Welcome Jonathan Robert!

As I'm sure you have all heard by now... Jonathan Robert was born December 15th at 3:47pm... he weighed 7lbs. 8oz. and was 19 inches long... a precious little peanut!!! We feel so lucky and blessed to have Jonathan be so healthy and here in time to celebrate the holidays with us! He is a wonderful baby and I can't wait to watch him grow and learn and discover!!! He is already so alert... he loves to listen to all of us around the house and even turned to listen to Daddy in the hospital. We feel so blessed to have him join our family and so happy to have our family be complete! Jonathan's birth story... (This will probably be longer than you all want but this is my reminder too!)... It was Saturday, December 14th... Mom and Dad were visiting for the weekend to watch Mikayla while Josh, Gary, and Douglas took the carpet out of our master bathroom and installed tile. Mom found a great new bedroom set for Jack that morning while out for a morning jog... so there was also a new bedroom set that needed to be cleaned and moved up to Jack's room. Which also meant that Jack's furniture needed to be moved to the nursery and extra nursery furniture moved to the garage... always something to do! I spent the day making cookies and being on my feet (trying to get this labor going!), then went for a little walk around the neighborhood from 5-6 pm to deliver Christmas cookies. The walk induced some Braxton-Hicks contractions (as walking had for months). We had some lasagna for dinner then continued with bath time and getting the boys ready for bed. My contractions continued of course because I was still being active, nothing hurt, I could just feel my stomach contracting. Mom caught me touching my stomach throughout the night and asked if I was having contractions... yep! She proceeded to fink on me to Josh who came running into the bathroom (I was giving baths) and demanded to know how far apart they were... I had no idea because they didn't hurt! Mom and Josh started monitoring the contractions and we learned that they were 7 minutes apart. At that point, Mom and I were supposed to take Mikayla back to Roseville so Michelle could nurse her and put her to bed when she got home from work. Josh had a kinipshin fit about me leaving but finally agreed when I told him that I would let him know if ANYTHING happened! Mom, Mikayla, and I headed out to Roseville and I assumed the contractions would stop during the drive as they had for the past 2 months. They didn't this time and I even got a few uncomfortable ones at Michelle's house. Considering we were in Roseville, it was 8:30pm, and I was worried about not getting to the hospital in time, I decided to "swing" by the hospital on the way home for them to monitor me quickly and send me home... a.k.a. "shut up Mom and Josh!" I called Josh to meet us at the hospital at 9pm... he was at Michelle's in about 20 minutes it seemed which was amazing considering it's a 25 minute drive! :-) Mom, Josh, and I headed over to the hospital and when Josh went to grab the suitcase to bring in, I firmly told him that we were only here to get sent home and to leave the suitcase in the car! When we got in, my contractions were still 7 minutes apart, slightly uncomfortable, and I was dilated to 2-3cm I think. The plan was to monitor me and baby for 20 minutes, have me walk around for an hour, then re-evaluate. Well, when the nurse checked me, it caused my contractions to go to every 2-3 minutes and become slightly more uncomfortable. When I called the nurse to ask her to start my antibiotics (GBS positive again), she informed me that I was going to be admitted and that she was almost done with my paperwork. I guess I was the one who got shut up, not Josh and Mom like was my plan! Once I was admitted, IV started, etc, I decided to lay down and rest for a while. The contractions basically slowed down throughout the night and by 7am they were essentially gone. Maybe I was right! But considering how quickly my previous labors moved and the fact that I was GBS positive, I'm still really glad that they admitted me. My OB came in at 8am to break my water and really get things moving... nothing! At 10am, they started me on pitocin... now we are talking! The contractions got started again and I walked through them until about noon when I asked for my epidural. I got my epidural around 12:30... relief! I told the anesthesiologist that the previous epidurals were so strong that I couldn't feel ANYTHING so he made this one a little less thankfully. Unfortunately, the epidural caused me to shake uncontrollably and my blood pressure to drop to mid-80's over mid-40's. (I would have been freaked out by all of this but De Ette, my best friend, had the same thing during her labor and she was just fine!) So instead I was only mildly freaked out as they were giving me epinephrine intravenously to bring up my blood pressure. Thankfully everything calmed down and I was able to get a little nap in before the real fun started! Around 3ish, I started feeling pressure like I needed to go #2. I kept ignoring it until the nurse came in and I apologized to her that I would probably "go" when I had the baby. (Remember, this was the first time the epidural was light enough for me to feel anything!) She mentioned that it would be a sign that I was ready to push... she lifted up my blanket to check me and said, "Wow, we have a baby that's almost crowning. One push and this baby is out!" She proceeded to call my OB and get everything ready then asked if I wanted to do a practice push as we were waiting for my OB to get there. Uhhh... you said that this baby would be born in one push, there was no way I was going to do a "practice push" until my OB got there! Everything was ready to go in about 15 minutes and I pushed a few times during one contractions before I met Jonathan!!! It was amazing to see how tiny Jonathan was when he was born... not at all what I had expected but completely wonderful, precious, and perfect! I was so worried throughout my pregnancy and labor about Jonathan's health that I was so extremely relieved to have such a healthy baby in my arms! All the hard work with my diet had been completely worth it! A few other cute stories from my labor experience... - Josh and I had decided to name the baby Jonathan if it was a boy but we hadn't talked about spelling so I asked the nurse to write down several spellings of Jonathan on the white board in the room while I was in labor so we could decide. Nothing like waiting until the last minute! - My OB was very sweet to come in on her weekend off to deliver me. I guess she labeled my chart as a special delivery and told the nurses to call her even though she wasn't on call. I was relieved to have her there but scared that she considered my delivery special. - After Jonathan was born, Mommy was very sweet to reward me with Zebra Popcornopolis Popcorn... delicious popcorn with chocolate drizzled on it... lots of carbs and sugar! I had been told that I could eat anything I wanted after the baby was born. When I got to recovery 2 hours later, the nurse said she was going to check my vitals and I asked her to check my blood sugar too. She reminded me that we didn't have to do that anymore since I had delivered. I mentioned that I didn't feel well... my blood sugar was 221! Oops!! I guess I had a little too much popcorn a little too soon after delivery! My OB prescribed 6 units of insulin and a high protein dinner. Thankfully that brought it right back down! :-) - Michelle brought James and Jack into the hospital on Sunday evening after we had gotten to recovery but she didn't tell them if baby was a boy or girl. When they got in the room, James asked and I told him baby was a boy and he was estatic! It was so cute to see his awesome reaction of yelling yeah and pumping his fist in the air! Jack on the other had was quite upset that we had left him and refused to get anywhere near Josh or I for quite some time. Very surprising considering he is such a Momma and Dadda boy but he eventually came around! :-) That's about all I can remember for now. It's amazing how much you forget so quickly! I will add pictures in the next post...