Birth Story

The day started off just like any other. I had an appt early in the morning so trying to get the boys both up and ready is always stressful! We made it to the doctor's office in time and then we ended up having to wait. The boys were getting anxious so I gave them each a lollipop to help tide things over and then the doctor finally came in. He asked how I was doing, I told him pretty uncomfortable. I asked him if there was a change in my cervix from last week if we could possibly strip my membranes that day instead of waiting till Valentine's Day. He looked at me said usually they like to wait till 38 weeks. I said well I'm just 3 days shy of 38 weeks and he said he'd go ahead and give it a shot! I was thankful but then reality hit me once he did that! I was now 4cm dilated and with the doctor appt over I came home loaded the boys up in 35 degree weather to go take a walk. I called my parents and told them what was going on because they were just starting to drive over to Portland for the weekend. I wanted to tell my mom to stay in town so bad but without knowing for sure if this would start my labor I told them to go ahead and still head over and I would keep in contact with her throughout the day to keep her updated. My walk with the boys only lasted less than 30 minutes because it was so cold and I came home, took a shower, and then googled on the computer all about stripping membranes. My heart sank because everything I was reading was saying that it more than likely wouldn't start your labor. It was around this time that I started feeling contractions but nothing painful and nothing too consistent. I took Connor to his preschool and then when I came home I had more time to sit there and actually pay attention to the contractions. They were starting to come about every 10 minutes, still nothing too painful though. I called my parents again told them it would be in their best interest to head back home and just make it a day trip. They wanted to have dinner with some friends in Portland i said that should be fine and I'll call them when I know more. As of this point I still hadn't even called Asa because he was due to get off work within the hour so I figured I would just wait till he got home. Once he came home I was ready to go to the hospital and get checked. Contractions were about 7-10 minutes apart but getting more painful. I called my friend Becky dropped the kids off with her and off to the hospital we went. Once we were there time dragged by. We were just waiting in a triage room watching her heart rate and my contractions had now got less intense. Taylor seemed to be asleep too and the nurse and I were trying to wake her up cuz labor isn't supposed to make a baby sleep! After some apple juice she finally started waking up. Asa decided to go pick up the kids from Becky and bring them back to the hospital so after he got back with the kids we decided to walk around the hospital to see if things progress from there. I was now at 6cm dilated so I thought walking might help. The boys seemed to enjoy themselves getting to walk all around the hospital we even walked up five flights of stairs and back down which by the end I was just about at my limit for wanting to walk no more! Asa's mom got to the hospital around this time to take the kids overnight and now we were just waiting on my parents. I got put into a labor room and got the IV put in. It was around this time I asked for the epidural not necessarily because I needed it right then and there but because the anthesteliogist was in the area and he was about to head home so it was either now or maybe never. So as he was putting the epidural in at around 11 pm my parents showed up and I was just thankful that they made it back home in time. I no longer felt guilty for telling them to come home early! With the epidural in and running I thought we were good to go but boy was I wrong. At around midnight I started feeling my contractions again. i thought that it was odd considering I just got the epidural. I called the nurse she came in asked a few questions and then decided to check my cervix. In that two hour span since my last cervix check I had gone from a 6 to 9 cm dilated. She said that I must be feeling the pressure from the baby and that is why I'm feeling my contractions. After another 40 minutes of starting to get uncomfortable the pain was getting pretty intense for me. I was starting to feel a lot of pressure down there and I was getting seriously bummed that I had no epidural. With each contraction that came I started crying and I couldn't contain myself. I'm not the type of person who cries too easily in front of other people but this pain was getting to me. The nurse told me I could try to push now if I wanted because there was only a tiny bit of cervix left. That's when I went into freak out mode, it hurt to push so I was trying not too and the nurse was trying to calm me down and get me to focus. After she got two good pushes out of me the room turned into chaos. I was screaming out in pain, crying, and the baby's head was right there. It was then that the nurse was trying to get the doctor in there ASAP and she was telling me not too push but at this point in time there was no stopping her from coming out. She literally almost fell out. The doctor barely got there in time, nurse had to put the gloves on the doctor about 2 seconds before Taylor was all the way out. That pain was so intense but I'm glad it only lasted for less than 15 minutes. So four pushes and Taylor welcomed herself to the world. Much different than my labor expierences with the boys. I had a little tear that needed to be stitched up but other than that everyone was healthy and happy. With the boys I had to push for an hour with each of them so it was definantly nice to only push a little bit with Taylor. After spending another day in the hospital we were sent home to begin our life as a family of five!

Siblings

Can you tell they're related?? These are each of my kids newborn pictures. The one on the left is Connor, Taylor's in the middle, and Zachary is on the right! My best friend got me the blue cloud blanket right after I gave birth to Connor and it worked out perfectly to use it for his first photo. When Connor was about 2 weeks old I knew I wanted to go get a pink one just in case I ever had a girl that way they could have matching pictures. So I've been holding onto my pink cloud blanket for over four years now and it's nice to finally see my daughter with the blanket! I love how each of these three pictures turned out and I can definantly seem some resemblance to all three of them at that stage in their life!

Taylor's first video

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One week old!

I can't believe it's already been a week! My sweet girl is one week old! Not sure if this time has flown by or dragged on, a little of both. It's been quite an adjustment for me going from two kids to three. I feel like I'm all over the place trying to take care of everyone and everything. Connor is doing exceptionally awesome with Taylor, he gets so excited when her eyes are open. And he's been talking to her and each time he starts out with Hi I'm Connor and this is mommy and she's gonna take care of you! It's so sweet to listen to him talk to her! I hope to get it on video soon :-) He's only held her a couple times and he's gets bored of it quite fast so it only lasts about 5 seconds. Zachary on the other hand could really care less that she's even here. Only in the past three days has he even acknowledged that she exists. He'll say baby and then touch her head but I've been trying to get him to say Taylor or to give her a kiss but he is not interested at all. Although he is interested in her binky and proceeds to run off with a big smile and the binky in his mouth whenever I'm not looking! Asa was able to take a few days off this week and help me out with was good. I was definantly nervous for him to go back to work but it was more relaxing than I thought it would be. I even managed to take Connor to his preschool with all of them and it wasn't stressful for me. My mom purchased a stroller for us that holds the car seat so I take that and Zachary loves to help me push the stroller and it has so far worked perfectly when we take Connor to school! Taylor is doing well. As of this point we're still having some issues with her jaundice. I've been having to take her to the doctor everyday since Wednesday to get her bilirubin levels checked cuz I guess that they're not going down fast enough. We go back in tomorrow to test the levels again and hopefully this will be the last time. Her one foot is all bruised from where they keep poking her and I've been rotating which foot they poke each day. She also has a clogged eye duct right now so I've been trying to keep up on that. I have to rinse her eye with a warm washcloth everytime she wakes up and then massage the inner part of her eye and so far it's helped it go down a little bit on the gooiness. It was getting to the point where she couldn't even open that eye cuz it was so much gunk there but now it's not so bad and she opens both her eyes right away when she wakes up. Feeding time with her as gotten better since I started pumping instead of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is something that I have never enjoyed with any of my kids and I only do it strictly cuz it's what's best for them. Taylor was having trouble latching on and then she'd fall asleep right away even after repeated attempts to wake her up to eat more. I was getting frustrated and decided that it was in my best interest to pump instead and she's been taking to the bottle good and eating more at each feeding which in turn helps her sleep longer than a half an hour period at night! Asa's been pretty awesome with helping me at night. He usually stays up later than I do so if he's still awake when she wakes up he'll take care of her so I can get more than a few hours of sleep at a time! And that's about it for what's been going on in the past week! Asa gave the kids a bath last night and I think it's safe to say that they had a good time! Ahhh they are so cute!!!!

Valentine's Day

So for the past few months I have been talking with Megan and it has been a pleasure getting to know her. We were each due to have babies in February and as luck would have it ended up delivering our children within an hour and a half of each other! Well she purchased this outfit for Miss Taylor and she has a similar one for her boy Davin and since today is Valentine's Day what better day to put her in the new outfit? She was of course swimming in the outfit like everything else I put on her but still cute none the less! So thanks Megan, we appreciate the outfit! Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

And Now Our Family is Complete

Very proud to introduce the newest member to the Dean family! Taylor Elizabeth was born on February 10 at 1:03am. She weighed in at 6 pounds 10 ounces and 19 1/2 inches long. Everyone is healthy and happy!

A Brother's Love

 

 

 

Connor and Zachary's first pictrures with their sister! Not quite sure what either of them think yet!

First Moments

Here are a few of our first moments with Taylor!

Even quicker update here, we're heading over to the hospital to get checked out right now so hopefully they'll keep me there and we'll have a baby soon!!!!!!!!!!!! Contractions are starting to get more painful and coming 7-10 minutes apart. If they send me home I'll blog later and if not I'll post as soon as I can :-)

A quick update

Just wanted to let you guys know I just got back from my appt with the doctor. I'm just shy of 4cm and I convinced him to strip my membranes today instead of next week! So hopefully today or tomorrow I'll be in labor!! I was told to walk so I'm now going to dust off the double stroller that hasn't been used in months and take the boys for a walk. I'll write later if nothing has happened but hopefully something will happen!! Wish me luck :-)

Do you see what I see?

So if you can't tell the first picture is what I see when I look down! Can't even see my feet at all and I don't even want to know how far foward I'd have to lean to see them! I decided to take out the camera tonight and yeah there you go! I'm now considered "full term"! Over the past few days I've even started feeling some contractions. Don't know if they're Braxton Hicks or real ones but I'm hoping for a baby soon! Anybody have any guesses as to how much they think Taylor will weigh ? Humor me and take a guess!

Baby Showers!

Yay for new clothes!! Had my baby shower this weekend and I got a ton of clothes for Taylor. I even got a dresser so now I have somewhere to put all her clothes! It all started Friday evening when I went to work. I had the kids with me and Asa was going to come when he got off of work. While I was waiting for the child care to open one of my good friends who brings her daughters in to child care while she exercises came in with two huge bags full of balloons, cake, fruit, her husband, the kids, everything! Turns out she had planned a suprise baby shower for me at work with all the staff and parents who bring their kids while they work out! Let me tell you I was suprised! Because had I known this was happening I would have made myself appear more decent, I had come to work with no make up on, hair a mess in a ponytail, looking very relaxed. But we had a good time none the less. I got lots of stuff and it was nice of all these women to come just for me. I was so happy that my friend went out of her way to do this for me. It really meant a lot, probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me in my life! After that whirlwind of a shower I had to get ready for my regular baby shower the next day. This time I felt more comfortable, got my hair looking decent, put on some make up, nicer clothes! It was a small gathering of women at my best friends house. I think there were 10 of us and 3 kids so very relaxed, which I honestly prefer. I'm a pretty shy person so I don't like a ton of people all focused on me, makes me nervous! We sat around talking with one another, had some good food, opened presents, and we even played a baby game. My best friend got an awesome cake as you can see in the pictures, it's from a place called Westside Bakery and there food is absolutely delicious. I'm not normally a big cake person but this cake tasted excellent! All in all I had a very good weekend and got a ton of stuff ready for Taylor! I even packed part of my hospital bag!

Am I excited?

So this question has been asked to me numerous times in the past few weeks and I honestly don't know the correct answer to give. Of course I'm excited to meet my daughter but at the same time I'm still scared to take on three kids. Zachary and Connor already have me where I'm feeling soo busy so I'm just not sure how I'm going to be able to do all three and have everyone get the attention they need and deserve. But I have I feel turned over a new leaf in the past few weeks where I'm not as scared as I was before. I'm ready to face this challenge head on and find a solution that works for me. Yes it'll be hard right in the beginning but hopefully we'll all fall into a routine and adjust okay. So to answer everyone's question yes I'm excited but just a little worried right along with the excitement! I still just look down at my belly and stare in amazement that I am almost done with my final pregnancy. This time has overall flown by and I can't believe she's almost here. I'm very happy with this pregnancy. I feel awesome. No back pain, no new stretch marks, I can still put my shoes on somewhat comfortably, and best of all the fact that I've only gained 3 pounds!! I know I've talked about it before but I'm honestly pretty proud of myself and even better my doctor is pretty proud of me for my weight gain. I attribute feeling awesome in this pregnancy to that very fact that I haven't gained much weight. On a side note another doctor visit down yesterday and I had him recheck my cervix because of a certain need to change my underwear too many times in a day and I'm now a little over 3cm dilated which isn't much of a change from last week but I'm now 90% effaced! So in the last week I've gone from 50% to 90%!! My doctor says my cervix couldn't be more ready than what it is so now we're just waiting on Taylor to decide when she's ready to come! Of course if Taylor decides she doesn't want to come too early I have a doctor appt on Valentines day and we will strip my membranes and hopefully go into labor that day. So while you all enjoy your roses and chocolate I'll enjoy hopefully holding my daughter in my arms!