Emily Lynn Jensen

Here is the birth story of Emily Lynn:

We have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little girl since Friday April 29th.  We were sent to the hospital on the 29th to check to see if my water had broke.  I was told to pack my hospital bag just in case.  We took the boys to our friends house for a sleepover and headed to the hospital.  We were placed in triage to wait.  After about 30-40 minutes they finally made it in to do the little water swab check.  It was negative but the doctor that was there checked me and told me that I was 5 cm dilated and 80 effaced and -1 station.  I was having contractions but nothing was regular.  They wanted to keep me for a couple of hours and see if I made any progress.  I laid in the bed and was very bored, as was Ryan.  Over 2 hours later they came back and checked me again and I was dilated to a 6 and about 90 percent effaced and 0 station.  They said that my contractions weren't regular enough to admit me and they couldn't do anything to "help" the process.  They told me to go and walk around for 2 hours and come back and they will check me again and we would go from there.  Ryan was starving at this point it was around 8 PM.  We walked down to get him some food and then we started to walk around the hospital.  I was pretty ready to have this baby so I decided that I was going to walk the stairs.  We started at the bottom and walked up to the 9th floor 3 times.  It was well over 1,000 stairs.  I went back to be checked and nothing had changed, in fact my contractions STOPPED!  Now I know that if I want to stop labor to walk stairs.  They were hesitant to let me go home and wanted to keep me over night but I was ready to go home.  They told me that if my contraction became regular to come back in.  We left the hospital 6 hours later with no baby to show for it.  

Fast forward to Thursday May 5th- I had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon and shocked the doctor that I was still pregnant.  I had been walking around for the past week at 6 cm.  I went to Church, I taught preschool, I weeded the flower bed, I went grocery shopping, it was a pretty normal week.  The doctor checked me and I was still the same that I was the previous Friday.  He started to tell me that he was worried about me walking around "half-delivered".  He was worried that once my water broke that I wouldn't have time to get to the hospital and he gave me two options: one, I could be put on bed rest; or two, I could be induced.  If you know me you know that there is NO way that I could handle bed rest, so I opted for the induction.  We set it up for the next morning May 6th.  I had to postpone the last day of preschool and I was very sad about it, I was looking forward to our little party.  

The morning of May 6th we woke up at 4 AM to get ready and to drop the boys off at our friends house and to be at the hospital by 5:30. 

Once we were at the hospital they started the check-in procedure and had to draw blood and run the tests on that.  I was started on Pitocin at 7 AM.  They can up the dose of the Pitocin every half an hour.  Once I was up to 6 mg the nurses were unable to up my dose without the doctor's approval due to the fact that I was having multiphasic contractions (they were lasting around 2 minutes). The doctor was in the operating room performing a C-Section.  I could hardly feel the contractions and was quite comfortable.  Ryan and I decided that we would sit and watch Inception (It was a GREAT movie!). When the doctor came in at 11 he checked me and I was 8 cm dilated.  He asked me if I wanted an epidural, I told him that I was fine and that I really couldn't feel the the contractions.  He then broke my water and the real labor began.

My contractions started to become stronger and closer together.  After a little while I was asking for an epidural. I received my epidural at 12 or I should say half of my epidural.  My right side wasn't completely numb. I was not very impressed the the anesthesiologist she made Ryan leave the room "for infection control".  She took her time and told me everything that she was going to do and how it was going to feel.  I have had 2 other epidurals and was in a lot of pain and wanted to yell at her to just give me the epidural! After I finally got the medicine in and it was starting to take effect I noticed that I had a very sharp pain in my right hip that wasn't there before the epidural.  I mentioned this to the anesthesiologist and she looked at me as if it was my fault.  I told her that I could still feel the contractions on the right side of my body.  I don't think that she believed me.  She grabbed a needle out of the package and started to poke me with it.  She started on the left side and I couldn't feel it, then she moved to the right side and I could feel her poking me.  She poked my arm and then my leg and asked if they felt the same and they did.  She gave me a second dose which helped.

Once all the anesthesia drama was done the nurse was trying to hook the monitors back up and couldn't find Emily's heartbeat.  There was another nurse in there and she tried to find the heart beat and couldn't find it and then she says, "this baby is in the birth canal, you better call Dr. Reider." The doctor walked in the room within the minute and takes a look and sees her head. Dr. Reider then told Ryan to look and Ryan could see her head.  After two pushes Emily Lynn Jensen was here at 12:44 PM.  She weighed 5 lbs 13 oz and was 18 3/4 inches long.  The only concern we had was that her body temperature was low, but it was fine after a little time under the heat lamp.  

Emily took to nursing right away and is a champ eater!

We had to wait in the in Labor and Delivery room until they had a recovery room ready for us upstairs.  We were told that they had to discharge a patient and then they could move us.  Ryan was waiting until I was moved to the recovery room to go and get the boys, finally at about 5 PM Ryan left to go get the boys.  I was still waiting to be moved.  I was finally wheeled to a recovery room at 6:30.

Ryan picked up the boys and fed them dinner.  They came to the hospital eager to meet their little sister.  They were very happy to finally get to hold her.  Nathanial held her once for a brief moment and then was done.

Christopher could not get enough of his baby sister. He kept giving her kisses and loves.  He asked to hold her at least a dozen times!

I was only able to see my boys for about 2 hours on Friday.  They brought with them their blankets and pillows and we watched Disney's Oceans while they were visiting.

The Brannan's came to visit us at the hospital and the boys were eager for Emily to return from the nursery after her bath.

The boys each brought a little present for Emily.  Nathanial brought her a little doll and Christopher brought her a pink hippo (Kyla gave Emily the hippo at the shower but Christopher wanted to give it to Emily).

Emily gave Christopher a big stuffed monkey

Emily gave Nathanial "How to Tame Your Dragon" shield, helmet, and hatchet.

At 9 PM the boys had to leave.  Ryan took them home to put them to bed. Around 10 o'clock I get a phone call from a very sad Nathanial saying that he missed me and wanted me to come home.  It made me want to cry.  Both boys ended up in bed with Ryan at some point.  Ryan didn't even know that Christopher was in bed until Ryan went to move his feet in the morning and felt something heavy on them. It was Christopher.
My night at the hospital wasn't much better.  Someone came in almost every hour all night.  A nurse came in every 2 hours to check Emily's vitals and then a nurse came in every 2 hours to check my vitals and they happened to be staggered so someone was coming in every hour.  It was a long night.
We were given the okay to go home on Saturday; we were told that we could leave around 1 PM.  Our plan was for Ryan to take Nathanial to his last day of swimming and then head to the hospital to take Emily and me home.  Dr. Reider came in and said that I fine leaving and put in my discharge at 11 AM.  The Pediatrician came in and said that Emily was okay to go home but that she needed to stay at least 24 hours and that they had to do some tests before she could leave and that it would be around 3 PM before we could leave.  Ryan and boys ended up coming just after 1.  While we waited we watched cartoons.

 

The boys were good for the most part while we were waiting.  We ended up waiting longer than we anticipated.  Christopher ended up cuddling with me and taking a little nap.  A little after 3 someone came in to do the tests on Emily.  They needed to do a blood test.  The lady didn't take Emily out of the room and the boys and Ryan and I sat there watching her trying to fill all the circles on her paper with Emily's blood.  The boys were not happy that she was making Emily cry.  I wish that she would have taken Emily out of the room to do the blood work.  She ended up poking both feet once and one foot twice and she sat and cranked on her foot for 20 minutes to get enough blood.  Ryan and I were not happy with that. 

At 5 PM we were still waiting to be discharged.  Since we didn't know how long it was going to be we were just waiting around.  I ordered my dinner and all four of us shared it.  We were able to have a couple of bites each.

Finally at about 8 PM the boys and Ryan had had enough!  Ryan went to find out what was taking so long.  The nurse came in and we finally left at 8:30.  It made for a very long day.  The boys were more than ready to go home and so was I.

 With every child Ryan has given me a necklace with that child's birthstone in it, this is the one he gave me for Emily...

 These flowers are from the Brannan's...

 These flowers are from Nathanial...

 These flowers are from Christopher...

We are adjusting to a family of 5.  It is nice that Ryan has been home this whole time.  He took his last final the day before Emily was born and doesn't have to go back to school until the Tuesday after Memorial Day.