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.

Jeffrey's "eviction" notice

I wrote this 2 days before Jeffrey's arrival. You can tell I was getting antsy!

Dear Sir,

You are hereby given notice that you are in breach of your tenancy of the premises located at mother’s womb under the terms of the lease dated June 28, 2009, between Jill Carrier as landlord and Jeffrey Carrier as tenant.

You are in breach because you are 4 days delinquent in your payment to the undersigned of the sum of 1 birth for February. In addition, you have failed to comply with the terms and conditions of your tenancy, as follows: your mother expected you to be born by now. Since your brother was 3 weeks early, she expected you to be at least 2 weeks early, but we are quickly approaching 39 weeks of pregnancy and we find your arrival is past due.

To remedy the above breach, you must do the following: aid in starting labor either by causing contractions to increase in frequency and intensity; or lend a hand and cause your mother’s water to break. Please consider this letter a final demand for you to remedy this situation.

If you fail to comply, the undersigned may commence eviction proceedings against you and/or exercise other available rights and remedies under the law. This will most likely be accomplished by a scheduled induction to occur the morning of March 1, 2010.

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.



Yours sincerely,

Jill Carrier, mother

Jeffrey's Room

We decided to decorate Jeffrey's room in a Dr. Seuss theme. I picked out the pictures I wanted displayed on the walls and did a little bit of the tracing, but that is where my involvement ended. All of the credit goes to Justin and Nana, who executed the plans and did an amazing job!



And here are some pictures of the room all ready for Jeffrey's arrival. The Dr. Seuss stuffed animals and bedding were given to me at a surprise baby shower thrown by my wonderful sister, my great friends Jana and Rebecca and my Aunt Sandy.

Christmas 2009 - Part IV

Extended Family Party



We had a great turnout for our extended family party which included the always fun White Elephant gift exchange.

Christmas 2009 - Part III

Christmas with Nana was all about the kids this year. Jason had so much fun with his cousins, Kassidy and Mckinley.


Crafts and Cookies










Leapster





Presents




Karaoke

Christmas 2009 - Part II

After Christmas morning at home, we had to wait a little bit to let the sun melt some of the snow on the roads. Then we headed on over to Mimi and Papaw's house to continue our Christmas festivities with Mimi, Papaw, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Josh. We only hit one patch of ice on our long (6 mile) trek across Keller and we arrived safe and sound.

Our contribution to Christmas dinner was a pork tenderloin and cranberry sauce.



We had a lot of fun opening stockings and presents.



It was also Uncle Josh's birthday, so we made sure to reserve time to celebrate birthday style. Jason is obsessed with helping others open presents and loves cards.



Then we headed outside to play some hoops on Jason's present from Aunt Sarah and Uncle Josh.



And let's not forget playing Wii.

Christmas 2009 - Part I

We made an effort this year to make Christmas really special for Jason. I felt like it was important to do so, since this would be his last solo holiday. We probably went a bit overboard, but I think he really enjoyed all the attention.

Here are some pictures of Jason at his school Christmas program. (Sorry about the quality of some of the pictures, this was before we got our new camera.)

We are not entirely certain what the costume was supposed to be, some sort of elf ears with a Christmas hat, but paired with a lei, since they were singing Mele Kalikimaka. I'm not sure Jason sang a word, but he knew all of the hand movements. This was a vast improvement over last year's performance when he refused to leave his teacher's side and get on the stage.



We made a trip out to the Gaylord Texan for the Ice Show. The theme was the Grinch, so of course Jason loved it, as we love everything Dr. Seuss.



This was an unusually snowy winter for Texas. We were treated to a very snowy Christmas Eve.



We spent Christmas morning at home opening presents and eating monkey bread for breakfast. As you can see, Jason had a lot of fun and really enjoyed his gifts.