Last night was our first night home. Aaron and were finally discharged from the hospital around 3pm. We were headed out earlier, but the hospital went on lockdown because they "lost" a baby. The babies have to wear a security band on their ankles. They cut off Jenna's, then while we were waiting for the nurse to meet us to escort us out of the building, we could hear commotion in the hallway. We think that a band fell off another baby's ankle. We had 2 people come in to check Jenna's band (which was gone) and we were both afraid they were going to take her away to do some sort of tests to make us prove she was ours. Fortunately, they must have figured out what was wrong and they let us leave.
The first thing we did when we got home was introduce Portia to Jenna. It went really well. She does want to slather her with kisses and she's not ever close enough to get to do that. We were really worried that Portia would be bothered a lot by Jenna's crying, but it hasn't bothered her at all. She is happy if she can find a place to snuggle with one of us.
The first night didn't go quite as ideally as we had hoped, but it was better than it could have been. She woke up around 3AM screaming. We couldn't figure out anything to make her stop. Finally I got up and rocked her for a bit then changed her clothes and she settled down. It was feeding time, so I tried that (we'd also tried during her fit, but she was too upset to eat) and she latched right on and had one of her best feedings ever. The rest of the night went very smooth and right now the four of us are lounging in bed getting some extra rest.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Jenna Marie Cain
Jenna Marie finally joined us on December 1st at 12:56 PM. She weighed 8 lbs and 3 oz and was 21 inches long.
I started having mild, but regular contractions on Saturday. They escalated during the night and by 1:30 AM, I couldn't sleep any more. I got up and watched TV and sat on the exercise ball. Around 5:00 AM, they were between 4 and 5 minutes apart and lasting around 2 minutes, so I woke Aaron and we got around and went to the hospital. Unfortunately the contractions weren't causing me to dilate, so they had me walk the hospital for an hour and there was no progress, so they sent us home. As soon as we got home the contractions kicked up a notch. They were bad enough that I do not remember much of anything the entire time we were home! We were scheduled to go in to start an induction at 8 that evening, so we still went in. They decided that they would not start inducing since I was already contracting regularly. I had been planning to only have an epidural for pain, but I will admit that I underestimated my ability to cope with the contractions, so I took some pain killers. It worked for about 30 minutes, then I started to feel just the peaks of my contractions, which was the worst part! I took 2 more doses before I could have an epidural and each one seemed to work less for me. I felt so bad for Aaron, but he was awesome, he just rubbed my back and comforted me. I finally started to progress enough that they would give me an epidural -- THANK GOD!!! I felt so much better instantly! I also went from 3 cm to 7 cm dilated within an hour. Unfortunately the next time they checked me I had regressed to 5 cm. The nurse was dumbfounded and had someone else check me and they agreed with her. An hour later I progressed to 6 cm, but then I stayed the same for hours and hours. They had the doctor start visiting me and after 2 visits he said that if I didn't make progress by 11:30 am that we would need to start talking about a c-section. At 11:30 he was in surgery, so he visited a little after noon and I still had not made progress. He said that if we wanted to wait a while we could because the baby was still looking really good and I was doing alright, but that his suggestion was to do the c-section because I should have progressed a lot more and he wasn't able to tell why I wasn't progressing so he felt that it was safest to do the c-section. By that point, although I had the epidural and didn't feel my contractions I felt extensive pressure in my pelvis and it was so uncomfortable that I did not want to wait. Also, I trusted the doctor's judgement, so we agreed to do surgery. My doctor was not the on-call doctor, but they gave him a call and he headed to the hospital (his office is just across the street). We thought that we'd have a few minutes to make calls to tell our parents that we were going into surgery, but as soon as Aaron got on the phone with my mom to tell her they were already moving us out of the room. He managed to get text messages out to his parents in the operation room while they were finishing prep work. They put up a sheet and let Aaron sit by my head. I was not nervous at all, just so excited that we were going to finally meet her! I was trying hard not to cry, but tears kept streaming down my face. Aaron told me later that he was so nervous and had a huge knot in his stomach. After they made the incision I could feel them manuevering her out. What a strange feeling! The doctors were talking about the KU/MU game the weekend before. For some reason I thought that was really funny -- here we are having this huge monumental point in life and to them it was just another day! When they were close to getting her out the doctor laughed and said, "Look at those cheeks!" Aaron and I both were grinning like fools. Another minute or so later, they had her out and lifted her over the curtain to give us a quick peek (which wasn't nearly long enough!). They told Aaron that he could go with her and after a quick glance at me (I told him he HAD to go with her!), he headed off to watch them clean her up, weigh and measure her. I could hear her crying and it was the best sound I'd ever heard, but it seemed like time stopped and it was forever before I got to see her. The nurses and Aaron went back to the labor room and he took her with him. My mom and his mom and brothers were in the room waiting when he got back, so they got to meet her. They went to the waiting room while I got back from surgery. They stitched me up and wheeled me back to the labor room and I was finally able to see her! It was so awesome. I looked at Aaron and asked him if she was a Jenna. He said he said it to her and she stopped crying, so he thought that was what her name was. We had decided that if we named her Jenna that her middle name would be Marie because we really liked how it sounded...Jenna Marie Cain.
I started having mild, but regular contractions on Saturday. They escalated during the night and by 1:30 AM, I couldn't sleep any more. I got up and watched TV and sat on the exercise ball. Around 5:00 AM, they were between 4 and 5 minutes apart and lasting around 2 minutes, so I woke Aaron and we got around and went to the hospital. Unfortunately the contractions weren't causing me to dilate, so they had me walk the hospital for an hour and there was no progress, so they sent us home. As soon as we got home the contractions kicked up a notch. They were bad enough that I do not remember much of anything the entire time we were home! We were scheduled to go in to start an induction at 8 that evening, so we still went in. They decided that they would not start inducing since I was already contracting regularly. I had been planning to only have an epidural for pain, but I will admit that I underestimated my ability to cope with the contractions, so I took some pain killers. It worked for about 30 minutes, then I started to feel just the peaks of my contractions, which was the worst part! I took 2 more doses before I could have an epidural and each one seemed to work less for me. I felt so bad for Aaron, but he was awesome, he just rubbed my back and comforted me. I finally started to progress enough that they would give me an epidural -- THANK GOD!!! I felt so much better instantly! I also went from 3 cm to 7 cm dilated within an hour. Unfortunately the next time they checked me I had regressed to 5 cm. The nurse was dumbfounded and had someone else check me and they agreed with her. An hour later I progressed to 6 cm, but then I stayed the same for hours and hours. They had the doctor start visiting me and after 2 visits he said that if I didn't make progress by 11:30 am that we would need to start talking about a c-section. At 11:30 he was in surgery, so he visited a little after noon and I still had not made progress. He said that if we wanted to wait a while we could because the baby was still looking really good and I was doing alright, but that his suggestion was to do the c-section because I should have progressed a lot more and he wasn't able to tell why I wasn't progressing so he felt that it was safest to do the c-section. By that point, although I had the epidural and didn't feel my contractions I felt extensive pressure in my pelvis and it was so uncomfortable that I did not want to wait. Also, I trusted the doctor's judgement, so we agreed to do surgery. My doctor was not the on-call doctor, but they gave him a call and he headed to the hospital (his office is just across the street). We thought that we'd have a few minutes to make calls to tell our parents that we were going into surgery, but as soon as Aaron got on the phone with my mom to tell her they were already moving us out of the room. He managed to get text messages out to his parents in the operation room while they were finishing prep work. They put up a sheet and let Aaron sit by my head. I was not nervous at all, just so excited that we were going to finally meet her! I was trying hard not to cry, but tears kept streaming down my face. Aaron told me later that he was so nervous and had a huge knot in his stomach. After they made the incision I could feel them manuevering her out. What a strange feeling! The doctors were talking about the KU/MU game the weekend before. For some reason I thought that was really funny -- here we are having this huge monumental point in life and to them it was just another day! When they were close to getting her out the doctor laughed and said, "Look at those cheeks!" Aaron and I both were grinning like fools. Another minute or so later, they had her out and lifted her over the curtain to give us a quick peek (which wasn't nearly long enough!). They told Aaron that he could go with her and after a quick glance at me (I told him he HAD to go with her!), he headed off to watch them clean her up, weigh and measure her. I could hear her crying and it was the best sound I'd ever heard, but it seemed like time stopped and it was forever before I got to see her. The nurses and Aaron went back to the labor room and he took her with him. My mom and his mom and brothers were in the room waiting when he got back, so they got to meet her. They went to the waiting room while I got back from surgery. They stitched me up and wheeled me back to the labor room and I was finally able to see her! It was so awesome. I looked at Aaron and asked him if she was a Jenna. He said he said it to her and she stopped crying, so he thought that was what her name was. We had decided that if we named her Jenna that her middle name would be Marie because we really liked how it sounded...Jenna Marie Cain.
They took forever getting us moved from the L&D room to the Mother and Baby room, which made Nana (my Mom) and Memaw (Aaron's mom) anxious because they were in the waiting room and no one updated them that everything was still ok. I honestly don't remember much after that point -- it was a blur! I know that we had quite a few visitors waiting by the time we made it to our room. It was nice to know how loved she was by everyone!
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