Birth Day

On Monday and Tuesday I tried my hardest to relax and enjoy my last two days as a mother of one. It was hard because my nerves were sky-high. I had a lot of trouble sleeping and insomnia was my buddy those last two days. On Tuesday we sent Riley to my parents to spend the night, along with our dogs. It was especially hard for Chad & I both to say bye to Riley, especially when he asked to come with us, but Papa did a good job of distracting him so we could leave. That night I only slept about 3 hours because I was so anxious about the induction. I was awake at 1am, and then about 3am turned on the TV for an hour before I finally got up at 4am. I woke Chad up at 4:45am and we were at the hospital at 6am to check-in. This was right before the nurse shift change and so one shift of nurses got me checked in and got my IV inserted (thankfully after only two sticks) and then we met Kirstin, the nurse who would help deliver Carter. She was great! At 6:45am she started the Pitocin in my IV and then around 7:15 the doctor came in and broke my water. He was not wasting any time! My contractions gradually got worse, but I was trying to avoid getting the IV painkillers this time because I got them with Riley and they made me really loopy and I wanted to be more present this time around. I had to dilate to 4cm to get an epidural and finally around 10:45am, I was at a 4. Kirstin said I could try and get to 5cm before getting the epidural if I wanted and so I decided to try and tough it out. I only made it 30 minutes before I was asking for the epidural. Unfortunately, it took another 30 minutes for the anesthesiologist to make it to the room so I ended up waiting an hour total anyway! He finally arrived and they got the epidural in. It worked really well at taking the pain out of my abdomen and at first I didn’t feel any contractions. I slowly realized though that the epidural seemed to take more on my right side than my left side. I could still move and feel my left leg, but my right leg was more numb and felt like it was asleep, although I could sort of feel it too. What this meant was that I started feeling the pressure of the contractions in my left leg. Chad left to get a bite to eat right after my epidural was in and the doctor came in after that to see how I was dilated. I was at 9cm, but Carter was in position to come out already. I just had to dilate another cm. The nurse thought it would take about an hour, but about 20 minutes later I was crying from the pressure of the contractions and so she checked me again and I was already at 10cm. They got me in position to start pushing and I pushed twice when Chad said he could already see the head and the nurse told me to stop pushing because it was time and she needed to call the doctor in. The next 10 or so minutes were excruciating as I had to not push through 4-5 contractions. All my body was screaming to do was push. Finally the doctor got there. I pushed twice and the head was out and I pushed once more and the body was out. Total of 5 pushes in less than 20 minutes! That’s what I call a good labor! So without adieu, everyone say hello to Carter Jake Jung!

Carter Jake Jung
Born February 24, 2010
1:27 pm
8 lbs 1 oz
19.69 inches long

Chad posted some videos on YouTube if you want to check them out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbLhMKayIMI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o7xLqS4n34

Riley finally made it up to the hospital early that evening. He had spent the day with my parents and brought a present for Carter. Riley was really freaked out that Mommy was in a hospital bed and wouldn’t come see me, but he made Chad sit on the floor with Carter and he gave Carter his present, a seahorse that lights up and plays music. He did give Carter a kiss, but then Carter gave Riley a present of some movies and then Riley spent the next 45 minutes in a chair in the corner watching Monsters vs Aliens on Chad’s laptop.

My parents, Chad’s parents and Chad’s brother Blake and my sister in law, Rebecca all came by. My parents were understandably emotional about Carter and Jake sharing a birthday and everyone was thrilled to meet Carter! We had more visitors over the next day and thank you to all that stopped by! We loved seeing you!

Carter did have some trouble eating at first in the hospital. Because the labor was so fast he was not able to push all the amniotic fluid out of his lungs during delivery so he was spitting up a lot at first. They suctioned his lungs a couple of times and then gave us some feeding tips and all seemed to help. We were discharged from the hospital on Friday and are now happily at home as a family of four. Here is Carter just before we left the hospital:

Being at home has been great! Chad & I resumed our routine we had after Riley was born. I take the night shift until 3am and then Chad takes 3am-morning. It has been working out great overall. Riley is really taking to his baby brother. He kisses him a lot and pets him and wants to make sure he knows where “my baby” as he has started calling him is. The weather was fabulous over the weekend and we spent a bit of time outside on Saturday:

On Sunday we had to take Carter to his pediatrician for a check of his jaundice levels, which were really good. He didn’t lose much weight either and weighed in at 7lbs 11oz. We had dropped off Riley with Grandmommy & Haha on the way to the doctor so afterwards we went to the grocery store to stock up for the week before going back to pick Riley up. We spent the afternoon at home and our friend Hillary and my Aunt Renee, Uncle Scott and cousin Ethan all stopped by to meet Carter. Hillary bought Riley some bubbles to play with and he had a lot of fun playing with them in the front yard!

After our visitors we ran to Babies R Us to get some diapers for Riley. Overall, my recovery is going very well and I feel overall so much better than I did after delivering Riley. I am so looking forward to my days at home with Carter over the coming weeks and thank you to everyone for your kind words and well wishes. We couldn’t be happier!