Hello, Jack!

No, baby boy did not come on his own. I really, really wanted him, too. Things went so well with Norah coming on her own, and I was afraid that inducing would just mess things up. Plus, it was so exciting to think that, at any moment, I could go into labor (though I knew that wasn't super likely considering how little progress my doctor had said I made three weeks in a row). Knowing when the baby would arrive kind of took some of the fun out of it for me. But I REALLY couldn't imagine going on with being pregnant any longer. So, my doctor and I set the date to be induced for Monday, May 11, at noon.

Right before we headed to the hospital. (Actually, we went to Best Buy first to get a birthday present for Norah, then we headed to the hospital.) I was so huge!

About to start the pitocin.

Okay, so here's a little bit of the birth story. Feel free to skip ahead to the pictures if you don't feel like reading.

I really had nothing to worry about with being induced. Things all went smoothly. It was actually incredibly boring. Rich and I brought "The Office" to watch, but even that only kept us entertained for so long. Also, the A/C was broken on the labor and delivery half of the hospital. It wasn't too hot outside, but we were on an upper floor and started to feel it after a while. They did bring in a fan, which helped, but we still noticed a huge difference when we headed over to the maternity ward on the other half of the hospital later that night. My epidural started to wear off on one side towards the end, so they upped the dosage, which helped and also made me ridiculously numb on the opposite side. But that's about it.

By about 9:45 that night, baby boy was just about here. My doctor came, and I pushed for maybe 15 minutes before Jack Helding Nelson made his arrival at 10:08.

The first thing I noticed, though, was that his color looked completely different from Norah's when she was born - he was really blue. I found out later that the cord had been wrapped around his neck and he'd swallowed some gunk on his way out.

We'd planned to do skin to skin right when he came, but they had to change plans. They placed him on me and began to massage him, pushing crazy hard. I realized later they were trying to get him to cry to get his breathing going. He'd cry a little, and his color would get a little more normal, but then he'd stop crying again and he'd get really pale, almost gray.

When the doctor realized that the cord was around his neck during delivery, he'd called in a special team in case things were serious. He'd told Rich not to worry when a bunch of people came frantically running in. When they couldn't get some good color from Jack after he was born, they took him to the warming table where they worked on him a little and were able to get things going pretty normally. They called in a couple specialists, but it seemed as soon as one would get to the room, everything would stabilize. Then his heart rate would spike or his breathing would dip, they'd call in another specialist, and things would stabilize again.

The doctor and nurse kept reassuring me that there wasn't really anything to worry about, that they just wanted to get him steady before I held him and they did all of the measurements and stuff. I was never really worried because I figured they'd take him out of the room if there was a real problem. I just kept my eyes on the warming table, waiting for my turn. When I finally got to hold Jack, his color was back to normal, and he was all snuggled up in his blanket.

It took a long time to finally get his measurements. When my doctor delivered him, he said that he was a pretty good-sized boy. I didn't know what that meant. I was SHOCKED when I finally found out: 9 pounds, 11 ounces! (FYI, that's what I weighed when I was born. I guess it was payback.) He was 20.5 inches long (although it got recorded as 19.5 inches on some documents, too). My doctor had already gone by the time they weighed Jack, so he was pretty surprised at his weight when I told him the next day!

I knew he was going to be big, but I thought maybe in the high 8-pound range. I had no idea he'd be close to 10 pounds! There's no way I'm going the full 40 weeks with any future kids! (Although, I can't really complain too much because I did have an epidural. My mom delivered me sans medication. You go, Mom! And, my sister-in-law Carolyn delivered a baby over 10 pounds. It definitely could have been worse.) I'm scared to think how big he would have been if I had waited to go into labor naturally.

Jack's first picture, on the warming table, still trying to get things going normally for him.

Finally all cleaned off and ready to snuggle

This kid was practically born with a scowl. This look really made him look so much different than Norah.

When we had Norah, the only family around were Rich's parents, so they were our only visitors in the hospital. With so much family in Utah, we had a lot more visitors this time around that came over the next two days.

Our first visitors were my mom and Norah. She loved him from the start. We couldn't get her to hold him (she still won't), but she was happy to give him a kiss!

 We were so excited to see our visitors and have them meet Jack for the first time!

We were in the hospital for two days and headed home on May 13. When it was time to get Jack dressed to go home, I was surprised and relieved to find that he did indeed fit in newborn clothes, meaning he actually had something to wear.

 (All of these pictures have him with his binky. That's kind of weird because he didn't much care for it in the hospital and, even now, he still doesn't really love it.)

So, that's a little bit about how Jack was born and how Rich and I became parents of two! Stay tuned for even more pictures of the (not so) little guy!

Waiting for Baby

Basically the first half of May was spent just waiting for our baby boy to get here. I was so sure that I would deliver him early because I could tell he was pretty big and Norah was born 5 days early.

As the due date got closer, I kept getting more anxious and miserable. I asked my doctor his opinion about inducing at 39 weeks, but he told me he would rather wait it out. I decided to just keep on waiting.

Not doing that again.

But we'll get to that in a future post. For now, here are some pictures from our waiting days.

Rich and I decided that we needed to officially make ourselves Utah residents before baby came. So, we got our Utah driver licenses, and we got Utah plates for the car, which meant safety and emissions testing. I am not a big fan of doing car things because I have no idea what I'm doing. Thank goodness for coupons and nice/honest repair shops.

Norah kept me company while we waited for our car to be aligned and to do safety and emissions. Check our her drawing here! She's getting pretty good!

We also found as many places to walk as possible. We hit up so many malls, trails, pathways, sidewalks. Anything to get labor started. Didn't work.

Station Park in Farmington, waiting for the water show (happens every hour on the hour).

Having lived in Kentucky for 10 years, my family grew to love celebrating the Kentucky Derby. We used to have a Derby Party every year in Kentucky where we would invite the neighborhood over for breakfast on Derby Day. My mom tried to keep the tradition going when they moved to Utah, but she was often out of town that weekend. This year, though, my mom was going to be here and was going to make it a big party. We all got together on Derby Day (the first Saturday of May) to celebrate with food (including Derby Pie), a fancy hat contest, an outside viewing of the race, and even pony rides.

The pony rides were really kind of...interesting. My mom scheduled to have this lady bring her pony for rides, and we thought that meant that she would be there the whole time, too. Nope. She literally unloaded the pony, told us that it's okay if it ate party food, and said she'd be back in 4 hours. What?!

My cousin Callin ended up being the pony master for a lot of the afternoon.

Norah was a little afraid on her first ride. She didn't want to smile or let go. By the end of the afternoon, though, she asked to ride again.

 We discovered this trail on the benches of Bountiful and decided to give it a shot with Norah. We didn't get very far, though, before she needed to go to the bathroom and we were too hot climb back up the hill. We'll have to try it again once things cool down, since most of it (not the part pictured, though) is out in the sun.

A glorious nap. This was a TERRIBLE day for us. So many tantrums, two potty accidents, and I was absolutely miserable with pregnancy. Doesn't she look so peaceful? Oh, how I miss nap time.

This is the same day Norah took a nap. I texted Rich that day and told him that I couldn't even think about making dinner because it had been such an awful day. He knew just what I needed - a good burger.

My sister Carrie also knew just what I needed, a pedicure. She took Norah and me to a nail salon one day, where I got the super deluxe pedicure package, and it was glorious.

Norah also got her fingernails painted, after she dropped her first bottle of purple nail polish where it shattered on the floor and got everywhere. Including all over my favorite of Norah's outfits. Sigh.

Again with the sleeping. Norah went through (and still kind of is going through) a streak where she took forever to fall asleep at night and would be completely exhausted the next day. One day, we went to pick up Rich from work and she fell asleep in the car. So jealous that he got this wonderful, sleepy cuddle from her.

On the waiting for baby front, I finally gave up on him coming on his own, after three weeks in a row where my doctor reported no real progress. At 39 weeks and 5 days, my doctor and I decided to schedule my induction for the next Monday, one day after my due date.

Since we pretty much knew baby would be coming after the weekend, we tried to make it a fun one for Norah in her last days as an only child. Too bad she was too cranky for it to be any real fun. Here, we bribed her with a ride on the carousel to get her to behave in the mall, only to have a HUGE fit when it was time to get off. Yikes.

And here is our last picture of us as a family of 3. On Mothers' Day (my actual due date), my mom and dad picked up Norah to watch her while we were in the hospital. Poor girl didn't understand how much her life was going to change.