Showing posts with label Daniel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daniel. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Sunday, November 13, 2022
Pregnancy Journey and Daniel's Birth Story
We’ve wanted this sweet little boy for nearly 6 years. I remember distinctly having a conversation with Brad shortly after Evy’s second birthday. Brad was the one who brought it up and he felt like it was time for another baby. I was on the same page as far as wanting another baby. The only problem was that I had just started the previous month having pain all day everyday in my stomach. I was taking advil and tylenol to try to still function, but it was progressively getting worse. I couldn’t imagine have a baby growing inside with all the pain I was in. I said we could try for a baby after we figured out what was going on with my stomach.
Well, little did I know that was only the very beginning of a very long process to fix my stomach problems. It took 2 years of tests, procedures, medications, and eventually a trip to Mayo Clinic to get a diagnosis. It would take another 2 years to get my pain under control and get off all my medications that managed the problem. I finally felt ready to try for a baby. But then one day I was on a tall stool in our kitchen. The stool slipped from under me and I fell directly on my stomach on our countertop. That fall put me back at square one dealing with my stomach pain. I was so sad and angry at this new turn. I’d worked so hard to get ready to have a baby and be in a good place and here I was feeling like I was set back two years by my own accidental fall.
So I started again. I went back on the meds because I couldn’t control the pain otherwise. I kept up physical therapy and seeing a cognitive behavioral therapist. I did yoga everyday. Eventually my stomach stopped hurting so much so I went off the meds again. I should say that going off the meds is not a simple thing to do. It took me 9 months the first time and 6 months the second to get off the meds. You have to go really slow and even then the side effects are not fun. But I did it. Again. I wasn’t pain free, but I was ready to try for a baby. So 5 years after my chronic pain started, we tried for a baby.
Which brings us to this baby. I’ve felt so grateful and blessed to have this baby. It took so much work just to be ready to have him. And so much work to carry him. Miraculously, I didn’t have any of my chronic pain problems while I was carrying him. There were several things that kept me feeling pretty good this pregnancy including daily yoga, walks with the dog, going to physical therapy, and taking care of my mental health. Getting a little doggy who wanted to go on daily walks was super helpful in keeping me fit and my energy up. My physical therapist has also been amazing. I’ve had awful hip pain along with all the other regular pregnancy aches and pains and my physical therapist has kept my body going. And the daily yoga helped maintain what my physical therapist was able to do. I’ve never worked out this far into my pregnancy, but all told I felt pretty good until the end when I was just ready for this baby to come.
The night before my 38 week appointment, I started having contractions. Nothing with a consistent pattern, but they weren’t going away. It was late and I was so tired so I took a bath to ease them and went to bed early. I was up 5 times that night with contractions. After the morning rush and getting to my midwife appointment, my contractions were getting more consistent. My midwife checked me and I was at 3 cm, 60% effaced, -2 station. She could see I was having contractions and wondered if I was in early labor. We had also talked at my 37 week appointment about scheduling an elective induction at 39 weeks. She asked if I wanted to go ahead and schedule the induction if I looked to be in early labor. I said yes, I still wanted to schedule it since I’d had prodromal labor with Evy and this could be more of the same. For my mental health, I needed to know there was an end date whether I went into labor that day or if nothing happened. My midwife went ahead and scheduled it for a week later, right when I would hit 39 weeks. My midwife also offered to sneak me in for a quick appointment later that day to see if I was making any progress.
So I went home for a few hours. When I got home I was contracting about 5 minutes apart and by my 4 pm appointment I my contractions were more painful and about 3 1/2 minutes apart. It had been a long painful day. I was interested to see if this was actually something. Well at my appointment I’d only made it from 3 cm to 3 1/2 cm. She could tell there had been a change, but not much. She said it could be early labor or prodromal labor. She said if it did get worse that I could come into the hospital. If it was still prodromal labor there was a pain med they could give me at the hospital to ease my pain and let me sleep. She said that med usually either put people in full blown labor or their contractions would stop. I was glad to know that if I did have to go in to the hospital it wouldn’t be for nothing. I hated having to go in a second time to the hospital with prodromal labor with Evy since the staff made me feel like I was just making things up. So I went home with a plan, but by 9 pm my contractions stopped on their own.
So then for the next week nothing much happened. I had a few contractions on and off, but nothing more than that.
Then it was the day of my scheduled induction. I had to wake up early to call the hospital to make sure I should still come in for my induction. If they were too busy or had an emergency going on then they would delay the induction for another day. But luckily, they said they were ready for us! I let Brad know to go ahead and get ready. That day was also my 3 year mark of doing yoga everyday so I did do 10 minutes of yoga. I wasn’t sure if the baby was going to come before I made it to 3 years so it was kind of nice to hit that big milestone before having the baby. My sister had stayed the night to help in the morning with the kids. She made us breakfast and then we headed off to the hospital.
We checked in at the birth center, met our nurses, Maggie and Lisa, and got set up with a room. My midwife came in pretty soon after that and I had a cervical check to see where we were starting from. I was a 3, 70% effaced, and -1 station. My nurses went to go get some things set up so we took the opportunity while we were alone to have Brad give me a priesthood blessing. Brad’s always given me one when I go into labor and it’s so comforting to have that heavenly reassurance.
About 9:30 we went ahead and started the pitocin. The plan was to up my pitocin every 1/2 hour. My midwife recommended eating when I felt like it so we went ahead and ordered some food that morning though I didn’t want much then. After food, I spent some time on the yoga ball. The nurses taught Brad how to do some counterpressure on my back to help with the contractions which was pretty helpful. The pitocin started working pretty quickly. My nurse said I only needed a whiff of pitocin and my body was ready to have this baby!
It was about this time that we made some predictions. I guessed the baby would be 8lb 10oz. Brad said 8lb 4 oz. Brad asked the nurses when they thought this baby would be born. They thought they would probably get to see this baby born before they got off their shift at 7 pm.
By about 11:30 I was starting to feel nauseous. I had thrown up a ton with both of Nate and Evy so we wanted to stay ahead of that. The nurses went ahead and gave me some zofran. By 11:45 I was also getting in a good amount of pain, but we were also wanting to hold off a bit on the epidural to give the pitocin some time to work. So I got a dose of fentanyl. It was great. My body was able to relax and the pain eased a lot. In between the fentanyl and the zofran I was feeling pretty good again so we went ahead and had some lunch about 1. By about 2, I was starting to feel the contractions a lot again so I got a second dose of fentanyl. This dose didn’t do quite as much as the first dose, but I was more comfortable. I didn’t have fentanyl with Nate or Evy, but it was really nice to have that other option for pain control this time.
At 3, my midwife came back in. She wanted to see if she could get my contractions moving along so we did some hip releases. Basically I was laying on the very edge of the bed on my side and then my top leg was draped off the edge of the bed with my midwife and nurses helping me not fall off. We did that through 3 contractions on each side. I still had the fentanyl in my system, but those hip releases really hurt! It did exactly what the midwife wanted them to, intensify my contractions. After that I was ready for the epidural!
There was a bit of a hold up with getting the anesthesiologist up to my room, but he got there around 4. He did a great job and got in the epidural pretty quick. Brad was great to hold me while I got the epidural. The worst part was getting the numbing medication, but the catheter wasn’t too bad. The only problem with the epidural was that I got super cold and was shaking. My sweet nurse told me a trick she learned from a midwife to stick out your tongue with the shakes to get them to go away. That worked pretty well actually! None of us were quite sure why it works, but it did help control the shaking.
Time for another cervical check and I was 5-6 cm, 0 station. My midwife gave me the option to just see how I did with the epidural or we could go ahead and break my water to get things going faster. I wasn’t sure what I wanted yet, so we got me set up with a peanut ball and everyone left the room. Brad and I got some time to talk on our own. Brad was pretty surprised I hadn’t jumped at the opportunity to move this labor forward and get to met baby sooner. So after talking it over we were ready to have my water broken. We called back in the midwife and she broke my water about 5. There wasn’t a lot of fluid, but there was some meconium in the water. The baby didn’t like the change though. We did a lot of position changes and backed off the pitocin to try and make him more comfy. Eventually my midwife decided to do an amnioinfusion (basically adding back in some fluid to help cushion the baby.) It took about an hour, but the baby looked better with more fluid.
It was starting to creep closer to 7 and our wonderful nurses would be leaving. They had been so sweet all day and I was hoping they would get to see me through to the end. About 6:45, I was starting to struggle again with the contractions and feeling some pressure. The nurse called for the midwife to come check me and sure enough I was 10 cm and my body was wanting to push this baby out. My midwife asked what position I wanted to be in and I said I was happy with whatever would keep the baby happiest. He seemed to like me laying on my back best for his heart rate dips so that’s what we tried. So at 6:54 I started pushing. Brad is such an amazing help when I’m pushing. His awe and encouraging words help me so much. He was holding me and just so amazed at seeing his son being born. It didn’t take too long to get him here. When the baby’s head was born, he had his hand up by his face. The midwife helped pull baby’s arm out and then the rest of the baby was born. Daniel James Packer was born at 7:01pm, 7 minutes after I started pushing. Daniel got to come for skin to skin right away. He was screaming and I was bawling. I could hardly believe he was here and healthy. I’d wanted this baby for so so so long. I was so happy and I cried for so long. Brad said he felt the Spirit so strong when Daniel was born. We were able to just soak him in, just the 3 of us. It was so nice that the nurses let us have that time together.
I’d been pretty worried I’d have problems with placenta detatching like I did with Evy, but luckily it came out no problem. Danny’s birth was pretty different than Nate or Evy’s. It was so nice to have the induction and be ready for a specific day. I didn’t throw up once with Danny, but I threw up a lot with Nate and Evy. I also didn’t have any tears with Danny, but I did with Evy and Nate. Nate I pushed for 30 minutes, 20 with Evy, and Danny was 7 minutes. It was by far the easiest delivery of the 3. Nate and Evy were born in the middle of the night and Danny was born during the evening so I was a lot less tired by the end of it.
I was so happy my wonderful nurses got to see Daniel being born before they left their shift. They stayed for awhile after and helped with newborn assessments. He was 8 lbs even and 21 inches long. And luckily he didn’t have any issues with the meconium. Brad was once again the closest on the baby’s size. He’s won every time!
It was after birth that we finalized what we wanted his name to be. Daniel was the name we talked about for a baby boy when we were dating and have always loved. We thought about that name for Nate, but it didn’t feel right for him. But it fits our Danny. James is after my grandpa. He even looks a bit like him.
We’re so happy that little Daniel is here! He’s been such an angel baby and has the sweetest temperament. He’s been eating and sleeping like a champ. I’m just loving soaking up all the baby smells, noises and snuggles. I’ve waited so long, I’m soaking up as much of this sweet little Danny boy as I can.
Well, little did I know that was only the very beginning of a very long process to fix my stomach problems. It took 2 years of tests, procedures, medications, and eventually a trip to Mayo Clinic to get a diagnosis. It would take another 2 years to get my pain under control and get off all my medications that managed the problem. I finally felt ready to try for a baby. But then one day I was on a tall stool in our kitchen. The stool slipped from under me and I fell directly on my stomach on our countertop. That fall put me back at square one dealing with my stomach pain. I was so sad and angry at this new turn. I’d worked so hard to get ready to have a baby and be in a good place and here I was feeling like I was set back two years by my own accidental fall.
So I started again. I went back on the meds because I couldn’t control the pain otherwise. I kept up physical therapy and seeing a cognitive behavioral therapist. I did yoga everyday. Eventually my stomach stopped hurting so much so I went off the meds again. I should say that going off the meds is not a simple thing to do. It took me 9 months the first time and 6 months the second to get off the meds. You have to go really slow and even then the side effects are not fun. But I did it. Again. I wasn’t pain free, but I was ready to try for a baby. So 5 years after my chronic pain started, we tried for a baby.
Which brings us to this baby. I’ve felt so grateful and blessed to have this baby. It took so much work just to be ready to have him. And so much work to carry him. Miraculously, I didn’t have any of my chronic pain problems while I was carrying him. There were several things that kept me feeling pretty good this pregnancy including daily yoga, walks with the dog, going to physical therapy, and taking care of my mental health. Getting a little doggy who wanted to go on daily walks was super helpful in keeping me fit and my energy up. My physical therapist has also been amazing. I’ve had awful hip pain along with all the other regular pregnancy aches and pains and my physical therapist has kept my body going. And the daily yoga helped maintain what my physical therapist was able to do. I’ve never worked out this far into my pregnancy, but all told I felt pretty good until the end when I was just ready for this baby to come.
The night before my 38 week appointment, I started having contractions. Nothing with a consistent pattern, but they weren’t going away. It was late and I was so tired so I took a bath to ease them and went to bed early. I was up 5 times that night with contractions. After the morning rush and getting to my midwife appointment, my contractions were getting more consistent. My midwife checked me and I was at 3 cm, 60% effaced, -2 station. She could see I was having contractions and wondered if I was in early labor. We had also talked at my 37 week appointment about scheduling an elective induction at 39 weeks. She asked if I wanted to go ahead and schedule the induction if I looked to be in early labor. I said yes, I still wanted to schedule it since I’d had prodromal labor with Evy and this could be more of the same. For my mental health, I needed to know there was an end date whether I went into labor that day or if nothing happened. My midwife went ahead and scheduled it for a week later, right when I would hit 39 weeks. My midwife also offered to sneak me in for a quick appointment later that day to see if I was making any progress.
So I went home for a few hours. When I got home I was contracting about 5 minutes apart and by my 4 pm appointment I my contractions were more painful and about 3 1/2 minutes apart. It had been a long painful day. I was interested to see if this was actually something. Well at my appointment I’d only made it from 3 cm to 3 1/2 cm. She could tell there had been a change, but not much. She said it could be early labor or prodromal labor. She said if it did get worse that I could come into the hospital. If it was still prodromal labor there was a pain med they could give me at the hospital to ease my pain and let me sleep. She said that med usually either put people in full blown labor or their contractions would stop. I was glad to know that if I did have to go in to the hospital it wouldn’t be for nothing. I hated having to go in a second time to the hospital with prodromal labor with Evy since the staff made me feel like I was just making things up. So I went home with a plan, but by 9 pm my contractions stopped on their own.
So then for the next week nothing much happened. I had a few contractions on and off, but nothing more than that.
Then it was the day of my scheduled induction. I had to wake up early to call the hospital to make sure I should still come in for my induction. If they were too busy or had an emergency going on then they would delay the induction for another day. But luckily, they said they were ready for us! I let Brad know to go ahead and get ready. That day was also my 3 year mark of doing yoga everyday so I did do 10 minutes of yoga. I wasn’t sure if the baby was going to come before I made it to 3 years so it was kind of nice to hit that big milestone before having the baby. My sister had stayed the night to help in the morning with the kids. She made us breakfast and then we headed off to the hospital.
We checked in at the birth center, met our nurses, Maggie and Lisa, and got set up with a room. My midwife came in pretty soon after that and I had a cervical check to see where we were starting from. I was a 3, 70% effaced, and -1 station. My nurses went to go get some things set up so we took the opportunity while we were alone to have Brad give me a priesthood blessing. Brad’s always given me one when I go into labor and it’s so comforting to have that heavenly reassurance.
About 9:30 we went ahead and started the pitocin. The plan was to up my pitocin every 1/2 hour. My midwife recommended eating when I felt like it so we went ahead and ordered some food that morning though I didn’t want much then. After food, I spent some time on the yoga ball. The nurses taught Brad how to do some counterpressure on my back to help with the contractions which was pretty helpful. The pitocin started working pretty quickly. My nurse said I only needed a whiff of pitocin and my body was ready to have this baby!
It was about this time that we made some predictions. I guessed the baby would be 8lb 10oz. Brad said 8lb 4 oz. Brad asked the nurses when they thought this baby would be born. They thought they would probably get to see this baby born before they got off their shift at 7 pm.
By about 11:30 I was starting to feel nauseous. I had thrown up a ton with both of Nate and Evy so we wanted to stay ahead of that. The nurses went ahead and gave me some zofran. By 11:45 I was also getting in a good amount of pain, but we were also wanting to hold off a bit on the epidural to give the pitocin some time to work. So I got a dose of fentanyl. It was great. My body was able to relax and the pain eased a lot. In between the fentanyl and the zofran I was feeling pretty good again so we went ahead and had some lunch about 1. By about 2, I was starting to feel the contractions a lot again so I got a second dose of fentanyl. This dose didn’t do quite as much as the first dose, but I was more comfortable. I didn’t have fentanyl with Nate or Evy, but it was really nice to have that other option for pain control this time.
At 3, my midwife came back in. She wanted to see if she could get my contractions moving along so we did some hip releases. Basically I was laying on the very edge of the bed on my side and then my top leg was draped off the edge of the bed with my midwife and nurses helping me not fall off. We did that through 3 contractions on each side. I still had the fentanyl in my system, but those hip releases really hurt! It did exactly what the midwife wanted them to, intensify my contractions. After that I was ready for the epidural!
There was a bit of a hold up with getting the anesthesiologist up to my room, but he got there around 4. He did a great job and got in the epidural pretty quick. Brad was great to hold me while I got the epidural. The worst part was getting the numbing medication, but the catheter wasn’t too bad. The only problem with the epidural was that I got super cold and was shaking. My sweet nurse told me a trick she learned from a midwife to stick out your tongue with the shakes to get them to go away. That worked pretty well actually! None of us were quite sure why it works, but it did help control the shaking.
Time for another cervical check and I was 5-6 cm, 0 station. My midwife gave me the option to just see how I did with the epidural or we could go ahead and break my water to get things going faster. I wasn’t sure what I wanted yet, so we got me set up with a peanut ball and everyone left the room. Brad and I got some time to talk on our own. Brad was pretty surprised I hadn’t jumped at the opportunity to move this labor forward and get to met baby sooner. So after talking it over we were ready to have my water broken. We called back in the midwife and she broke my water about 5. There wasn’t a lot of fluid, but there was some meconium in the water. The baby didn’t like the change though. We did a lot of position changes and backed off the pitocin to try and make him more comfy. Eventually my midwife decided to do an amnioinfusion (basically adding back in some fluid to help cushion the baby.) It took about an hour, but the baby looked better with more fluid.
It was starting to creep closer to 7 and our wonderful nurses would be leaving. They had been so sweet all day and I was hoping they would get to see me through to the end. About 6:45, I was starting to struggle again with the contractions and feeling some pressure. The nurse called for the midwife to come check me and sure enough I was 10 cm and my body was wanting to push this baby out. My midwife asked what position I wanted to be in and I said I was happy with whatever would keep the baby happiest. He seemed to like me laying on my back best for his heart rate dips so that’s what we tried. So at 6:54 I started pushing. Brad is such an amazing help when I’m pushing. His awe and encouraging words help me so much. He was holding me and just so amazed at seeing his son being born. It didn’t take too long to get him here. When the baby’s head was born, he had his hand up by his face. The midwife helped pull baby’s arm out and then the rest of the baby was born. Daniel James Packer was born at 7:01pm, 7 minutes after I started pushing. Daniel got to come for skin to skin right away. He was screaming and I was bawling. I could hardly believe he was here and healthy. I’d wanted this baby for so so so long. I was so happy and I cried for so long. Brad said he felt the Spirit so strong when Daniel was born. We were able to just soak him in, just the 3 of us. It was so nice that the nurses let us have that time together.
I’d been pretty worried I’d have problems with placenta detatching like I did with Evy, but luckily it came out no problem. Danny’s birth was pretty different than Nate or Evy’s. It was so nice to have the induction and be ready for a specific day. I didn’t throw up once with Danny, but I threw up a lot with Nate and Evy. I also didn’t have any tears with Danny, but I did with Evy and Nate. Nate I pushed for 30 minutes, 20 with Evy, and Danny was 7 minutes. It was by far the easiest delivery of the 3. Nate and Evy were born in the middle of the night and Danny was born during the evening so I was a lot less tired by the end of it.
I was so happy my wonderful nurses got to see Daniel being born before they left their shift. They stayed for awhile after and helped with newborn assessments. He was 8 lbs even and 21 inches long. And luckily he didn’t have any issues with the meconium. Brad was once again the closest on the baby’s size. He’s won every time!
It was after birth that we finalized what we wanted his name to be. Daniel was the name we talked about for a baby boy when we were dating and have always loved. We thought about that name for Nate, but it didn’t feel right for him. But it fits our Danny. James is after my grandpa. He even looks a bit like him.
We’re so happy that little Daniel is here! He’s been such an angel baby and has the sweetest temperament. He’s been eating and sleeping like a champ. I’m just loving soaking up all the baby smells, noises and snuggles. I’ve waited so long, I’m soaking up as much of this sweet little Danny boy as I can.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
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