Evelyn Jo's Hospital Stay

When I think about being in the hospital for two whole days I always think it would be a good time to snuggle with our little one.  Time to rest and recover and just bond.  I remember with Elsie this wasn't really the case and I am not sure why I thought it would be this time around.  Maybe because I thought breastfeeding would come easier this time around.  We definitely got some good snuggle and bonding time in but the time goes so fast and can be stressful at time.  I actually felt like there wasn't enough time.  

Elsie was born at 6:11 PM.  Our hospital is a "Baby Friendly" hospital which means they really encourage bonding with your baby and breastfeeding and have policies put in place to do so.  This is also a change from Elsie.  One of their policies in instant skin to skin contact for at least the first hour of birth.  So little Evie (who was still not named yet) was born an immediately put on my chest.  And stayed there-they did most of thier initial tests while was on my chest and was wiped down a bit.  After about an hour she showed signs of wanting to eat and so I nursed her (also one of their policies is to attempt to feed within a hour of birth).  This whole process took almost two hours which was just when Elsie, Dale, and Bev arrived.  Although it was Elsie's bedtime John and I both wanted her there to meet Evie that night and I needed to see my big girl too :).  

Elsie was so in love with her little sister and so excited to meet her!  It just fills my heart to see how much she feels for her sister.  And I can say typing this up 6 weeks later it is still the case.  

They stayed for a little bit and did a little present exchange.  Evie gave Elsie her first set of legos-a princess castle.  Elsie gave Evie a giraffe toy that she picked out herself.  Also included in the bag was a card she made for Evie and a few Easter Eggs (Elsie was/still is obsessed with those plastic Easter Eggs).  She had also included a toy we had received as a gift from my friend Mel.  Ha! 

Evie also got to meet her paternal grandparents that night.  

Grandma Bev

Grandpa Dale

They stayed for a short bit and then headed back to our house so Elsie could go to bed.  It was at that point that the nurse (Sharon) came in and actually did some measurements on Evelyn (who was still nameless).  Another policy of the hospital is that the babies "Room In" with the parents and don't take them out of the room for any reason so everything done for the baby is done in the room.  Also for most of the evening I was receiving text messages and phone calls of congratulations and asking for more info such as name, weight, etc.  I had nothing for them yet since she hadn't been weighed or measured.  I think the only bit of info I knew for details was that she had been born at 6:11 PM.  

9:02 PM

They finally weighed her and she weighed in at 8lbs 9.5oz and 20.25" Long

They also did her first bath and did her footprints.  

It was also this time that I really had to go to the bathroom and Sharon had said that we needed two nurses to help me walk to the bathroom for the first time.  She tried for over an hour! to get another nurse to come in but the floor was so busy with new babies/mamas in labor that there was no one available and I SO had to go to the bathroom and was thirsty but didn't dare drinking anymore water.  Finally, she had John help and I could go!  Thank goodness.  I think this was really the only time I was frustrated with my care.  Around 11PM we got a new nurse!!! Emily!!  I was really excited to see her.  She was one of our main nurses when we had Elsie and was new to the hospital then.  In fact, she had sat in on our childbirth classes when I was pregnant with Elsie because she was just hired and hadn't seen the classes before.  I remember we really liked her the last time so it was exciting to see her again.  That night we tried to get some sleep-we were both exhausted because we had been awake for over 24 hours!  Evelyn slept for a little in the bassinet-maybe a half an hour but kept fussing.  We took turns holding her and resting but this makes me so nervous.  I really didn't want to try to hold her while i laid there because I was terrified I would doze off.  And I hate to say it but John isn't very good about keeping his eyes open when he is really tired ;)  He falls asleep fast and hard.  Emily eventually came in and asked if we wanted to have her go back with her to the "nursery" which doesn't really exist anymore.  Nurses are discouraged from asking patients this question because policy is that the babies stay in the room to bond with their mama.  I knew this months ahead of time and rumor has it one of the OBs that practiced there left because of some of the new policies.  I was so relieved that Emily had asked (even though she could get in trouble for doing so).  We got a couple of hours of rest in and around 4:45-5:00 AM I woke up and went out and requested her back. Evie got lots of snuggles from the nurses and they were doing paperwork that evening.  My friend Shanna texted me later saying she got to snuggle with Evie for awhile that night so I felt a little better and about sending her out of the room for a few hours.  And I felt so much better after getting some sleep.  

Good Morning-Someone seemed a little hungry :) 7:00 AM

I got up and showered and got ready.  Bev and Elsie were going to come for another visit in the morning before Elsie went to daycare for the day.  They stayed for a little bit and then took off before Amber, Aubrey and Adalyn came to visit.  I told Bev she should probably get Elsie out before Aubrey arrived otherwise she would have trouble getting Elsie to leave.  

They stayed for awhile and visited and at some point the lactation consultant came in to chat with me and it was nice to have Amber there to listen and chime in too.  Since we had breastfeeding issues with Elsie and major weight loss with her we were trying to be on top of the game this time..  I knew that a lot of my time in the hospital would be focused on this.  I bet she was in there an hour with us talking, troubleshooting and helping me.  After Amber left around 11:15ish, the lactation consultant came back in and helped when Evie was nursing to make sure the latch was good, she was transferring milk efficiently, etc.  All looked good so that was a bit reassuring.  

Around noon, she left and John left to go get a new pump from the home medical supply store at the hospital and went to get fenugreek and blessed thistle from the natural food store to help boost supply.  AT this time Kara and Lisa came over their lunch break to meet Evie and visit.  It was nice to have them stop by and say hello!!  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of them.  

All the medical people who came into our room while we were there warned us to get rest during the day because the second night is tough-baby just wants to eat and eat and eat.  Well, that is just what our little girl did in the afternoon-eat and eat and eat.  It was really hard on me.  She pretty much ate non stop from noon until 7:00 PM.  

The second evening was a busy one but very special.  We had a room full of visitors-Dale, Bev, Elsie, Brandi, Todd, Emma, Olivia and my parents made it down from MN too!  

Aunt Brandi

Cute sleeper from Brandi, Todd and the girls! Coral-Evie's color!

Emma and Elsie with Evie

Olivia and Evie

Meeting Grandpa Craig and Grandma Bonnie

More snuggles with sister.  Also, this blanket in this picture is Elsie's prized possession.  This is the only blanket she uses to sleep at night and her bit of security.  This morning she brought it in to the hospital and left it there during the day for Evie to use-how sweet to be sharing her most prized possession.  

After the part left, we relaxed a little bit.  If you can say that.  That night went okay.  Evie stayed in our room and we alternated resting, holding her, and laying her down in the bassinet.  Thankfully, she got her whole cluster feeding episode done in the afternoon so the night wasn't as bad as they had warned us about.  

It was also this evening that we finally decided on a name.  After more than 24 hours our little girl was names Evelyn Jo!  I have another post coming to explain how her name came to be :)

The next morning we got up and did a lot of waiting.  Waiting for all the doctors and nurses to do their thing so that we could be discharged.  Like I mentioned previously, the birthing unit was VERY busy so we had to wait a long time. I took a nice warm bath and we just hung out.  

We ended up waiting the longest for the hearing test to be performed but once that happened we were free to go home.  One thing that I noticed was that we were not escorted down to the exit or did they even look at our carseat which I thought was a bit odd.  And to be honest, I wasn't too impressed with our nurse on duty that morning.  Emily was by far the best one we had! :)  

So around 1:15 PM Evelyn Jo gets to go to her new home!!!  We couldn't be more excited to take her home so we could all be together as a family! 

Evelyn Jo's Birthday

It is crazy that is has already been almost four weeks since all of this has taken place.  Some parts I remember like it was yesterday and some parts are a little fuzzy but I will do my best to recount how the day played out so I can remember this VERY special day.  Also, this is a very long, wordy text and has lots of little details about a birth so if you don't want to hear this info I would stop reading now :) 

As my due date approached, I really started to get prepared for the arrival of our second little girl.  I put the finishing touches in my hospital bag and tried my best to keep the house in order each night before bed in case that night was "the night."  On March 31st before I went to bed I told Elsie that one of these nights she might wake up in the morning and instead of mom and dad being there Grandma Bev would be there because we would be at the hospital.  That night she asked for a few extra hugs and made me promise that I would still be here in the morning and wouldn't go to the hospital.  I promised her, which I felt terrible about doing because I knew it was not something that was necessarily in my control.  For me, when the time came the ideal situation would be to get Elsie off to daycare and then got into labor.  

As we know we don't always get what we want.  At 1:20 AM I had my first real contraction.  I had been sleeping but it woke me up.  I laid there for awhile and waited for another.  I ended up having another and by the third contraction I decided to start timing them, which was easy because I downloaded an app on my phone.  They weren't consistent on the frequency yet coming anywhere from five minutes to ten minutes.  At one point John woke up and asked if he should take Tally to the shop and I told him, no they weren't close enough together and that we wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.  I am sure had I got up and moved around I could have made things progress faster but I kept thinking about my promise to Elsie and how I really wanted to see her in the morning before we headed to the hospital so I just laid there waiting for the time to pass since I wasn't able to fall back to sleep.  Around 4:30 I decided to get into the shower and get ready.  This was also the time that my contractions picked up to being 5-6 minutes apart and lasting for at least a minute.  This kept going for at least an hour and just before 6:00 I called First Nurse to see when I should be going in.  They told me now was probably the time.  So we called Bev and had her come over and I waited as long as I could to go so I could see Elsie.  I ended up going in there around 6:30 and woke her up-it was about the time she wakes up anyways.  We gave her hugs and kisses and headed out the door. 

One more pic belly pic :)

Also around this time my contractions started slowing down.  By the time I got to the hospital they were at 6-8 minutes apart which isn't good. We arrived at the hospital a little after 7:00 AM.   When the Dr. came in to check on me and I told her how the contractions were slowing down she said "Well it looks like she is playing a little April Fool's joke on you, making you think she was going to come today".  But when she checked me I was at a 4-a good 4 she said.  She said if I wanted to have this baby today she could break my water since I was already progressing on my own.  She gave me some time to think about it and said she would check back in with me.  One of the things about this is that I had my doctor there vs one that was on call-which was reassuring.   So John and I walked the halls over and over and over trying to get my contractions to come together more.  I called Erin and Amber to get their opinions on whether to have Dr. G break my waters or to go home and see if I progressed better on my own.  After much deliberation, we decided just to go ahead and do it.  I just REALLY didn't want to do pitocin again this time around like I did with Elsie. I wanted things to just happen on their own.  At least this time I did go into labor on my own, I was just speeding it up right?  

  

I had to wait a little bit to get settled into a room.  Apparently, Birthways was really busy because we had to wait to have a room cleaned because they were all full.  But by 9:30 AM I was into a room and settled-and really tired because I had been up since 1:30 AM.  By 9:40 Dr. G had broken my waters.  When she broke my water she noticed some "thin" meconium present which later she said it was a good thing we didn't wait too long to have this baby.  With meconium present there is a possibility that they would have to suction her out when she was born-another thing I obviously wanted to avoid.  I wanted to be able to hold this little girl the minute she was born instead of being whisked away (Elsie had to have a couple of puffs of air to get her to breath when she was born).  But the nurse said it was so thin that they probably wouldn't have to do that and probably wouldn't call the pediatrician to be present so that was a bit of relief.  

John and I walked around some more.  They kept asking when I wanted my epidural since I had said I would want one.  They told me I might "miss" my opportunity. Apparently, when you have your first child you can get an epidural at any time.  But any subsequent births there is a window and once you get too far you might miss your chance because you tend to progress more quickly the second, third, fourth time around.  After walking some and having three hard contractions within just a few minutes I decided to get an epidural.  By 11:45 AM I had received my epidural.  My contractions still weren't consistently getting closer and closer.  When Dr. G checked me again between 12 PM-1PM I was still at a "good" 4.  No progress what so ever!  So dissapointing and I also just felt terrible.  I hated the way the epidural was making me feel and I was so nauseous.  I ended up getting sick.  they ended up getting me something for the nausea and changed out something with my epidural which can cause that.  I was also a bit emotional at this point, frustrated and dissapointed that things weren't progressing-in fact they were slowing down.  I knew that sometimes an epidural can slow things down but with Elsie, it sped things up and I was hoping that would be the case again.   Around 1:00 PM my contractions were still anywhere from 3-7 minutes apart. 

Taken at 2:45 PM

Taken at 4:34 AM

 Around 2:30 I decided to finally get pitocin.  By 4:00 PM I could tell it was working, despite the epidural I could feel my contractions, I would have John test me.  I would tell him when I thought one was happening and he would look at the monitor and tell me I was right-and I always was.  By 5:00 I was actually uncomfortable, I felt a lot of pressure and my nurse Sharon was in my room all the time.  I hadn't been checked since noonish but we both new I had to be close but Dr. G was planning to come over shortly after 5:00 when the clinic closed (it is just across from the hospital) so we were waiting to check.  Around 5:30 Dr. G told my nurse just to check and if I was ready to push to go ahead and start pushing and she would be over.  Also around this time, my friend Shanna who is a NICU nurse was coming in to work and she would be assisting with delivering our little girl.  It was nice to have someone you know and trust in the room taking care of our baby if anything should go wrong.  She wasn't scheduled to come in until 7 PM but they called her to come in at 6 PM since they were so busy and she ended up getting there in time to deliver our baby.  So anyways, the nurse checked me and I had a lip but through the next contraction that dissapeared and was "complete" and ready to push.  We did only two practice pushes and the nurse told me to stop and that I couldn't push anymore until Dr. G got there.  She put in another call to her and by 6:00 PM Dr. G was there.  I pushed normal through one contraction and then little miss Evie was born while pushing through the next contraction. I couldn't believe how little I had to push (I pushed for 2.5+ hours with Elsie.  

Welcome to the world Miss Evelyn Jo!!

Evelyn Jo Sorem

Born on 4.1.2015

6:11 PM

8 lbs 9.5 oz

20.25" Long