A Baby Story

I've been thinking about writing up a little birth story for oh...about two months now. Every few days I think to myself, "I should probably do that today." Today is that day.

I'll try not to make this TOO long, but I'm not making any promises. And consider this your warning  if pictures with blood or words like cervix and vagina make you squirmish  you might just want to hit the big red X up in the right hand-side of the page. You've been warned.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shae was due to come on February 6th. By the due date I hadn't felt one contraction and was only dilated to a 2 and 80% effaced. The doctor had already told me that I would most likely be induced a week later and although I wanted to believe with all my heart that that wouldn't be the case, it was. Stubborn body. 

The evening of Monday the 11th of February we went in to the hospital at 6pm. I wasn't screaming and stopping every couple of seconds like I imagined doing the day we went to the hospital. Instead of picking up the phone outside of Labor & Delivery and shouting, "I'M HAVING A BABY! LET ME IN!", I picked up the phone and said, "hello, I am here to be cervically ripened. Can we come in?"

By 7pm I was in bed, hooked up, and had my first dose of ripening meds shoved up me. It was a long night without much sleep to say the least. Not because I was in pain, it was just hard to sleep with so many monitors on me that kept moving around. The nurse kept coming in to fix the monitors and give me more medicine to help my cervix soften and prepare for labor (and I swear I had to pee every 45 minutes).

6am came and the Pitocin was started. Nothing happened. (I had assumed that the Pitocin would be started and that I would start feeling wicked contractions instantly. I was wrong).

10:30am my water was broken. I was still only dilated to a 3 at this point, but after they broke my water I did start feeling stronger contractions and they continued to get stronger. I knew I was going to get an epidural at some point, so by 1pm the contractions were strong to the point that I didn't care to feel anymore so I asked for the epidural.

This is when my bestie Kaitlyn showed up to start taking pictures (THANK YOU KAITLYN!).



It was pretty boring at this point. Just waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

 



There were a couple moments where the epidural wore off slightly.


The doctor was SO great. At 4pm I was only dilated to a 5 and started getting scared that they were going to want to do a C-section because of how slow everything was progressing. The doctor was very comforting and told me that things were going slowly, but that I was making progress. Slow progress, but progress none the less and that we would just keep waiting and not to worry.


Two hours later at 6pm the nurse checked me and told me to get ready to start pushing. I couldn't believe that I had progressed so much in two hours! It was such a relief to hear her say that, and at the same time that meant I had to start pushing. I was a bit scared for this part.

7:05pm. Push. This was my least favorite part of all. It was miserable. I felt weak, dehydrated and hot during the whole thing. I really hated not being able to eat/drink all day. (Definite perk for people who manage to give birth with no meds).

Feeling so weak really made it hard on me. Thankfully I had my mom there to feed me ice chips in between contractions and my husband there to root me on.

I really wish that I had asked for a mirror. I think it would have help motivate me a lot if I could have seen what was going on, rather than just feeling like nothing was happening (besides my head being on the verge of explosion). The moment that got me through it all was when I heard Darin say something to the effect of "Oh my gosh Brillante! I can see his head!" That's when I decided that I really could do this. Right after that, I remember telling myself that he was coming out on that next push. Sure enough, he did.

7:51pm. Baby Shae entered the world. I didn't realize at the time how much of a cone head he had...haha...



I'm not gonna lie, holding him for the very first time wasn't exactly what I imagined it to be. Don't get me wrong, I was excited (Especially because I was incredibly ridiculously super happy to be done pushing). But I was just so weak and felt so out of it at this point that it was hard to even think about what was happening. I also didn't really feel an instant connection with my baby like I thought I would. It was like holding a little stranger that all of a sudden fell under my complete responsibility and care.

With that said, it was a miracle. Having a baby really is a miracle. The human body is a miracle. I love looking at these pictures because they remind me of so many of the blessings of our Heavenly Father. Family. Life. The human body and all that it is capable of doing.

 

My life changed that day, and although those changes can be hard at times, I am so grateful to have this sweet baby in my life. I might not have felt that electrifying connection that first time I held him, but I sure did love him. It wasn't a love that I'd ever really felt before. Not a love of someone that I've known for a long time. Not a love of someone who treats you well and wishes you happiness. It was more of a love for someone who I knew would teach me more about what true love really is.

 

Looking back, it really was the start of a new journey. Each day I feel more connected to my precious baby. Each day I feel like I know him better. Each day I feel my love for him grow. Having a baby is hard, but beautiful.

I might just have to do it again some day.

  

2 Months

Is it just me or do we have the cutest two month old son in the world? It's probably just me. But look at this little piece of baby!

 

Two month stats:

Weight: 12 lbs. 1 oz.

Height: 22 inches

Home Runs: 12

RBIs: 35

Stolen Bases: 547

News: 

~Just this week he's started making some new sounds.

~He has gotten himself into a nice sleeping schedule. We can pretty much count on him sleeping from about 9pm to 3am each night. (He's still struggling to realize that we want him to go back to sleep after that 3am feeding. He'll figure it out). 

~He started getting his very first boogers this month. (Exciting!)

~He sees us! And I think even recognizes us as his parents. What what. 

~I'd love to say that he is the sweetest happiest baby in the world like I see other mothers saying, alas, "thou shalt not bear false witness"... he's a pretty fussy baby at times. We have to go through "the list" quite often to figure out what he wants.

~He loves sitting facing forward.

~He hates red lights.

~His daily cycle goes like this: Eat, play, sleep (Repeated many times).

~He met his cousins and Aunt Linzy and Uncle Derek for the first time.

~He still loves bath time.

His face cracks me up

Perhaps the biggest news, he smiles! Having a smiling child is SO much more fun than having a not smiling child.

And because we all know how much I love taking matching comparison pictures (brown dress and big belly ring a bell anyone?)...

 

And, just because I think this one is cute and why wouldn't you want to see one more cute picture of my son?...

Happy 2 months Shaester! We love you to pieces!

Best Weekend of the Year

Well, one of the best. There are really two weekends that are pretty freaking amazing. The first weekend of April and the first weekend of October. They're so great because we get to listen to General Conference! Two full days of inspirational messages from the prophet, the twelve apostles and other church leaders. I especially loved this talk about marriage. 

The weekend was extra great because we were able to run away from home for a few days. (We were only about 40 minutes away, up in Heber, but it still felt like a vacation to me). We went up on Friday for my mission reunion (after about an hour of wandering the mountains of Midway, we finally found it). After the reunion we hopped one little town over to Heber where our dearest sweetest loveliest friends the Nystuls live. We only meant to spend the night on Friday, but Friday turned into Saturday and we just weren't ready to leave yet, so we stayed. They spoiled us with good food, great conversation, X-box games (for Darin. Clearly) and even watched the boy for us so we could try and sneak in a little nap. Like I said: vacation. It was glorious, and well needed. We've been cooped up in our house so much lately with a new baby, it was nice to get out and visit with good friends.

Watching conference with daddy.

Playing games with daddy.

Crashed.

I know that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet that has been called to lead Christ's church. He is not the prophet for Mormons only, rather the entire world. I know that he receives guidance and direction from the Lord in order to help us find more purpose and understanding for our lives. We all have goals and desires, we all have things that we cherish, we all have questions. Following the prophet helps me with each one of these things, as well as, and perhaps most importantly, feeling peace and contentment with my life and the direction I am going. 

Spring Break

We may not get a spring break here at BYU but we made sure to take advantage of seeing all our friends and family who ARE lucky enough to get a spring break. 

We started out up in Heber two weeks ago where we got to visit with our good friends Anne and Micheal who drove out from Iowa. Anne and I met our freshman year living in DT and then we roomed together with Kaitlin, Kaitlyn, Molly and Courtney our sophomore year and we've been friends ever since. I always felt like Anne and I had a bit of an east coast connection since her family lived in Virginia when I met her. It was SO nice to catch up and meet her sweet baby girl. Why can't we live closer!?

Next, we took a little trip up to Layton to visit with my good friend Bridget and meet her husband and baby girl. They drove up from NM for a few days. Bridget was my BFF in middle/high school. I looked up to her so much and wanted to be just like her. When I moved out to UT, I didn't know anyone, except for Bridget. She was so sweet and invited me to hang out with her and her friends and would always offer to help me with anything. It's been too long since I've seen her so I had to take advantage of her being so close to visit.

After Layton, we took advantage of being up North and stopped by Amelia's and then went to Darin's good friend Lances place. It's been awhile since we've seen Lance and his wife Sara so it was fun to catch up with them as well and show off our bebe. 

Finally, last weekend Darin's brother was in town with his family as well as Darin's mom. Shae got to meet his little cousins for the first time! (And his Aunt Linzy and Uncle Derek). I only had one cousin growing up and he lived across the country in CA so I never really knew what it was like to have cousins, which makes me all the more excited for Shae to get to know his cousins.

Claire meets Shae

Kyler meets Shae

Grandma with her grandbabies

Thursday night we went to the volleyball game and watched Grandma Sharon drool over Taylor Sander. He's a beast. It was Shae's first sporting event and he did great! Ra ra raing right away.

Friday night, Grandma stayed with us and let me and Darin go out on a little date to the BYU baseball game together. Then Saturday we took advantage of the beautiful weather and had a little picnic up in the canyon.

Kyler: "This glove is too big for me."

Shae's first sunny day outside experience. I didn't even think to bring him a hat or sunscreen. Thank goodness Amelia had some sunscreen. I'm new at this okay.

Sunday we went up to Amelia's in SLC. We went to church and had Easter lunch/dinner there. I somehow didn't take any Easter pictures. I blame being tired from not getting a good nights sleep the night before. 

So overall, our lack of a spring break was still pretty exciting. We sure do love our friends and family!

Smile Sunshine!

The boy started smiling about two weeks ago. He smiles sparingly, but it's adorable when he does. His favorite time to smile seems to be when mommy lays him back in his crib in the middle of the night hoping that he will go back to sleep. Apparently Darin and I aren't very good at capturing the smiles on camera.

My smile attempt went a little like this:

  

Fail.

Darin's smile attempt went a little like this:

Fail.

Amelia's smile attempt went a little like this:

Bam. Easy peezy Success.

And this is is why we have aunts.