Birth Photos

These are just some of the photos that our birth photographer took. She was so amazing and I am so thankful that she did this for us. She also made a video which is stunning but I'm not able to share it on here. I highly recommend getting a birth photographer and if you are in the Huntsville area check out Lagniappe Newborn Portraits.

Hanging out on the birthing ball during contractions.

 

Still hanging out on the birthing ball.

 

I have no idea how I managed to smile for this picture, I was so nervous!

 

Look at those long fingers.

 

Love at first sight.

 

Finally able to hold my sweet girl! Super chapped lips.

 

She was ready to eat.

 

Having some chest to chest time with dad while I was still in surgery.

Proud Nonna and Papa.

 

Sweet tears.

 

Together as a very happy family.

Peyton's Birth Story!

On February 5, 2013 at 41W 1D at 8pm we went to the hospital to start the induction process with a dose of cytotec.  Starting at 7 AM that morning I started to feel some cramping but thought it may just be a fluke. Well they continued on for the remainder of the day consistently being 30 seconds long and about 7 minutes apart. I was happy to find out that these were in fact real contractions once we got to the hospital because they were pretty uncomfortable and if they weren’t I was concerned about actually  being able to carry out my natural birth plan. So we started the cytotec soon after we got there and settled in for the night, thankfully we were able to watch the UK game! For some reason I thought these meds wouldn't do much to me and I was fully expecting to get a full nights rest ... Wrong! Pretty early on in the night I was contracting regularly and frequently, having somewhere around 3 contractions within 5 mins each lasting a min long. Needless to say I didn't get a wink of sleep and had to start using some of my coping techniques. They ended up not giving me the second dose of meds because I was already progressing fairly well.

At 4AM I was very uncomfortable and ended up vomiting. I decided to get a bit of pain meds in my IV before we started the pitocin. But before that my nurse checked me and I was 4cm dilated. During my check she accidentally broke my water, this is probably the most disgusting feeling in the world! At 4:30ish AM we started the pitocin and these contractions were so much easier to handle than the previous ones. I was able to labor on the birthing ball which was amazing, laboring in bed is probably the most excruciating thing ever! Within a few hours I was already to seven centimeters. This was all going so quickly that everyone thought we would have a baby by lunch ... Not so!

 I stalled out at 7 cms for about 3 hours. I was also continuing to vomit multiple times with nothing really left in my stomach. To paint a beautiful image of this blissful birth, imagine me on my birthing ball, being very loud during contractions, vomiting and leaking a ton of fluid. Pretty awesome huh? At this point I just couldn't take the pain anymore or the discomfort of it all especially since I wasn't making any progress. We decided it was time for some drugs! This ended up being such a great decision. Getting the epidural was NO FUN! They were able to insert the cath in between contractions but ended up administering the medication during a contraction. It felt like I was being shocked all over my left leg while also having a horrific contraction. I'm pretty sure that was the loudest I screamed all day ... Jordan could hear me all the way down the hallway. Even with the pain it was still the best decision ever!

 I was feeling great for about 30 minutes but then started to feel contractions again. The nurse administered some more meds but I still didn't feel a difference so I asked her if there was a kink or anything and she told me it just takes time. I gave it a few more minutes but the pain was just too much especially because they had me in a very odd position to help move her down. The nurse called the anesthesiologist and he found that they hadn't connected the meds to the cath in my back. Jordan was furious when he found this out and I wasn't too pleased either but once we were connected all was well again. Very soon after the epidural was placed I was 100% effaced and 9 cms. I continued to labor with the epidural in various positions to get her to move down more and to finally dilate that one more centimeter to be complete! At this point I was certain we were going to have a baby by 1:30. Well 1:30 rolls around and I'm still stuck at 9. My doctor came to check on me when he was done with patients for the day which was somewhere around 4. At this point I was still at 9. He pushed on the top of my stomach and felt to see what was going on with her head. He was explaining that she wasn't able to move down any farther because her head was too big and my pelvis was too small. As soon as he started explaining this I broke down because I knew exactly what was coming next. He recommended getting a c-section for the best result for everybody. Of course I agreed but was pretty devastated that after all the research and hard work I had done to get the birth I wanted, it was all for not. I was pretty terrified during the whole process because I hadn't educated myself on this process at all. Jordan was so amazing during this whole process. He was calm, comforting and so so supportive! I’m sure he was grossed out by everything going on but he never let on.

After the decision was made everything moved so quickly. In no time at all we were going down the hallway towards the OR. There were so many people there and it was sooo cold. Everything got started and before I really even realized it our sweet girl was born and boy was she loud. There was no doubt her lungs were fully developed. Jordan went and got her after she was cleaned up a bit and brought her over to me. She was already totally calm and happy to be with her dad. I was able to touch her and kiss her sweet face before they left for the nursery. They started putting me back together and in about 30 minutes I was in our recovery room. Jordan brought Peyton in very soon after and I was able to hold our sweet little girl. She nursed immediately and has been a champ ever since. I found out later that while Jordan was in the nursery with her they were having some skin to skin time and she tried to nurse him as well!

Although this delivery did not go the way I had planned or imagined in the slightest it was still an amazing experience. For months prior to the due date Jordan and I diligently prayed that God would have His hand on mine and Peyton’s birth and delivery and I have no doubt He was with us. Jordan was completely amazing throughout the whole process and there was no way I would have done as well as I did without his support. So far recovery has been going great and I have easily been able to move around with very minimal pain. I have already lost half of my baby weight which I was not expecting at all, let’s hope the rest falls off just as easily.

We had our first doctor appointment today and everything was great, we have a sweet healthy baby on our hands! Thank you to everyone who prayed for our family during this time, took the time to come by or congratulate us, we are so so appreciative of your support. Also if you made it all the way through this post you’re a trooper. 

Right before we left for the hospital. 

Sofie loving up on her new little sister. 

Our Sweet Girl. 

Light at the end of the tunnel

At my 40 week appointment today we found out that I have FINALLY made some progress! I am one centimeter dilated and 70% effaced. Although this isn’t much I was encouraged to know that my body has started doing what it needs to in order to get my sweet Peyton here. We were really hoping that she would come today so she could share a birthday with her dad, although it’s not totally out of the question it’s not looking very likely. My doctor wanted to talk about our plan if I do not go into labor by Monday which is when I will be 41 weeks along. We decided to go ahead and schedule an induction starting Tuesday night with some meds to ripen my cervix and then start Pitocin Wednesday morning. I am certainly less than thrilled with this option and would much rather go into labor on my own. My doctor said he’s 90% sure I will go into labor before my induction but honestly I’m not really confident in his ability to predict this.

Despite the fact that I’m not super stoked about an induction I am over the moon thrilled to finally meet this little human I’ve been working hard on growing. Jordan has lovingly been referring to me as a selfish hoarder because I won’t share his daughter with him. Needless to say he is very ready to meet his little girl as well. I want to brag on Jordan a bit, not because it’s his birthday but because he has been truly awesome during this pregnancy. He has taken such good care of me and Peyton during this time and has been very patient and understanding with my sometimes less than stellar mood. He is the rock and leader of this family and thrives in this role! I seriously cannot wait to see him as a dad because I know he will truly be wonderful. Peyton is one lucky little girl, we both are!

 Prayers for a safe delivery and healthy baby would be much appreciated! As always we will keep everyone posted if anything should happen before Wednesday.

The Home Stretch

The last several weeks have gone by fairly uneventfully. At my 37 week appointment I still had not shown any progress. I decided to get checked at this appointment because Jordan was going to be gone over night the next week and thought it would be nice to know if there was anything going on. Luckily we made it through his trip and everything was just fine. I declined to be examined at my 38 week appointment but my blood pressure was slightly elevated at this appointment. Apparently it was also pretty high at the previous appointment but my doctor didn’t mention anything to me about it. I’ve checked it sporadically during my many trips to Kroger and it was still slightly elevated but not too high to be concerned about. I’m really hoping it doesn’t creep up any higher to the point that my doctor would want to start discussing an induction. I really would love to avoid that situation all together.

For the last few months now we have known that Jordan was going to have to travel at the end of February and would be gone for about 7 days. This is much sooner than he would prefer to be gone from us but unfortunately there isn’t much we can do about it.  Anyways it just occurred to me that the longer Miss Peyton decides to make her appearance, the shorter the time we are going to have to together and adjust before he is gone. So with that being said my plans of not being induced until I absolutely had to are definitely being reconsidered. If she doesn’t come by 41 weeks we will start to discuss our options because that will only leave us 3 weeks until the traveling begins. I’m trying really hard not to stress out too much about this because honestly there really isn’t much that can be done. I’m trusting in the fact that God already knows her birthdate and it will be perfect, His timing is far better than mine.
 
I had my 39 week appointment today and still have not made any progress. I decided to get checked because honestly the curiosity was killing me. So I imagine that we will not have a baby within the next week or so. Although there is a full moon this weekend so ya never know ;) We are sooo ready to meet our little girl which is the main reason I'm ready for this pregnancy to end. There are also a few other things I'm looking forward to post-pregnancy. Like ... sleeping on my stomach, beer, not having numb hands and feet, one more beer, not having to use tongs to get clothes out of the dryer because my baby bump gets in the way of me bending over enough to reach the clothes, not getting totally out of breathe when I'm doing extremely simple tasks like eating, my old clothes and of course one more beer. On a side note my lactation consultant recommended drinking a dark beer after night feedings to increase supply ... cheers.

So now I'm just trying to occupy myself until this baby gets here to make time go by more quickly. We'll keep everyone posted about any progress.

Full Term!!!

 

We are officially full term! It’s hard to imagine that baby Peyton could be here in just a few short weeks. I keep telling myself that she probably won’t make her arrival until I’m way past due so I don’t get too discouraged with the waiting. I think the most difficult part about the next upcoming weeks is the unknown. The waiting would be much easier to take if I had a definite arrival date for Miss Peyton, if only she could text me her calendar J.

Jordan and I had a great visit back home for the holidays. Since being back in Bama I have had a terrible cold though and I’m pretty sure it just turned into a sinus infection : (. Having a baby all up in my lungs and a stuffy nose makes it very difficult to breathe … no fun! Now that we are home and our schedules have calmed down it is time to get to business about getting everything ready for our sweet little girl. There are several things around the house that need to get done and we still have a few baby items we need to purchase. With all of the very generous gifts that people gave us we have very few things that need to be bought though which is so wonderful!

I have packed a few things for the hospital bag but honestly at this point it’s all food! Peyton’s bag should be easy to pack, the biggest problem I foresee is not being able to pick which outfits to bring. Today Jordan put together all kinds of fun things like our swing, bouncer and highchair. It definitely looks like Peyton has already taken over the house. Peyton has been very active as usual and it is now pretty easy to see her move from the outside if I am wearing a pretty tight shirt. One night while Jordan and I were snuggling in bed we were facing each other and she gave him a solid one two punch in his gut. He couldn’t believe how forceful her kicks/movements could be.

At my appointment this week my doctor told me that I was not dilated at all which didn’t surprise me. This exam wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, uncomfortable for sure but not painful.  I’m honestly going to see if I can forgo this check until my 40 week appointment. It really isn’t necessary and I’d just rather not know. We’ll see how this goes over though. We did go to our birthing classes but neither one of us found it very helpful, so we skipped out on the second day. Our instructor was pretty negative and the information she gave us just wasn’t helpful.

After seeing pictures of myself over the holidays I was very surprised by how big I actually look. I don’t feel extra huge most of the time but once I see a picture of myself I start to understand why I get so many comments about my size.

 

This is the same shirt I wore to my baby shower when I was 31 weeks along. It almost did not fit this morning.

I hope everyone had an extra wonderful Christmas and New Years.

32 weeks!

So I know I said I would be better at updating the blog more often, clearly that has not been the case. The last month has been very very busy for us and there is no slowing down in sight. Between the holidays and getting ready for Peyton’s arrival we have something to do every weekend until after New Years and then I will be full term! Since the last post we have had two more baby showers, one thrown by the wonderful ladies at Jordan’s work and another one back home thrown by my Momma and Sister. We have seriously been so overwhelmed by the love, support and generosity that people have treated us to. We try very hard to let everyone know how appreciative we are but I really don’t think we could ever do a good enough job because we are seriously so grateful.

Since the last post my glucose results came back and was negative and all of my other stats have been perfect! We have one more doctor visit until he starts checking my cervix, holy moly! I can’t say I’m really looking forward to that visit. So far I have gained 12-13 pounds which is pretty good, I think I will be able to stay under 20 lbs by the time she arrives which was the goal. Throughout this entire pregnancy I have felt absolutely wonderful and have had very minimal side effects which is still the case. I have started to have some back pain but that is to be expected. I still sleep like a champ, Jordan says I snore more but I don’t notice lol. At my appointment yesterday my doctor said she was head down, which I was very worried about. He says that since this is my first pregnancy he didn’t expect her to change positions before delivery! I was so relieved to hear this because I had been seriously stressing out about this.

We had a hospital tour yesterday and we were so pleasantly surprised by everything we saw and learned. The hospital is literally 3-5 minutes from our house and is brand new, their L&D department just opened up over the summer. I was so relieved to hear how natural birth friendly they are, as this is the goal. I thought they may be a bit behind the times with kangaroo care, rooming in etc. but that was not the case at all! We have our birthing classes this weekend and were instructed to bring a couple of pillows. I have a feeling this is going to get very interesting. Between our reassuring hospital tour and this upcoming birthing class I think we’ll be ready to have this baby!

Peyton’s nursery is pretty much totally done. There are a few things left that need to be hung on her walls to soften the room a bit but we are very pleased with how everything turned out. Currently it’s a complete disaster because I’m still working on how to get everything organized and I still have lots of washing to do. The tree is my absolute favorite decoration, luckily it’s wooden so it will be easy to take with us wherever we end up moving to next.

Panorama view

This photo was taken when we were back home for Thanksgiving at 31 weeks.

I really hope this video loads correctly. This is her rolling around and being very active. She does this just about every night. You can kinda see how that ugly little line down my stomach is starting to show up.

28 Weeks

The third trimester has started! On one hand I can’t believe we are already this far along and on the other, I’m like OMG another 3 months! I am very thankful that the home stretch of this pregnancy will be filled with many visits back home and lots of holiday fun. I’m hoping that those things will make Peyton’s due date arrive quickly.  We had a wonderful visit back home a few weeks ago. Sally threw an awesome shower for us and we got some much needed items. We are so grateful for everyone that came to celebrate with us and their extreme generosity. We received some really cute girly stuff which is super fun! I’ll post some pictures at the bottom.  Jordan put together the jogging stroller that we got from his parents. He said that doing this made having a baby a little bit more real for him and he felt very much like a dad! I told him by the time Peyton gets here he should really be feeling like a dad because there will be lots more “assembly required” baby gadgets.

I have a routine doctor’s appointment this week and then we start having appointments every two weeks. Having appointments every two weeks also makes me feel like her due date is very close.  I did my blood glucose test on Friday, so hopefully I’ll get those results at my appointment or sooner and they will be negative.  My belly keeps growing and growing and my wardrobe options continue to shrink and shrink. This has caused me to venture over to Jordan’s side of the closet and wear a lot of his t-shirts when I’m around the house. He was folding laundry yesterday (yes I know he’s awesome) and made the comment that he wasn't quite sure whose closet to put some of the clothes away in. I seriously cannot imagine how large I am going to be in another twelve weeks, it’s really quite difficult to fathom.

This week we picked out a newborn photographer who we love! She doesn’t have her own studio so she comes to your house and sets up there.  I personally love this! Now I don’t have to worry about being prepared to leave the house with a newborn and have everyone ready and looking good for pictures. She’s a retired labor and delivery nurse so she’s very familiar with infant care. She takes care of everything while she is here and even changes diapers. She has been thinking about getting into birth photography and asked if we would be interested in letting her photograph Peyton’s birth for free. This certainly wasn't an offer we jumped right on but after thinking about it we decided to be wild and crazy and be her guinea pigs. I don’t think this decision will be regretted, some of those moments are priceless. I LOVE pictures of mom and dad’s meeting their sweet babies for the first time. I usually always end up crying looking at these pictures, nothing new there really. Not to mention Jordan did not want to be responsible for taking any pictures, mainly because he’s terrible at remembering to do so. 

I think the dogs have finally figured something is up. Both of them sniff my belly often and use their nose to poke at it. This is a picture of me laying on my side in bed and Sofie using the baby bump as her pillow. 

 Super Cute girly onsies! 

This super cute dog and ornament is from Aunt Shapell. The dog you can put in the microwave and it heats up and can keep baby warm. It is also filled with lavender and chamomile and all kinds of other awesome herbs that are supposed to help calm baby and help with colic. We may be very thankful for this in the future if we have a fussy baby.