Bringing Home Baby: Part 3 - Lilly Meets Bennett

Tyson made sure I was settled in the hospital and Bennett was doing well before he went and picked up Lilly and brought her home for the night. We decided to let her have a good night sleep before having her come to the hospital. The next morning Tyson did a good job of getting her ready for the day and making her hair look nice. Then they came to the hospital. When Lilly walked into the room she wasn’t shy at all. She was excited to see me and jumped right into my bed. We introduced her to Bennett. The first thing she said when she saw him was ‘Oh Cute’. Lilly says ‘Oh Cute’ in a really cute way and she says it about a lot of things. It is very endearing. We asked her who the baby was and she said ‘Baby Bennett’. We spent the next couple of hours together as a new family of four. Lilly liked playing with the buttons on the bed, holding the baby, and watching TV. She also ate ½ of my lunch. It was a good thing I ordered a lot of food.  

I wish we took a picture of Lilly in her shirt. It says "I am the Big Sister".

I love this picture because Lilly can't keep her eyes off Bennett.

To make Lilly feel like it was a special day for her we gave her a present and said it was from Bennett. She excitedly opened a brand new baby doll. She then wanted to swaddle the baby doll up just like Bennett. She had a baby and mommy had a baby. Unfortunately, at home she would just rather make Bennett her baby doll.  

These are the flowers Lilly and Tyson brought me.

After Lilly ate my lunch Tyson took her home for a nap and then went and picked up my sister Angela and her little boy Logan up from the airport. After they stopped to eat they all came to visit me at the hospital. They wouldn’t allow Logan into my room since he was under 12 and wasn’t a sibling so Tyson took him grocery shopping while Angie and Lilly stayed to visit. It was really nice of Tyson to let Angie hang out with me for a couple of hours since it had been awhile since we had seen each other. I wish I would have taken a picture of Angie with Bennett since she was the only hospital visitor we had.

Tyson took this picture for our brother-in-law Tyler (Logan's Dad). Tyler went to University of Nebraska which is a rival of University of Iowa. Tyson thought it would be funny to wrap Logan up in Iowa merchandise.

Although Angie was the only one to visit the hospital we did get to video chat with Grandma and Grandpa Ballard and Grandma Harris.

Grandma and Grandpa Ballard

The next day was Sunday and Angie took both of the kids to church so Tyson was able to come and help me get checked out and ready to go home. The last day in the hospital is always a whirlwind. You have a whole bunch of doctors come and check you and the baby to make sure you are ready to leave, the social worker stops by to ask you survey questions, you have to fill out all of your paper work, etc. etc, and we had a photographer (provided by the hospital) come and take newborn pictures. You are also a little anxious to get home but you are always a little nervous to leave and no longer have the nurses there helping you. Luckily, I got one more hospital lunch before leaving. I love free hospital food.  

Lilly and Logan ready for church.

Bennett’s Newborn Hospital Pictures:

 

 

Bennett in his coming home outfit

 

We went on our way home around 1:00 pm. Once we got home we had 3 and ½ hours before Lilly got back from church and we officially had two children to take care of.

 

Here Comes Baby – Part 2: Hospital

Since we had to be at the hospital by 7:00 am it was an early morning for us. We dropped Lilly off at our friends from the ward. She went running into the house and hugged her friend and said “Juliette, I missed you”. I found it funny because although she likes Juliette and they play at nursery they don't really play together much outside of nursery. It probably made Juliette feel good that she was so excited to see her. I guess I should probably set up a play date if she is getting that excited. The drop off went really smoothly. Lilly didn’t cry and was really excited to spend the day at the Flake’s house. We tried to prepare Lilly as much as we could about what was going to happen. She seemed to understand and was okay with the whole situation.

After we dropped Lilly off we headed to the hospital, checked in, and got everything started. I was given an antibiotic that I needed and Pitocin (when Pitocin is used prior to delivery, it is used either to induce labor, or to augment labor that has slowed down or stalled completely). I had to be on the antibiotic for 4 hours before they would break my water so the first 4 hours was spent trying to kick start my labor. I started feeling contractions about an hour after they started the Pitocin. I spent time sitting up, walking around, and sitting on the labor ball. I found the labor ball to be the most ‘helpful’ to increase my contractions. It was also the most painful since it was increasing my contractions (strength, length, and time between) and I didn’t last long on it.   

I was really worried that the labor induction wouldn’t work and they would send me home. I kept asking my nurse if she thought it was working. She would tell me I was fine and not to worry. I still worried…

The last picture of me pregnant with Bennett

 

My doctor was Dr. Martin and she had a 4 year medical resident going around with her. Both of them were very good. Around 1:00 pm they broke my water. I had asked for the epidural before they broke my water but I think they forgot that request. They didn’t want to give me my epidural until they saw changes but if they broke my water then they were planning on me staying so I am not sure why they didn’t do the epidural before – other then they forgot and I wasn’t being whinny enough.

After my water was broken contractions became even worse and I asked for my epidural. The nurse asked me what level my pain was at I think I said a 9 or 10. At that time Tyson told me I was not at a 10 and that if I was a 10 I would be screaming. He later apologized for trying to tell me what level my pain was at – like he knew. They sent in the Anesthesiologist. I did not like my Anesthesiologist. I thought he took forever to administer the drug and he did it different then my doctor did with Lilly. The good thing is it didn’t wear off half way through, on half of my body like the last one did.

I spent the next several hours feeling really good and everything was going smoothly. I even got a little sleep. I was starving though and itchy. I had skipped breakfast because I didn’t know if I had to fast before and no one told me. They gave me some Jello but I was still really hungry. I am not sure why I got so itchy and neither did the doctor. I didn’t have hives or a rash. They were going to give me some Benadryl but kept forgetting. I decided just to ignore the itchiness and not to take medication for it.    

As the time got closer to deliver I started feeling sick. I started shivering and feeling nauseous. The doctor came to put an internal monitor in for measuring the strength of my contractions. During this procedure I was feeling really sick. I told the nurse I was going to throw up and needed a bowl immediately. She kind of ignored me. By this time my first nurse’s shift was over and I had a new one. I didn’t like my second nurse as much as I liked my first one. Since she ignored me my doctor got me a bowl and I immediately threw up. The doctor felt really bad for me. She said I was such an easy going and happy patient that it was hard for her to see me starting to get uncomfortable.

A small side note: In all my life I don’t think I have ever been described as ‘easy going’. However, it seems like the older I get the more people use ‘easy going’ to describe me. I am not sure if my personality has changed as I have gotten older or if I am just good at reacting to things calmly. (For example: Hey, Sister Harris, you now have 10, 4 year olds in your primary class that you teach all by yourself, 9 months pregnant…Instead of crying I just say “ok”.) I think anyone who has played card games (or any games) with me wouldn’t call me ‘easy going’.

When they put in the monitor they also checked me and I was dilated to a 5. Tyson was getting hungry so I told him he should go and grab something for dinner. He waited around for about 30 minutes. By this time I was starting to feel gross so I told him to hurry up and go. I was upping my meds and I kept telling my nurse that I was uncomfortable and someone should check me. Since they just checked me and I was only at a 5 she kept blowing me off saying the doctor would come in when she could. About 10 minutes of feeling gross the doctor came in. She said she had a ‘feeling’ she needed to come and check me. When she was walking to my room she passed Tyson and told him he would be fine going to get something to eat. Then she came in and checked me. She was shocked to find that she could feel the baby’s head and he was coming. It was a good thing she had a ‘feeling’. I called Tyson immediately and told him to come back. If he was hungry he would have to grab something from the cafeteria.

The same time I was getting close to delivery there were two other patients of my doctor also close to delivery. However, I was the furthest along so I got to go first. One other patient had a midwife so if she delivered she would have the midwife to help. It didn’t take very many pushes to deliver Lilly so I assumed Bennett would be fast too. I was correct. I pushed about a dozen times and Bennett arrived. I think it would have been even faster except my doctor let her med student do the delivery. If Dr. Martin would have been doing the delivery I think it would about taken ½ as much time. The after stuff took longer too then it should have because of the med student. She did a good job though. The actual delivery went very smoothly and the mood in the room was very light. Tyson didn’t even get grossed out this time.  

Bennett arrived at 7:07 pm on August 30, 2013. He weighed 7 lbs 15 ounces and was 20 ½ inches long. That is exactly 1 pound and 1 inch bigger then Lilly. He came into the world with his eyes open and was very alert. He was also very handsome. He was even more handsome once he got a bath.

 

Here Comes Baby – Part 1: Preparations

The week before I had Bennett I spent a lot of time worrying. My sister, Angela, was planning to fly out on August 31^st which was Bennett’s due date. When I first told her when she should come I thought Bennett was going to be early and I didn’t worry about her arrival date. However, as the time approached for Bennett to come, I became more and more stressed that Bennett would be a late arrival. Since Angela works and has 3 kids of her own at home she could not change her arrival date so I began talking to my doctor about inducting labor. They told me it would be possible if my body was ready. They would check me on my last appointment and we would make a decision at that point. So the waiting began.

The first of the week before the baby came was spent trying to keep busy and distracted. Tyson took about ½ of the week off from work so we did a lot of family things. We both tried to spend as much time as we could with Lilly. After all, it wouldn’t be the three of us for much longer. I worked on cleaning up the house and getting it ready for guest. I was hoping that the hard work would make the baby come, it didn’t. Here we are playing with Lilly's Play-doh.

 

I had my doctor’s appointment on Wednesday. The doctor checked me and I wasn’t really ready to have the baby. However, she said I could still schedule the induction. She thought it would work because it wasn’t my first baby. I was hoping to schedule the induction for Monday since Angela would be here but since it was Labor Day the hospital wouldn’t allow it. They gave me the option to schedule on Friday the 30^th or Tuesday, September 3^rd.  I didn’t have anyone to watch Lilly on the 30^th but if I did it on this date I would have the doctor that I liked (in Iowa you get the doctor that is on call to deliver your baby – not the doctor of your choice). If I picked the 3^rd to be induced then I wouldn’t be home for very long with that baby while Angela was here. So, I went ahead and picked the 30^th.

I personally did not want to be induced. I think that babies should stay in as long they want unless there are medical issues (or tax reasons). If there weren’t time issues I would have waited. I spent the rest of Wednesday and Thursday getting everything ready and hoping the baby would come on his own. Tyson spent the time buying Lilly a fish tank and fish – either he was in denial about the baby or thought Lilly needed something super special for what was coming.

 

We now have 5 florescent colored fish that Lilly loves. She also loves her submarine. She cried when we put it in the tank. Tyson and her feed the fish each morning and night. She doesn't forget. When she see's things on TV she likes, she tells me she wants it to put in her fish tank. Luckily, none of the fish have died yet.