Matthew Ryan’s Labor and Delivery

Ryan and I are so unbelievably excited to announce that Matthew Ryan has arrived!

At around 8AM on Friday, I walked back into our bedroom after going to the bathroom (for the fiftieth time that night/morning) and went “uh oh” as I was about to get into bed.  Either I had just peed my pants (for the first time since I was 3 years old… I managed to escape that symptom this pregnancy!) or my water had broken.  When it continued to happen, I was pretty convinced my water had broken.  So, Ryan jumped in the shower after running to HEB to get rice and chicken for the dogs so that Mom and Dad Brown didn’t have to deal with it, since they were already being wonderful just for taking care of the pups.  Then it was off to the hospital!

They checked me at 9ish in the Labor and Delivery Triage and I was 2 cm (same as the last week or two), but my water had broken!  The nurse hooked me up to an IV of fluids, checked my vitals, took blood, and got all the wristbands I needed put onto my arm.  An hour later, we were admitted into the L&D ward.  They started me on pitocin around 1030 to start getting my contractions a little more regular and stronger so that hopefully I would dilate quicker.  I got my epidural an hour and a half later, about half an hour after Mom Brown got there, and was definitely ready for one by then.  My OB said I was dilated to a 6 after only a few hours on pitocin and that she expected I’d deliver Matthew around 6 that evening.  Dad Brown came down from Austin around 4 and we all had a pretty good time just hanging out  in L&D, waiting for me to be dilated enough to start pushing.

Mama French braiding my hair and getting it OUT of my face!

Stacey, the wonderful nurse who was there the whole day with us.  She’s an Air Force wife as well!

My parents were kicked out of the room a little before 6, and we started pushing shortly thereafter.  Two hours later, my OB stopped the process and said that I needed a c-section, but that she honestly couldn’t tell us why.  She said that his head wasn’t in line with his neck (he had his ear against his shoulder, bent over sideways) but that that shouldn’t be an issue because he had plenty of room to move and wasn’t a big baby.  Despite a little help from them, and my being in good shape (so pushing for a long time wasn’t a concern for her), he just wouldn’t cooperate.  I started being prepped for a c-section at 8.  They called in NICU nurses and doctors just in case because they had no idea what was going on with him.  Needless to say, I was more than a little scared, but thankfully trusted my doctor completely to make the right call.  The anesthesiologist came in and pumped me full of even more drugs, to which I had a BAD reaction.  I was shaking uncontrollably and apparently ended up whimpering in the OR without realizing I was.

At 8:22PM, they delivered Matthew, weighing 7 pounds 8 ounces and measuring 21 inches long.  He was absolutely perfectly healthy, thank goodness!  I was really out of it because of the shaking, but I did get to see him while they cleaned him off, and we got a couple of family pictures before I gave him a kiss and they took him to the nursery to get him warm and clean.

7 pounds 8 ounces

Look at that hair!

First family photo! I have the two most handsome men in the world 🙂

The labor was textbook perfect, as was the pushing, until the end, when we realized that it wasn’t going to happen.  I wanted to do everything I could to avoid a c-section.  That being said, I DO feel like we did everything we could to avoid one, short of anything dangerous for Matthew or myself, and am just thankful to have Matthew and myself feeling (relatively) great.  He’s the happiest, sweetest baby in the entire world, and Ryan and I are loving being parents, despite the total sleep deprivation.