Hipes Happenings: March 2014

Esther and I have been staying home most days to keep away from the germs from this never-ending winter! We have had grandparents visit and visitors from church who have brought meals, but otherwise it has been really nice to just get used to our new normal with three kids at home.

Esther loves to be on the floor watching the action when she is awake. Her sister loves to lay beside her.

Charlotte thought Esther needed a toy to play with, so she brought her the bunny.

Poor Esther can't even nap alone, but she seems to sleep better when there is more noise around, which is always the case at our house!

Sometimes in the evenings Esther and Daddy hang out downstairs when everyone else has gone to bed.

In the background the kids are dancing to music on the tv and Esther is still snoozing away!

Everyone is playing in Esther's room. Charlotte is pretending to be a baby and take a bath in the baby bathtub.

Apparently Esther mainly just slept her first week at home. She likes being swaddled, but has to have her arms out!

Her first attempt at tummy time led to this in 2 minutes!

Now tummy time involves more eating of the blanket, but she really doesn't mind being on her tummy when she is awake.

Esther is such a laid back baby! She loves to watch her siblings, eat, and sleep. She is starting to be awake much more in the daytime now and will usually go right back to sleep at night after she eats. She is our first baby that actually sleeps at night and we all appreciate the extra rest!

***Disclaimer this post is long and very detailed. If you aren't into birth, you may want to skip it :) ***

Sunday, March 2nd, was a very typical Sunday for us. We got up and went to church during the morning. At church I got many comments from people about being there. Apparently when you are 2 days from your due date you should just sit at home and wait for your baby to come. That would drive me insane, so I was at church and teaching in Charlotte's class just like normal.

After church I did a big grocery run because we had no groceries left in the house! I had been trying not to buy too much fresh food in case we were at the hospital having the baby, but after 2 weeks I was done skimping by on just what we had to eat in the pantry. Jay went back to church for a Deacon's meeting and the kids and I played, did some laundry, and I made a big dinner. I had plenty of energy and felt great.

After the kids went to bed I was pretty tired from all I did during the day and feeling kinda achy/crampy so I went on to bed at 9:30 hoping to get some sleep and feel more rested in the morning. While laying in bed I started noticing my cramps were coming and going in waves and not just constant. Jay came up around 11:30 to go to bed and I told him I was not feeling so well and to try and get some sleep because this may be the real deal soon. I had this happen during the night a few times in the past few weeks so I was trying not to get my hopes up.

Around midnight I got up to start timing my contractions and they were coming fairly steady every 5 minutes. I got up and took a bath, laid in bed some, finished packing my hospital bag and they stayed the same consistency/ intensity. From my previous labors I knew this could last for a long time so I wasn't in any hurry.   At 2 am I came downstairs, cleaned up, did some laundry and dishes and put up the chicken broth I had been making overnight in the crockpot. It was probably best that my early labor was during the middle of the night because I could do my own thing, stop to rest during the contractions, while everyone else was asleep so I wasn't having to take care of the kids. At 4 am I woke up Jay and told him the contractions hadn't let up, this was probably the real thing, and we might want to head to Salem soon because the weather was not looking good (we were supposed to get an icy mix starting at 5am). He said okay, then rolled over to go back to sleep!

Just like normal, Charlotte came into our room at 6 am! I had just gotten out of the shower and Jay got up and started getting his hospital bag ready. We called Jay's parents and they came and got the kids at 7 am. I knew it wasn't time to go to the hospital because the contractions were still every 5 minutes and hadn't gotten closer together, but with the weather turning icy at our house we decided to drive over to Salem. Before we left I had a bowl of cereal. In hindsight I wish I had eaten/packed more food to eat during the morning.

When we got to Salem at about 8:30 I called my doctor's office and they said to come in and they would check me to see if I needed to go to labor and delivery. When the doctor checked me I was only at 3 cm and about 50% effaced. I had been 2 cm two weeks early at my regular check up, so I was slightly discouraged by the lack of progress after 9 hours of 5 minute apart contractions, but this is what happens for all of my labors so I wasn't surprised. He then stripped my membranes and stretched my cervix to 4-5 cm and said, "I am going to get this going so we can have a baby today. Go upstairs to labor and delivery."

I was happy because I really did not want to go home and I wanted my doctor to deliver the baby since he hadn't delivered one of my babies before. Jay went to the car to get the camera and few other things and we headed up to labor and delivery. They started checking us in around 10 am and asking all the usual questions and when they found out I wanted a natural delivery, the nurse told me they had a room with a birthing tub that was available and asked if I wanted to switch to that room. I told her absolutely (I have always wanted to try laboring in a tub because I thought hot water would be great pain management) so we moved rooms down the hall. My doctor popped in and said he would be back to break my water and really get things going, which is exactly what I wanted because in the past once my water breaks, active labor finally starts.

When we moved rooms, I got in the tub and the nurse showed Jay how to use the shower head to pulse hot water on my back. The funniest moment of labor occurred when she told Jay he could get in the tub with me if he wanted, just to shut the bathroom door so she would know he was in the tub too. His face was priceless and he was like, "I don't think I am going to be doing that."

I also always have back labor. I am not sure what labor would feel like normally because most of my pain is always in my back. After a while of hot water on my back in the tub, I got out of the tub and my doctor checked and I was about 5-6 cm and he broke my water at 12:45. The nurse asked me to do fetal monitoring for about 15 minutes after he broke my water to make sure the baby didn't have any problems with the more intense contractions that were coming.   I put on their new portable monitoring thing (basically two straps around my belly) and sat on the birthing ball while Jay pushed against my back to counteract the pressure of the contractions. When the nurse checked me again I was still only at 6 cm so she said we need to try something different to get you from 6-8 cm and into transition. She suggested the shower so I got in the shower and once again Jay used the shower head to pulse hot water on my back. For both of my other labors I had been confined to a bed during the active labor/ transition part so it was really nice to have freedom to move around and use hot water for pain relief.

When the contractions started getting more intense and much closer together I moved back to the tub because I was hoping being submerged in hot water would provide more relief. While in the tub I told the nurse I was starting to feel the urge to push and she asked me where I wanted to deliver. Apparently you can deliver in the tub, but I did not want to do that and I had no trouble pushing in the bed in the past so I got back in the bed. I was almost at 10 cm, but not quite so they kept telling me not to push and to wait for the baby to move down a little bit more. We did a few practice pushes and then the nurse called the doctor at 2:30 and told him we were starting to push, but he didn't need to hurry to get to my room. I was not too pleased when she said that! Maybe I should have told her I only pushed for 10-15 minutes with my other kids, but I did not.

When I first started pushing I was so much more exhausted than I had been the last two times. Usually when it is time to push I have a lot of energy because I am ready to get the baby out. After my first push I told the nurse I knew I wasn't doing it right, but I was so tired. I can't decide if it was because all I had eaten since the night before was a bowl of cereal (I usually eat during labor) or if it was because I was more active instead of just laying down during labor, but I was wiped out. Finally the baby started to move down and I was ready to push for real. I was doing such a good job pushing that the nurse told Jay to look out in the hallway and see if the doctor was coming and to tell him to run, but when Jay looked there was no doctor. The nurse kept telling me not to push, which was ridiculous because I literally could not NOT push. I am pretty sure the nurse delivered her head, because when the doctor came in the room he switched places with the nurse and Esther was out! He held her up and we got to see it was a girl. She was born at 2:48 pm.

They put her straight on my chest and I got to hold her and do skin to skin the whole time the nursery nurses cleaned her and checked her.   We knew she had a headful of hair because every time the doctor or nurse checked me they would comment about how much hair she had on her head! Labor lasted fifteen hours (just like last time!) and Jay was such a huge help doing everything he could to help me work through the contractions. The nurse kept commenting on what a good team we were and how she hadn't seen a husband do as much as he did!

About an hour after Esther was born they needed to take her to the nursery for a bit of monitoring because she was breathing pretty fast and they were slightly worried about her oxygen levels. They said it wasn't a big deal, she was just in shock about coming out to the real world! After they took her away, Jay called his parents and went out to find mine who had arrived in the waiting room at 2:15 (30 minutes before she was born). During that time I felt a lot of blood coming out so I told the nurse and when she checked she went and got 3 more nurses in the room and then another ob. She started giving me a new iv to help stop the bleeding and other medicine to slow down the bleeding. Jay was quite shocked to come back in the room and see all these people around me! Because of the bleeding I couldn't eat, drink, or get out of the bed for a few hours after the delivery. I was quite disheartened because I was starving, but finally at 6:30 they let me eat and I got out of bed around 7:30.

Esther was brought back to us after two hours and her breathing was just fine. She hadn't latched on during our skin to skin time, but she nursed without any problem when she came back to the room. She also started pooping right away and pooped all over the place when Jay changed her for the first time. It was quite the initiation into newborns again!

I had a wonderful natural birth experience in a hospital setting. I am so thankful for our nurse who was with us the whole time and for getting to try some different labor techniques this time. I am also so thankful for a big, healthy, baby girl!