Jeffrey's Big Day

Jeffrey Michael
born February 25, 2010
4:56pm
9 lbs. 1 oz. , 21 inches in length
Welcomed by proud parents, Justin and Jill and by big brother Jason

Here is some of what I wrote down early Fri morning, not even a full 12 hours after Jeffrey was born.

Words cannot express how truly grateful I am right now. My mind is racing and a million different thoughts are tumbling through my brain so I thought I'd try and capture them. It is now 2am Fri morning. I should be sleeping, but after such a day and with all this adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I'm finding sleep impossible. So here is a recap.

We went in to see Dr M at 7:15 am. Both Justin and I were worried we'd be sent home, but hoped we'd be able to have Jeffrey today. Dr M did an u/s and everything looked good then checked to see if I was dialated and measured me at 6cm! We were going to be sent to L&D to have our baby!

My nurse was named Kim, and she was very cheery, I liked her instantly. She hooked me up to the monitor to measure my contractions and the baby's heart rate. I actually started having some fairly regular contractions, but they were not increasing in intensity. Mom arrived shortly after and I was so glad to have her here. There's just something about having your mom around for a big event like this. Kim did have a bit of a problem getting my IV started, and I have multiple pricks and bruises to show for it. The 3rd nurse who came to help got me squared away. Kim felt really bad, and I'll admit it was unpleasant, but I knew I needed the IV to get my pitocin so I persevered. So we got the pitocin started around 10:30am.

I had expressed to Kim my concern over when to get my epidural since I felt like a waited a bit too long with Jason, so after we could tell the pitocin was working we went ahead and called for the anesthesiologist. He was a nice man, Dr. A. I liked how he told me everything he was doing. I get nervous for any kind of blood drawing, needles, etc. So the combo of Dr. A calmly talking and Kim standing in front of me just being supportive and talking to me, reminding me to breathe helped me through the epidural set up. And I'm so glad we got it when we did. I could still feel pressure and could tell when I was having a strong contraction, but it was not painful. I think this epidural was a little bit stronger than the one I had with Jason. I'll have to check and see what Justin wrote down, but I think I got the epidural around 11am.

The rest of the afternoon was spent letting the contractions work to get me dialated to 10cm. We had the Olympics on and chatted. Kathie arrived and then Dad. Dr. M came and checked me twice and Kim did a couple of times too. I had to lay on my right side for a while because the baby got tired of me being on my back. This was fine until laying like that caused the medicine from the epidural to leave the left side of my body (since that hip was higher in the air). Luckily it was time to switch sides. Unfortunately I never got comfortable laying on my left side but that wasn't a problem for too long. Kim checked and found I was dialated to 10 cm. Earlier when Dr M checked me she said the baby's head was still high so she wanted me to labor down, so thankfully I got to switch to a sitting position and we let good old gravity help us get Jeffrey into position for the next stage of labor. There was about an hour in there where no one came to check on me for a while when I got frustrated. More than anything I did not want to continue laboring if it was time to push and somehow cause unnecessary stress to Jeffrey. We called the desk and Kim came and checked and found that Jeffrey had moved down. It was time to call Dr M and get the ok to push.

The pushing stage felt a little strange to me this time. First of all it was very quiet in the room. Just Kim, myself of course, Mom and Justin. When I'd start a contraction, Mom and Justin would help me sit up and push while Kim monitored everything. I had to kind of re-remember how to push, but got the hang of it. It was just weird how quiet and calm everything seemed in between contractions, but I guess we were all concentrating. It felt like it was taking a while and then Dr M(she got impatient that I'd been pushing for over an hour) came in, and I felt like everything moved pretty quickly after that.

I love Dr. M! She is so assertive and confident, you just know you are in good hands. The next thing I knew they were placing a beautiful big handsome boy on my chest and Jeffrey was here. As soon as he started crying I did too. I was just so happy he'd finally arrived at 4:56pm 2/25/10. I'm so proud of myself for how well I handled labor and delivery. I still can hardly believe he is so big at 9 lbs 1 oz and 21 inches in length. He has beautiful chubby cheeks and we think his hair will be darker than Jason's. I cannot wait to see Jason's interaction with Jeffrey tomorrow when Kathie brings him to visit.

I may work on this some more tomorrow, but I think they are about to bring Jeffrey back from the nursery to be fed. Hope you enjoy Jeffrey's story!

And here are some pictures of Jeffrey's big day!


Here's our big boy!





All swaddled up.




Proud Mom and Dad.





In the nursery.

Jason's 3rd Birthday Party

We celebrated Jason's 3rd Birthday this year with a party at Let's Jump. Jason was able to invite a bunch of kids from his class at daycare, as well as his cousins and other close friends. They all had a blast jumping for an hour and then we finished the party with some cake. Jason really loved going down the big slide, but we think his favorite part was when everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to him. His face just lit up, and for weeks afterward he would talk about how everyone sang to him.

Nana came by the house after the party to enjoy some present opening. It was like a preview of this coming Christmas! Jason has enjoyed playing with all his new toys, and has a surprisingly good memory when it comes to who gave him which present.

We also got to have a special dinner at Mimi and Papaw's house with Aunt Sarah to celebrate the big 3, with of course another cake and singing of "Happy Birthday." Mimi and Aunt Sarah gave Jason some great Halloween themed presents as well, which has to be his 3rd favorite holiday (after his birthday and Christmas of course).

Finally on Jason's actual birthday, we had dinner at home, just the three of us (and 1/2 if you count the baby on the way), and Jason got his birthday present from us. He had been asking for it for a couple of months, so he was pretty excited to open the box and find Buzz Lightyear. We are so proud of our big boy and can hardly believe he is already three years-old.