Welcome to the world Andrew Jory

Well, junebug is here. So I am going to post his birth story and then will no longer be updating this blog. You can keep up with the happening of our family by visiting our family blog which is currenty at http://jrandaj.blogspot.com/

I went to bed on Tuesday (June 9) around 10:00 pm. I woke up around 12:00 am with contractions. They were not very intense but they were coming regularly. I laid there in bed for a bit trying to decide if I could fall back to sleep. When I couldn’t I decided to get up and time them. They were coming about every 2 to 3 minutes. Mike woke up and I explained to him what was going on, but that I wasn’t sure what to do, since the contractions weren’t feeling very intense, but were coming very close together. He told me to call L&D and see what they say, then he went back to bed. I called, the nurse told me to take some Tylenol and wait an hour to see if they fizzled out. This was around 1:00 am. I took the Tylenol and walked around the house some, while playing on the computer. The contractions started to get more intense, and I was feeling them in my back really bad. By 2:00 am, I woke Mike up and told him that we needed to go in to L&D. We got ready to leave and told Mike’s mom we were going (she was already in town to help out). Jonathan woke up and Mike was able to get him back to sleep before we left. Mike also gave me a priesthood blessing before we left. I was not looking forward to getting in the car, because I knew it would be hard to deal with the contractions sitting in the car. Luckily we live really close to the hospital and I only had to deal with maybe two contractions on the way there. We had to go through the ER and they came down and wheeled me up to L&D. I felt silly, even though I was clearly having contractions, I wasn’t in so much pain, that I appeared to be in labor. I got hooked up to all the monitors and such by 3:00 am. The nurse checked me, I was so nervous that she would find me at 1 or 2 cm or worse not dilated at all. She had to reach way up high to check so I was sure I was barely dilated. But then she told me I was already at 5 cm. I was so relieved. I was really and truly in labor and we were having a baby. The other nurse in the room was shocked that I was that far dilated too, I think because I wasn’t screaming with pain from the contractions. Laying in bed made the contractions worse and the back labor very bad. So as soon as I was able I got my epidural. My dr. was not on call that night, which made me sad. A dr. I had never met was the one on call, he came in to give my epidural. It as much more painful than I remember with JR. It took him a long time to find the space and he was putting a lot of pressure on my back. Finally he was able to get it in, and within a short time I was no longer feeling the back labor. Mike tried to sleep on the couch in the room, while I flipped through channels on the TV. I knew I should try to sleep, but I couldn’t. Later, the nurse checked me again. I was disappointed that I was only 6 cm. She decided to strip my membranes, to move things along. The dr. decided to give me some pitocin as well. I really didn’t want pitocin, but since I already had my epidural I was okay with it. The baby was still high up. Shortly after the pitocin was started, I began to feel my contractions again, especially in my back. I called in the nurse and she decided that I should just be propped a different way to help the medicine move to the right spots. Around 7:00 am, my dr. (so glad he was going to be able to deliver Andrew) came in to check on me. He checked me and I was around 7 cm. He broke my water at this time as well. I told him about the back labor and he told me to sit up more and he thought it would help. I really couldn’t move, due to the epidural so they all helped me maneuver some, to see if that would help. The nurses got everything ready for me to push, and then left me to labor more. I could still feel the contractions in my back, but they were bearable. I knew they would be a lot worse if I did not have the epidural. Oh, I forgot to mention around 6:45 am, Mike started to get hungry for breakfast. A little later the baby’s heartbeat was no longer being picked up by the monitored. He had dropped. The nurse came in and found his heartbeat again, a lot lower this time. She checked me and found that I was ready to push. They called the dr. in and began breaking down the bed. I started pushing close to 8:00 am and Andrew was born at 8:09 am. When they got his head out, they found meconium in the water, so they started suctioning his mouth and nose. Everything that came out of his mouth was clear, so he had not swallowed it. The dr. thought the meconium was labor induced. The epidural was working well, through the pushing, as I had a hard time telling if I was pushing or not and I couldn’t feel the back labor anymore. But the neat part was that I did feel Andrew coming out, which I don’t remember feeling when Jonathan was born. Mike watched the whole thing this time, something he did not do when Jonathan was born as he had stayed close to my head. The dr. noticed right away that Andrew was big and that he looked a lot like Mike. I think he looks a lot like Jonathan. One of the nurses mentioned how big his hands were (something they said about Jonathan as well). He was 8 lb 4.7 oz and 19 inches long. I was able to nurse him right away and he latched on like a pro. I was very happy with how everything turned out. Andrew is such a precious baby and Jonathan is enjoying (most of the time) being a big brother.