On Monday, July 28 I went in for my weekly checkup and my blood pressure was high.  Since the previous week’s appointment they had tested me for Pre-Eclampsia and my protein levels were moderate, the elevated blood pressure was enough for my doc to induce me.  So I was scheduled for Wed, but went in Tue night to have my cervix softened using Cervadil. Last time (8 years ago with Jaron) my induction took 26 hours so we were hoping this would help speed things along.  So we left our house about 5:30, dropped the kid off to football practice, and then swung by Mom’s to drop the dogs off for the week/weekend (and feed the horses) and then were on our way to the hospital.

We got to the hospital at 7:30pm and they got us settled into our room.  It was pretty uneventful that night.  My sister visited and we waited.  I didn’t sleep much due to being checked all night, plus those blood pressure cuffs are sooo uncomfortable.

I had been about 2cm dilated when I got there and hadn’t changed much by 6am the next morning but they started me on Pitocin.  I had also started having some small contractions on my own.  (With Jaron I didn’t have any on my own.)  So that was helpful.  At my next check at around 9am I was 3-4cm so they went ahead and gave me the Epidural.  For those of you who recall, I had a horrible experience with my Epi with Jaron – they had to re-stick me 3 times, and each time they gave me 2-5 shots of different types of Epidural “stuff’ (fast acting, long lasting, etc), none of which worked.  I’d feel good for about 15 minutes and then feel contractions again so they just kept redoing me.  Fortunately, this time around, things worked much better!  I was only “stuck” one time and it worked all the way til the end!  I did have some pressure/pain but not shooting-like pain like I would have without the Epidural.  At any rate, at about 9am, I was 3-4cm, and within an hour I had gone to like 6-7.  When my sister got there at about 11am, I was 7-8 and by noon I was telling the nurse that I was feeling tons of pressure and said it wouldn’t be too much longer.  I wanted the doctor there NOW, and fortunately, the c-section she was scheduled to do had some sort of delay so she was able to come up and deliver me.  I would have hated to have some other person (especially a guy) deliver Jaylen.  I called Aaron (he had gone outside to smoke / get fresh air / stretch his legs) and told him he better get up here asap because it wouldn’t be much longer.  From there, in less than 30 minutes, I was on my way!  Doc was there and nurse was there and I was given the thumbs up to push.  I pushed for about 20 minutes or less and POP here she came!  Not too bad!  I think I pushed about the same with Jaron.  5-6 big count-to-10-repeat pushing sessions and Jaylen was now a part of this world!  Doc placed her on my belly and Aaron cut the cord.  I love how he describes it.  “Boy that cord was TOUGH!  You know what it was like?  It was like cutting gristle.”  (I don’t know if I’ll ever eat steak again… LOL!)

From that point they took her and weighed her and cleaned her up some, did her vitals and Apgar and whatnot (she scored a 9).  And then they gave her back to me to nurse and left her with me for the next hour or so to just bond. I never got that with Jaron (they whisked him away for reasons unbeknownst to me and had bathed him and given him a bottle before I saw him after our first brief holding sesson after birth).

Then we were moved from the delivery room to the mother-baby room that we’d stay in for the next 48 hours.  Due to Jaron’s inability to nurse (and my theory that it was partly due to them giving him formula almost right away among other things), I specifically requested that Jaylen not have any formula and would be strictly breastfed.  My milk was not in yet and my breasts are huge so I was having a difficult time to begin with, but then Jaylen started the same stuff that Jaron did – tongue sucking – where they suck their tongue and sort of stick it on the roof of their mouth causing the latch-on process to be extremely difficult.  I never got it with Jaron, days and weeks of trying different techniques, seeing Lactation specialists, everything, so with him I pumped and fed him breast milk for as long as I could (about 6 weeks).  It was tough but I was glad I did it – and determined that if Jaylen wouldn’t latch on like her big bro, then I was prepared to pump and do the same for her.  We had a wonderful Lactation consultant in the hospital this time (she started the month after Jaron was born, DARNIT!) and she helped me to really get Jaylen to latch on.  I worked hard but it was still difficult the first few nights when my milk wasn’t really in, and due to that, Jaylen didn’t eat much the first few days.  The second night when they drew her blood for the Biliruben test (Jaundice) it came back elevated so the next morning they retested her and it came back slightly higher so they started her on the little blue UV lights.  From there, they were only allowed to bring her into my room to eat, and she was not very hungry so she ate even less.  And the times we did try, she didn’t latch on very good so she only ate for a few minutes at a time.  That’s when the doctor told me they weren’t going to release her until her Biliruben level came down some and he scared me half to death.  He wouldn’t make eye contact with me and made me feel like she was DEATHLY sick.  Turns out her numbers were pretty low in consideration (10-12 when they don’t really start being ’sick’ or in danger until the mid 20’s). To say the least I will NOT be using their Practice. So Friday night was probably the hardest night of my life EVER.  I could hear everybody visiting with the new mothers on the ward (I believe 6 delivered the same day as me) and since it was a Friday night the ward was just abuzz with people.  And there I was, alone (hubby had to go home to tend to some thing, and my 8yo son was with Grandma & Grandpa) and with no little cuddly baby.  I could only look at her in the nursery under those blue lights and it made me feel horrible.  I have SOOOOO much more empathy for those mothers who’ve had preemies and babies that need to be on all sorts of gadgets and tubes and in the NICU.  My heart goes out to all of you.  I was also “downgraded” in my room.  Since I was doing “okay”, my original discharge date of Friday afternoon was held to.  I was told I could leave and go home (and trying to breast feed every 2 hours would have been impossible because I live an hour away!).  Fortunately, they had discharged a few other mothers so there was several empty rooms (in otherwords mine was not needed) and I was allowed to stay as a “guest” in my room.  They didn’t do any more well checks or anything.  They wouldn’t even come in and take my trash out!  Talk about being demoted!But it all turned out well.  The lactation consultant had come in the day before and really helped me with getting her to latch on and we also supplemented with a couple of bottles of formula (just to get something IN her to help flush the Biliruben out).  She had a couple major stools (her first really good ones weren’t until late day 2).  So I was confident she was flushing the bad stuff out of her system.  Plus being under the little UV baby tanning bed helped and by morning, her numbers were down even more and she was discharged.  So we came home Saturday (Aug 2).  One cool Cosmic Alignment thing — the nice Man who wheeled me out this time was the SAME man who wheeled me out with Jaron nearly 8 years ago!  Cool, huh?

My best friend is also pregnant, and about 2 months behind me, so we made our first outing to go to her baby shower.  It was awesome.  She slept the whole time.  Everyone was like “WOW what a friend!  Discharged from the hospital and barely even home an hour and you come to her baby shower!”  I’m so glad my little one is home and wish everyone the best!

Our little Angel:

Big bro holding lil sis for the first time:

Sweet sleepy baby:

Baby Jaylen Slideshow:

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