Eastons in the Mid-West: January 2018

We have a baby girl! Addison Isabel Easton was born on December 1, 2017 at 8pm, weighing 8 lbs 1oz and measuring 21 inches long.

My pregnancy went pretty well. Varicose veins made the last ten weeks of pregnancy uncomfortable but, luckily, we had cooler weather for most of that so it wasn't unbearably hot wearing knee high compression socks every day. We chose not to find out if the baby was a boy or a girl at the 20 week ultrasound. It made buying baby clothes a little tricky (sorry Mom!) but it made the birth all the more exciting.

Around 32 weeks along, we discovered the baby was not head down (AKA breech presentation). This wasn't a big concern yet as babies can still be moving around at that point, but I started making efforts to get the baby to turn so it didn't become an issue. Between doing Spinning Babies stretches, going to a chiropractor, getting a priesthood blessing, and trying Chinese moxibustion, something helped the baby to flip around 35 weeks and stay head down the rest of the pregnancy.

My mom planned to fly from California on November 29th to help with the birth. My due date was December 5th and since I've had babies born at 38 and 39 weeks, she was worried she wouldn't get here to Indiana soon enough. At 37 weeks I was already 3 cm dilated and 50% effaced so it was a valid concern. Luckily, I tried my hardest not to go into labor (if that's even possible) by taking it easy, keeping my feet up and not cooking Thanksgiving dinner (we have wonderful friends who invited us to eat with them). My house was not nearly as clean and organized as I wanted it to be when my mom arrived, but I was still pregnant, so mission accomplished!

On the morning of Friday December 1st, I started having contractions around 9:30am. I was cautiously optimistic that this was the start of labor, so I started timing them. Right away, they were coming every 5-7 minutes. From 10-11am, they were coming every 4 minutes. Since I tested positive for Group B strep again, I wanted to get to the hospital sooner rather than laboring mostly at home. I wanted to get 2 full doses of antibiotics in (with 4 hours between doses) so they wouldn't have to treat the baby for infection after birth.

I called the hospital to speak to the midwife on-call, who happened to be the same midwife who delivered Bennett. I had seen her at my appointment the day before and she knew I was close to labor. She asked if I could still speak through contractions. I told her I can usually speak through my contractions right up until the end so that wouldn't really help with gauging progress. She agreed that this was likely labor. The hospital was very full that day, so she asked me to come to the outpatient office (where I normally went for visits) rather than the hospital to be checked since they didn't even have space in L&D triage.

Mckay and I packed some things up and we left, while my mom stayed home with Bennett. We stopped at Jimmy Johns to pick up some lunch on the way over to the hospital, knowing it could be a while before we ate again. We got to the outpatient building before 1pm. At this point, the contractions were coming every 3 minutes. They were increasing in intensity but still very manageable. After being checked (I think I was about 6cm?), my midwife said they were getting a room ready for us and we made our way over to the hospital.

Final belly shot at 39 weeks, 3 days.

We got settled in and I was hooked up to monitors for some initial monitoring of the baby while I answered a billion questions I know they already have answers to on file. ("No, my address hasn't changed since my last appointment an hour ago.") I could tell the nurse I had was new to working with the midwives, who favor a low intervention and hands-off approach as directed by the laboring mother. After I got the first dose of antibiotics around 2pm, I asked the nurse when I could be unhooked from the fetal monitors and IV. She said that those would stay throughout labor. I replied, "No, I want to get up and walk around." She went to check with the midwife who assured me I could disconnect (keeping a saline lock on my hand for the next dose of antibiotics). There were a few other times when the nurse would say to for me to do something, only for me to check with the midwife to find that wasn't the case. So when the nurse told me I needed to lay down in the bed with monitors on because the baby's heart rate wasn't responding to contractions well, I was hesitant to believe her. When my midwife came in and said the same thing a few seconds later, I was more willing to comply.

After about 15-20 minutes of laying on my side in bed and drinking a sugary soda to wake the baby up, they were no longer concerned and I was able to get up and move around again. My mom and Bennett came over to the hospital to visit for a while. Bennett seemed very unphased by being at the hospital and seeing me there in a hospital gown. He was very sweet and well behaved. Around 3:30pm, my mom left with Bennett to pick up the other kids from the bus stop and take them all over to the Madsen's house to play and be watched while she came back over to the hospital with us.

We played card games and watched some TV while we passed the time. Contractions were still coming every 2-3 minutes and I had to focus on breathing through some of them, but I was still feeling pretty great. With the hospital being so packed and busy that day, the nurses and midwife had lots of other people to tend to. And since I was feeling great and didn't need much attention, my midwife didn't spend a ton of time in our room like she had in the past since there were other moms who needed her more.

We had a few good ideas for girl names, but still did not have a boy name we could agree on. We spent a good part of the afternoon/evening spouting off as many boy names as we could, each name more ridiculous than the last. We made little progress on actual candidates.

It was time for the second does of antibiotics after 6pm. With that second dose in, we could consider options to speed things along a little, like breaking my water. I wanted the boys to be able to come over to visit that night and meet the baby, and I knew that labor would go very quickly for me once my water broke, so I was strongly considering it. First, my midwife said she would have to check with someone (the nurses desk maybe?) to see if it was ok to break my water. I was confused at first on why she would need anyone's permission other than mine, but I think it had to do with how full the hospital was. If there was no space for me to have a recovery room in the Mother/Baby wing, then they probably couldn't let her "speed up" my labor for no medical reason. She got permission and broke my water.

At some time during the antibiotic dose and the breaking of my water they brought the inflatable birthing tub into the room and began filling it. Mckay took over the job of filling it with water and making sure the temperature was just right. Once it was filled I got in. Contractions were picking up in intensity and I loved how the warm water helped to diffuse that intensity. I labored for about an hour in the tub.

I'd guess it was around 7:30/7:40pm (I wasn't paying attention to the clock so I'm a little hazy on the timeline) that contractions became very intense. I asked for the TV to be turned off and really had to focus on calm breathing to get through them. My contractions quickly went from being manageable to very uncomfortable. It was around the time that Mckay's outlandish baby name suggestions stopped being funny that I knew the baby would be coming soon, so I asked Mckay to stop with the names and to fetch the midwife. I was beginning to feel pressure. I've previously pushed babies out very quickly, in under 5 minutes, and had some tearing with that. This time, I tried really hard to push slowly to avoid tearing. I'm not sure how slow or fast I was but after some minutes of very intense pressure the baby was out at 8pm exactly!

I pulled the baby quickly up out of the water and onto my chest. It was such a big relief to be done with labor and to have a sweet baby in my arms that I momentarily forgot that we didn't know if the baby was a boy or a girl. I pulled her away from my chest for a quick second and saw that we had a girl! I think I said, "Is that a girl?! Is this a girl?!" I think being exhausted, worn out and hungry, I wasn't sure I could trust my eyes. I thought we would be having a girl, but part of me didn't want to think it could really be true because I didn't want to be disappointed by whatever child we were blessed with. So when I saw she was in fact a girl, I was overcome with joy. Mckay and I both cried a little.

I don't think I've ever cried after labor before.

We took turns snuggling her while they checked us both over. I didn't need any stitches this time which really made a huge difference in how quickly I recovered. I was feeling pretty great after only a few days.

Shortly after Addison was born, my mom went to pick the boys up from the Madsen's house and brought them to the hospital. She told them the baby was born but didn't say if if she was a boy or girl. They had all been hoping for a sister. When they walked into the room and heard she was a girl, Dallin started jumping up and down, cheering, "I knew it! I knew she was a girl!!" They all took turns holding her.

I'll take a moment here for a shout out to my wonderful friend Maren. She watched the kids all afternoon/evening for us at a moment's notice (along with her own 4 kids), fed them dinner, and sent some homemade cookies with them to the hospital. You can see the bag of cookies in the above picture, on the left side of the window. Those cookies were so delicious and especially welcome as the first thing I ate post labor. Maren is the best!

Mckay is also the best for going out to pick up some food for us to eat and continuing the tradition of bringing me ice cream after delivery.

The nurses told us that we would likely stay the night in the delivery room instead of moving to a recovery room 2 hours post birth (the standard) because the hospital was so full and rooms were limited. Delivery rooms are bigger anyway so I was perfectly fine with not moving. Mckay, Addison and I settled in for the night. Around 2AM, our nurse came in, turned on the lights, waking us, and exclaimed in what was probably a normal voice but loud for 2AM, "Great news! There is a recovery room open for you in the mother/baby wing so we're going to move you there right now." I can only imagine how my face looked, but's Mckay's definitely did not look like this was great news at all. We groggily gathered our things and changed rooms. The nurse said when the room became available she said, "My patients get that room! They've been here the longest." She kept talking about how she really "fought" for us. She really shouldn't have.

The rest of the hospital stay was pretty uneventful. They checked her biliruben level twice and it was zero both times. The nurse thought the handheld testing device was broken because it only showed a zero. Then she realized that was the correct number. Addison was a very red baby!

When Bennett was born and I was GBS positive for his delivery, the hospital made a big deal about letting us go home before the standard 48 hour hospital stay. (You can read about his birth story HERE.) Being GBS positive again for Addison's birth, we wondered if it was worth fighting the hospital policy again or just waiting the full 48 hours until 8pm to go home. Sunday morning, I was cleared by my midwife to go home and the on-call pediatrician came in to evaluate Addison. We asked the pediatrician if we could go home early, and he nonchalantly said, "Sure, I don't see a problem with that. She looks great." We were amazed! Clearly, the hospital "policy" that was thrown in our face so much last time is more of a guideline.

It always takes longer than I think to pack up, go through all the discharge information and do the newborn screening heel stick, so we got home from the hospital around 6pm.

The boys all love holding her every chance they get.

The first night she was home, Bennett picked her up by himself while we weren't looking, carried her to a couch and set her down. I saw the very end of it happening. After recovering from the mild panic attack I had in that moment and wishing I hadn't yelled at him, it occurred to me that Bennett hasn't been around babies much and genuinely didn't know what the right/wrong things are for him to do with the baby. We've since had many discussion with all of them about being gentle with her.

My mom stayed for two weeks and it was a big help. She took care of the older kids, helping them pack lunches and get to school every morning. She played with Bennett and kept him busy, and she kept us all well fed. She took care of Addison late at night so I could get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. She is great.