8 Days in the NICU

Jason's birth story starts in the previous post.

As the nurses were weighing him, and after giving him Apgar scores of 8 and 9, they noticed that he was grunting. They gave him some air and had the NICU nurse evaluate him. They had me hold him real quick before he was taken to the NICU to be on the CPAP machine. Tony went with him and I had to stay in my room until I could stand up and pivot into a wheelchair. But instead of it taking two hours like they told me, it took a little over an hour and I was down with my baby.

From June 16, 2012

From June 16, 2012

He had to have an IV to make sure he was getting some nutrition. No mom wants to see her baby with an IV in his head.

From June 16, 2012

Getting his first bath.

From June 16, 2012

The crazy thing about the NICU is that when your child is there, you feel like you are in a time warp. It doesn't help that you are getting up every 1.5-2 hours to help feed him or pump. We were told initially he would just be there for 4 hours. Then it became over night. A chest x-ray revealed that he had Pneumomediastinum or a pocket of air in the Mediastinum (area in chest between lungs). This site shows a picture of an x-ray that looked similar to Jason's. It was spontaneous and caused simply by his coming out in only 6 pushes and there not being the chance for a lot of the liquid to be expelled from his lungs. We had initially understood that he had a pneumothorax which is a small leak in his lungs, but that was probably just because of us being tired and there being such an onslaught of information. There are several kinds of "pneumos" that babies can get and Jason had the one that is least problematic. An x-ray on the 2nd morning showed that the air had mostly been absorbed and it had resolved itsef.

The fact that Jason's body had to concentrate on his breathing and resolving the pneumomediastinum, meant that he struggled with his suck reflex from the beginning and it took him a little longer to learn to feed on his own. They did a cranial ultrasound to see if there was anything wrong with his central nervous system but there wasn't. So even though he came in for breathing issues, he stayed for eating issues. He had to be be tube fed for awhile. Also, he developed jaundice because Tony and my blood is incompatible.
On his tanning bed.

From June 16, 2012

From June 16, 2012

Lori, one of our favorite nurses who helped us understand why Jason was being kept in the NICU so long. It didn't seem necessary at first and she helped us understand why Jason wasn't eating on his own.

From June 16, 2012

Hanging with daddy.

From June 16, 2012

Skin to skin

From June 16, 2012

Beautiful boy.

From June 16, 2012

Me and my sweetie.

From June 16, 2012

Meeting Max.

From June 16, 2012

Meeting Ryan. "I'm all done". Almost exactly what his big brother said when meeting him.

From June 16, 2012

Jason's white board. Annemarie had added the balloons. Tony added the airplane, helicopter and space shuttle.

From June 16, 2012

Angela was a favorite nurse.

From June 16, 2012

And Victoria was another favorite.

From June 16, 2012

Grandma came and held baby Jase a lot. It never ever seemed to be a problem. ; )

From June 16, 2012

"I've got no strings to hold me down" Thanks to nurses who understood the need to help things progress and challenge him just a little, Jason got his feeding tube out on Thursday morning (day 6). He would feed on-demand and if he maintained his weight and gained, he could go home.

From June 16, 2012

From June 16, 2012

Saturday morning at the 2am feeding, the nurse weighed him and he had gained 6 grams. I had been on pins and needles because day one of no feeding tube he had done great, but the second day he had slept more. Luckily, he did gain and I was bursting with excitement to call Tony and tell him we were coming home. I did wait until a more reasonable hour though. Things moved slowly and it wasn't until about noon that we were discharged. We were chomping at the bit to say the least. Here's Tony making a break for it. ; )

From June 16, 2012

In his carseat!!!! Ah, natural light, I'm not used to this.

From June 16, 2012

Home where he belongs.

From June 16, 2012

Brother's home!

From June 16, 2012

Dearest Jason, even though the first week of your life was different than we anticipated, we are so excited to have you in our lives. You have been a joy to have from the moment I held you when you first came out. You have shown us that different than we expect is so good. You were earlier than expected, smaller than expected, had more hair than expected and we love you for being YOU! You look so much like your brothers did as babies, especially Max. It will be fun to see you grow and develop. We're so happy and feel so blessed to have you in our family. Right now I have you wrapped up and snuggled against my chest because you don't like to be far away. It's quite alright because I don't like to be far from your arms either. Je t'aime beaucoup mon petit chou chou!

Jason's Birth Story 6/8/12

Jason's birth story has two parts (two posts). Since I don't know how to give the Reader's Digest version of stories, here are all the details as I remember them.

We had "planned" on Jason coming around 10-12 days late. A quick background. Max was born 9 days late. I had wanted to go all natural but because he was my first and an ultrasound that was only two days after his due date was saying he'd be 10 lbs., my doctor was talking to me about shoulder dystocia, etc., I decided to be induced. So I had some pain meds to take the edge off of the hard contractions, but I experienced a mostly natural birth. It was an awesome/hard experience--awesome because Tony and I had taken the Bradley classes and he was an awesome birth coach, hard because it was birth. Ryan was 10 days late. I really wanted to go natural because I like the recovery and I don't like being hooked up to IVs. Ryan was also born 6 months after Tony's plane crash, I didn't feel as mentally prepared to "relax" through labor. I was so done being pregnant (we were also in the middle of a move so I'm sure it was taking it's toll). I set an induction date but then went into real labor the night before. We went to the hospital but then labor stopped but since I was going to be induced the next morning anyway, they kept me and induced me. When labor started getting really intense, I was tired physically and mentally. I'd had a really hard year and just didn't want to do anything else so "hard". I asked for an epidural only the anesthesiologist was busy and I progressed at super speed so Ryan came out with no pain meds. Afterwards, again, I was glad because although it is hard and I have really panicky transitions, I love the bounce back from natural birth.

With Jason, it was going to be different. I wanted to experience labor without pitocin. I wanted my water to break naturally. I had been practicing relaxing techniques and I felt ready to go late and I felt ready to experience natural labor. I also planned on Jason being so late that I planned Max's 5th birthday party 6 days after his due date. People thought I was crazy but I just told them, "no really, I go late, believe me". So thinking my due date would be the 17th, 18th or 19th, I asked my parents to come up the 12th so most of their time could be after the baby was here. Well, as John Steinbeck said, "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry".

On our due date, June 7th, Tony and I dropped the boys off at a friend's house and went to the doctor. I was excited for Tony to finally meet our doctor (he has a crazy schedule and had only come to the gender ultrasound). I should also mention that we had finally found a time to go on a hospital tour (the following Sunday-three days after our due date. We figured one hospital can't be that different than the last so we weren't too worried about it). Tony wasn't able to meet Dr. Scanlon at first because she was out on a delivery. Another doctor checked me and I was still at a 2. Jason was facing the wrong direction though. He was head down but facing my belly instead of my back. Then the nurse had me hooked to the heart monitor so they could monitor the baby for 20 minutes to see how he was doing. Then Dr. Scanlon was back from the delivery and we could still do the ultrasound. She knew how willing I was to wait on this baby and so she felt bad to have to tell me that she needed to induce me because my amniotic fluid was low. I was thinking maybe the next day but she asked if we had our stuff with us. We just looked at her dumbly. She laughed and said, "well it *is* your due date." We had to laugh because we had barely gotten and washed the carseat the day before. I had just washed clothes the day before. We were not expecting the baby to need to come on time. We told the doctor after getting our stuff we could check into the hospital in an hour and a half. As we left the office, I was a little emotional because I didn't feel ready, this is not what I wanted. I sooo did not want to be hooked up to anything. I called my mom and told her. They planned on coming the next day instead of the 5 days later we had thought. We called my friend who was willing to watch the boys overnight for us. The biggest thing was I didn't want to go into labor with fear in my heart. I didn't want to be nervous or apprehensive just because it wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to. I wanted to be relaxed just like I'd practiced. So Tony and our friend gave me a blessing. I felt completely calm during the blessing and several times, I felt like I was supposed to get an epidural. At first I thought this was fear talking. It was fear that had me ask for one during Ryan's birth. I didn't feel ready for the hard labor (understandably so, but still). But then I knew that this was a very real prompting from the Holy Ghost. I didn't understand why a pro-natural girl would need to get an epidural, but I knew that I was meant to. To me, giving birth is a very spiritual experience. Giving birth to Max as Tony and I worked together to relax through the pain, I knew that I was also being helped by my Heavenly Father. When I was giving birth to Ryan, I felt less ready and even more in need of help and that's how Heavenly Father helped me through when it was hard and I didn't feel in the slightest bit ready. I knew that this time I needed to rely on the spirit and listen to what I needed to do.

Here I am before real labor kicked in.

From June 16, 2012

They didn't start me out on pitocin but on two separate doses of Cyotec which is a small pill they put next to the cervix to soften it. After that, I walked around, climbed stairs, ran stairs (yes, in my hospital gown). Then they hooked me up to Pitocin. Here is the nurse's screen that Tony and I used to joke about how I was in a "race" with other room numbers by how hard of contractions I was having compared to them. Yes, we are nerds.

From June 16, 2012

We had told the nurse and doctor that I wanted an epidural and they were awesome and didn't push it or act relieved like I thought they might. They really let me make my own decisions the whole time. I needed to let the contractions get intense before they did the epidural so it wouldn't prolong labor, like I had heard. So we let the contractions get pretty intense for awhile while I relaxed through them and listened to my Sense and Sensibility soundtrack. That is my CD that I've listened to throughout every labor. After the contractions were pretty intense for about an hour, the anesthesiologist was called and he did the epidural. They took me off of pitocin at the same time which was about 1:00am. The epidural wasn't as scary or painful as I had thought. It went smoothly and worked quickly. Tony and I both took a little nap. At one point I woke up to an oxygen mask on my face and about 6 nurses in the room. My blood pressure had dropped and so they just had to bring it up quickly. After about a minute I was fine again but wow, what a minute. Then we relaxed again and took a short nap. My nurse checked me after 5:00 am and I was between an 8 and 9. She said she would check me again in an hour. After about 40 minutes I started feeling pressure and told Tony I think that was the need to push. I decided to wait it out a few more contractions. I had been feeling my contractions but this feeling was definitely different. After 3 contractions where I really felt like I should push, we called the nurse and then everything happened really fast. The doctor came in and they decided to have me do a practice push. Well, the practice pushes were pretty effective and 6 pushes later, I had Jason Daniel placed on my chest (Max had been an hour and 8 minutes of pushing. Ryan had been 37 minutes of pushing). Jason was beaufiful baby.

From June 16, 2012

Tony cut the cord.

From June 16, 2012

Everyone was making guesses as to how much he'd weigh. When they told us that he weighed 7 lbs. and 12 oz., we couldn't believe it.

From June 16, 2012

From June 16, 2012

But it was true.

From June 16, 2012

From June 16, 2012

Our beautiful boy had joined our family. And the adventure was only beginning. Our sweet, perfect baby was about to take a trip to the NICU, but that's for another post.
All in all, I think that every birth experience I've had was meant to be. I've learned from each of them. I wouldn't have chosen to be induced or have an epidural but I'm grateful that it was a positive experience for me. Other people have had negative experiences but I feel lucky to have had only positive. It didn't hurt going in, it worked well and yet I was still able to feel the contractions in a very minor way and I could feel it when I needed to push. I also recovered really quickly and my overall recovery was fantastic thank goodness because I had my baby to worry about. I had a positive experience with my natural births and my epidural birth. Maybe someday I'll be able to experience my own body going into labor, but if not, I'm grateful to have safe, healthy births.

When Grandpa Grows Up...

Today Max told me, "When Grandpa (Dan) grows up, he should be a librarian because he's really good at reading stories." *giggle*

Presenting Jason Daniel Epperson

Does life with a newborn make you too busy to blog about your newborn? The birth story and the tales of his first week of life will be forthcoming, but for now, here is a picture of our very new Jason Daniel:

From June 16, 2012

And Jason Daniel a week later:

From June 16, 2012

Jason was born June 8th, 2012 at 6:16 a.m. at Valley Medical Hospital in Renton, Washington. He weighed 7 lbs, 12 oz. and was 20.5 inches long.

Jason's name was the hardest for us to come up with out of all three boys because we already had a plan and wanted to make the name fit our plan. We really wanted to name him after both of our fathers. They are wonderful examples of men that we would like him to be like. However, how to place the names and do we name him after them exactly or take some liberties? Well, we decided on the order of names because we liked the way a J Daniel name sounded. The next step was to decide how to use Grandpa J's name. Tony's dad's name is James but he is *J*. In fact, he has a friend who calls him "letter J" because he's not a "Jay", but a "J". So, short of naming him J, we thought Jason was the best alternative because it's reflecting Grandpa "J", we can call him Jase for short and we really liked the way it sounded. We knew people might not understand because he's not J's "son", but we really liked the name and it just fits our cute little guy.

We are loving every minute of snuggles with Jase. Big brothers are *trying* to learn to be quiet around him when he's sleeping and they're *trying* to learn to share mom's attention. They are great at giving him kisses.

Nesting and More Nesting

I've been nesting and organizing like crazy. As much as I don't expect this little guy for another couple of weeks, I'm still looking forward to tomorrow's appointment (on my due date) to see if any progression has happened. Last Friday I was at a 2. We shall see.
I've got the car seat and clothes washed and organized. I'm still keeping my eye out for the right double stroller.
Ryan has been helping us prepare for baby too. He's been waking up at least once a night and he's been clingier and whinier. Off course it's understandable, he just had surgery a week ago, but I am hoping that this new phase will be short-lived, things will get back to normal and I'll only be waking up for the new baby when the baby comes.

Oil Changes and Daddy Time

It's funny what a simple thing like a weekend without plans will do for you. As much as I love having lots to do and see, it's nice to wind down too. Today started Tony's 3 week break from school! Hallelujah! Only one quarter left! We are so excited! We got to have a nice morning with Tony helping get the boys ready. He got some errands done, I got some work done and we all spent time outside. We even changed the oil as a family. Well, Tony changed it and I helped the boys help so they weren't just in the way. Now, if only the baby would come when daddy has more time at home; before his last quarter begins. I'm hoping!

Happy Third Birthday Ryan Anthony!

We celebrated Ryan's birthday several times this week!
First, we celebrated with cousins in Oregon on the actual day of his birthday.

Love his mouth in this one.

From May 2012

From May 2012

Then he had some cards and packages in the mail when we got back, so as a little fun the evening after his surgery, we opened them up instead of waiting.
He loved his bug card! Thank you Grandma Pearl and Grandpa Dan!

From May 2012

And a musical card is always a hit! Thank you Grandma Kate and Grandpa J and Aunt Stacey and Uncle Doug!

From May 2012

Look at that smile. Truly looks like a boy who just got his tonsils out.

From May 2012

New jammies!

From May 2012

There's our Ryan being silly again!

From May 2012

And then the family party! We went shopping to find parts so daddy could build him a water/sand table. We also went to the pet store and looked at the animals and got a pet!
Ryan's birthday dinner!

From May 2012

When I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he listed several kinds but the one that he stuck with was lemon cupcakes. Random since I've never made them, but they were yummy.

From May 2012

From May 2012

And then he went outside with daddy to go on a search for fairies while Max and I hid his presents. Then he came in and did a treasure hunt!
Found!

From May 2012

New shirts!

From May 2012

A Becky book! Thank you Becky!

From May 2012

New water toys for the water table coming soon!

From May 2012

And our new fishie. We combined Tony and my tradition to name pets after 80's music/ singers (we had a fish named Devo and one named Major Tom)and the kids' wishes. We now have a new Beta named "Bloop Bloop" Berlin.

From May 2012

Happy Birthday to our little Ryan who's quiet nature and sly sense of humor make us smile everyday! Love your giggles little man!