Lochlan's Birth Story

I was due on January 31^st, 2014. That means… YES, honeymoon child. I have had to do the math for numerous people.. but yes, it did in fact happen- AFTER- our wedding day.

Well, here I was 6 days PAST my due date… wondering what the crap.. get him out… I’m gonna die.

The day after our due date, the doctors told us that they can’t induce us because they don’t’ usually like to induce because it can affect 1^st time mommies in different ways… so they said to “induce myself in natural ways.” We scheduled our inducement for February 7^th. I had 5 FALSE alarms.. yes, 5. You imagine my discouragement regarding our child. But the day after our due date I was feeling like it was going to come anytime so we were pretty optimistic. Spicy foods did NOTHING because I ate spicy stuff on a regular basis.. but we tried everything. And nothing was working.. I went from having contractions every day the week, to literally nothing after my due date.. I thought he was never going to come and besides we had 1 day where we could NOT have the baby, and that was February 4^th. Blake’s brother Collin (whom I never met previously) was returning home from his mission and that would totally suck if we had him on the day he came home… it would have sucked for everyone haha… I obviously couldn’t go up to see him arrive.. so Blake and I just waited at his parents house to see him…luckily it was a great day, and nothing happened.. Ha

 That night I started to have contractions, and I just wasn’t feeling well… but this meant absolutely nothing to me because it was just a normal day for me and I was convinced I was never going to have him. But later that night I was having pretty regular contractions... they weren’t getting tougher so we just went to bed…throughout the night they were getting stronger to where I wasn’t hungry, and I couldn’t move my body at all.. The next day, February 5^th,  I just laid on the couch all day long… but these contractions were coming every 7-10 minutes at the same strong pace I pretty much took 5 or 6 baths that day to help. That night was the worst night for both me and Blake. I was having contractions every 3-4 minutes and they were soooo painful.. if anyone wants to know what a contraction feels like, it’s the worst Charlie horse you can imagine along with worst period cramps ever that last for about 30 seconds… so ponder on that thought for a while…

These pains got worse and worse.. Blake and I were in bed and so Blake was there to help me with my breathing.. because I wasn’t breathing the best way.. haha.. I would tense up, which is the WORST thing to do to induce labor because it makes your body not dilate as easily. So he helped me a ton for about 6 hours and then finally at 4:30-5:00 am Blake started the bath for me… I went & laid in the bath & it was NOT helping at all. I pretty just laid there like a dead fish. After the bath, I got back in bed… but I couldn’t lay down it hurt too bad. So I had to sit in bed.. finally I couldn’t handle it anymore at about 7:00 am I woke blakely up and we decided to go in… Blake was very discouraged too & asked me about 12095785839 times if this was the “REAL” deal. I told him I think so… after we were driving for a minute, I thought to myself.. this isn’t labor.. let’s turn back around & I ‘ll just get induced tonight anyways… so nothing will happen. I just figured so many false alarms this is another.. so we just kept driving to Provo… the car was silent, poor blake was soooo tired.. he had pretty much been up with me all night helping with contractions and throughout the day & the night before… so we had NO sleep for about 24-30 hours…

I was in labor for flipping 24 hours before we went in... what the crap...

After we get into Labor & Delivery and settled in… it was about 7:45 am. After the nurse checked me, she said that I was at a 3 1/2  she left for a minute  and came back and said that since I was scheduled an inducement that evening they were just going to keep me… after about 15 minutes they noticed I was in active labor.. 5 minutes later I had the anesthesiologist putting in my epidural. 20 minutes later and I was progressed to a 5 1/2. Later on, My doctor came in and broke my water, as he was breaking my water he let me know that instead of feeling the back of the baby’s head, he is feeling his face. This is called “Posterior”.. which means the baby is facing your belly button rather than your spine… its really hard to deliver babies naturally this way because sometimes they can break their neck or shoulders and is really, really tough on the baby. The doctor warned us that if we were to have him naturally it would be risky and he would be very bruised and there could be an emergency down the road.. so he suggested a C-Section for our safety.  He tried to move the baby one last time… but it was a no go … so he said he would be back in about 20 minutes...he came in and said I was at a 7 ½ and was progressing fast… so he said that a c section was the way to go… obviously I didn’t want a c section, but it was kind of out of our hands.. I was progressing too fast.

After we decided the c section was the best option, the doctor left the room for a minute to call his partner. He came back and told us that the baby was going to be 6 pounds MAYBE 7 if we’re lucky and talked to us about the procedure and what to expect.. so after we got pumped up and kind of got ourselves together, they threw an outfit to Blake and we were ready to ride. Unfortunately it was so fast, that Blake literally didn’t have time to call anyone, it was a text to his mother & a call to my dad.. that was it. In a matter of 30 minutes, Blake was with our child in the room to get checked out. ( Between the time that the doctor told us we had to have a c section to Blake holding the baby was a half hour. It was VERY fast.) After the anesthesiologist came in and did his thing… I was kind of just lying there begging for some ice chips. Blake was holding my hand the entire time and trying to calm me down. There was so much medicine in me, I was shaking terribly & couldn't stop.. Haha the only thing I remember at this point was the doctors said the baby’s head was out.. but I heard them kind of laughing saying “oh my gosh, his head is huge” “he’s a lot bigger than 6 pounds.” Haha it was really funny. But after they took him out, they came to show me.. Blake and I of course cried… I only remember Loch’s nose.. hahaha. It was kind of smashed against his face, poor stinker. After they weighed him, he was 8 lbs. 12 oz. so yes, he was quite the child. After that Blake left me to go be with the baby.. and I was getting stitched up. After an 30 minutes or so.. I got to hold my baby for the first time… it was pretty much the most surreal thing ever.  I know everyone hears this… but there really is no other feeling. You love this small innocent child and you love it more than you ever thought possible.

I was in the hospital for 4 days, and the stay was amazing. The nurses were so understanding of my pain & knew how much I wanted my son around too. We had a TON of visitors, which I liked.. It made us feel loved & more than anything made Lochlan feel more loved. I was doped up on Percocets pretty much the entire time I was there.. so I don't really remember a  lot from after that! haha but  Blake was so patient and helped me in so many ways. We had Lochlan in the nursery  for some of the nights, and they'd bring him to me every 2 hours to nurse. We called him a Koala Bear, because he would lay on your chest and he would just grab on & would just stay for hours on end.. he still does that!!! haha but he really is just a good baby! He doesn't cry hardly ever he normally just gets fussy. He's very easy to please.

After we got home from the hospital, we found out that he had jaundice... We had to get him tested I think 3 times.. it sucked for us. His eyes were pretty yellow, it was just really sad.. but after supplementing & nursing as much as I could.. His level went way down, so we did not need to do Light Therapy.

Because of my C-section I couldn't lay flat down or really move... so we just camped out in our living room for a couple weeks... Blake really catered to me & was super patient & caring.

Lochlan is pretty much just the cutest human being in the world. We love him so much.