Owen Spencer Whitney

To start off, I need to say that this will likely be the last blog post I ever write on here. Life is too busy and blogging is not a high enough priority for me to continue on. However, since I had recorded all the birth experiences of my older children here I wanted to do the same with this, our last baby. 

Part I

In the early part of my pregnancy with Jonah I began to think that maybe he would be our last baby. My instincts were telling me he would be a girl and my instincts had been right for the other two. I had wanted a sister for Penny since I grew up with all sisters. At my 20 week appointment when we found out Jonah was, in fact, a boy I thought maybe I wasn’t quite done after all. Well, Jonah came along and with him all the work that comes with a newborn. A few months after he was born my sister, Lindsay, got remarried. We settled into life as a family of five and life began to normalize again until about a year later when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and then life was most certainly not normal. My sister and her new husband had decided to start trying for a baby of their own but when the pandemic hit and we were all waiting for a vaccine they would go back and forth. We kept the thought of another baby in the back of our minds for a while as well until about a year later deciding to just see what would happen. For a long time for both of us nothing at all happened. Life became a new normal with COVID’s constant presence but life will always move forward. 

Eventually Bryan and I decided we needed to either move forward seriously about having another baby or decide officially that we were done. We went to the temple and felt that we would regret not doing everything we could up to and including one IUI to get pregnant. I talked with my doctor and got a prescription for Clomid that I would begin taking at the beginning of my next cycle. 

One day in early November my sister called me and told me she was pregnant! I was excited for her– not at all jealous. I’ve been the one having babies for so long that I thought it would be nice to just be an aunt again. It was around this time that I was just waiting for my cycle to start so I could go on Clomid but decided for the fun of it to take a pregnancy test… and it was positive! After 10 months of nothing happening and with a Clomid prescription in my medicine cabinet I had gotten pregnant on my own at the exact same time as my sister! Even though I'd had total peace at her being pregnant before it really felt like it was meant to be at this precise time since both of us had taken a while to get pregnant. She was due July 12th and I the 13th! 

I love my sweet kids but felt four would be the maximum I’d sanely be able to handle so we decided that, barring any strong promptings otherwise, this would be our last baby regardless of if it were a boy or girl. Since I am over 35 my pregnancy was considered “advanced maternal age” and I qualified through insurance to have blood testing done to detect chromosomal abnormalities– it would also tell us the baby’s gender 8 weeks earlier than we otherwise would have been able to know. After I had the blood draw we waited so impatiently to get the call to tell us if we would be having a boy or girl. It seemed to take forever! We got a balloon with different colored confetti to pop for the kids. Finally the call came and the nurse said, “You are having… a boy!” We were both a little taken aback. We had felt it was a girl and knowing this was our last chance to have one made us feel admittedly a little disappointed. It was bittersweet throwing away the pink confetti and Penny was particularly disappointed at not having a little sister. However time moved on and we grieved the loss of the idea of another girl and got more excited about our last baby and last little boy especially since Lindsay found out she was also having a boy! To be honest, I now can’t even imagine my new little baby as anything other than who he is. 

Now that we knew we were having another boy we had to figure out yet another boy name. We had a handful of names we kind of liked but nothing that was sticking out unlike two girl names that were top of the list. We went back and forth and disagreed. Even names one or both of us had liked in the past we just didn’t like as much any more. At some point the name Owen, which had never been on our list before, began to really stick out to me. We had also originally picked out two family history names per gender and had to come up with another for a boy. Luckily it didn’t take us long to realize we wanted to use Spencer– my mom's maiden name. If she’d ever had a boy that would have been his name. It, at least, was set in stone. We finally got down to a list of seven first names to take to the hospital. We don’t like to choose it officially until we see the baby. 

We never really go on vacation but knowing this would probably be our last opportunity to do so easily we decided to go on Spring Break vacation with my parents to St. George. We stayed in the nicest place I have ever stayed before– Arcadia Resort, a bunch of little houses surrounding a big water park. We loved this vacation so much but one sad part was that almost all of us got a stomach bug and were knocked out for a day or two of the vacation each. That was extremely disappointing but we made the best of the healthy time we had.

When we got back we got serious about preparing the house for a new baby. We had decided to move Luke and Jonah into a room together with bunk beds and I wanted to make it really special for them. My friend helped me make an accent wall with thin horizontal boards and we got a cool bunk bed that had a house at the top to give Luke some semblance of privacy. He loves his “apartment” as he calls it. He has a bookshelf up there with tons of books to read, a book light and his own little fan. Some days he says he hates sharing with his little brother but most of the time it’s no problem. We also decided to do something a little different for the nursery than we had with the other boys. We kept the dinosaur theme but painted a mountain accent wall and changed up some of the colors. Overall both rooms turned out really well. I was stressed about getting the house ready in time for the baby but soon everything important was done and we were just waiting…

Lindsay had a scheduled induction date of July 5th due to her age and so I brought this up with my doctor as well and he agreed it would be better for me and the baby, especially since he was measuring a bit bigger, to have him at 39 weeks instead of waiting until 40 so we set up a date for the 6th of July. At that same appointment he checked me. I wasn’t quite 36 weeks but I was already dilated to a 3 and he said he would be surprised if I made it to my induction date. I hoped that was true! I was starting to feel extremely miserable and huge. Gravity was not my friend and I was winded everywhere I went. I was so tired of getting up 5-6 times a night to pee. I really, really hoped that this baby would make an appearance on his own sooner rather than later, like Penny had at 37 weeks 6 days. I went into labor gradually one day with her and everything went so smoothly. I had really hoped it would be much the same this time. To be honest, I was a little scared of being induced again because of my experience with Jonah. Once I got in with him it seemed there was problem after problem and it all went really fast ending in all the drama I wrote about in my last blog post. I weirdly wanted to stretch out and savor this last labor (while enjoying an epidural). Time kept marching on and still the baby did not come.

On the morning of June 26th I woke up to a text from Lindsay– her water had broken and she was in labor! That was an exciting day, waiting for news. By the afternoon she had given birth to a healthy little boy, Samuel Ryder. I was so sure I would be right on her heels! Instead I just kept waiting… I actually had three different times where I truly thought I was in labor but the contractions weren’t strong enough or close enough together and then they would just stop. It was so, so frustrating. I decided this boy would be one who liked to test my patience. I also had higher than my usual blood pressure at my last appointment and went in once to get it checked to make sure I didn’t have preeclampsia. The end there was just fraught with worry. I was almost positive I was going to have him on July 1st with how bad of contractions I was having that morning. Again, the contractions simply disappeared after a while. At this point I was getting worried that I really was going to go into labor on July 4th. What I had been wanting and wanting so badly up until this point I suddenly wanted to delay. I’ve never wanted my kids to share birthdays with holidays. Everyone deserves their own day that is about them… Luckily the day passed without a major incident and I resigned myself to an induction on the 6th as originally planned. 

Part II 

On July 5th I decided my theme song of the day was, “Tomorrow” from Annie. That night Bryan gave me a Priesthood blessing as he always does before the births of our babies. One thing I specifically wanted to mention is that he blessed me that there would not be anything in this delivery process that I could not handle and that the baby and I would both be healthy. He also blessed me to have faith over fear. 

I anxiously waited until the morning of the 6th to call the hospital and find out when I should come in. When I did so they said they didn’t have room for me and to call back at noon… that was surprising. The theme song of this day then became, “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing” by Jack Johnson. My parents had stayed the night since we had expected to be leaving first thing in the morning. Bryan took my dad, Luke and Penny to the Archery Range to shoot with his new bow and arrows. We spent a lot of this day just impatiently sitting around. At noon they still didn’t have space for me and said to call back at 4 PM! Ugh! At 4 PM they still didn’t have the room but they said they’d been in contact with my doctor and I was guaranteed to get in that night. So finally when I called at 6 PM they told me to come in at 7:15 PM. What a waste of a day of Bryan’s paternity leave but I no longer cared– just SO glad to be getting in and having this baby.

We took a picture of me entering the Labor and Delivery part of the hospital in a throwback to one I did when going in for Jonah. When we compared the two it seemed obvious why I was so much more miserable– I was a LOT bigger this time!  

They got me in and hooked up to an IV and running penicillin for being Group B Strep positive. I started in the hospital dilated to a 5 or 6 so at least those false labor contractions I had been having were doing something. They set me up on the lowest dose of pitocin at 8:40 PM after being in the room for just over an hour getting everything all set up and getting checked in. After less than an hour of that with increasingly painful contractions and discomfort I decided I didn’t need to be a hero anymore and asked for my epidural, which was administered at 9:25 PM. The anesthesiologist was very funny and nice and answered all our questions. During my labor with Jonah Bryan had told me that the epidural needle was the biggest needle he had ever seen. So since this was the last time I’d be doing this I asked him to show it to me– after he had actually done it so I wouldn’t be nervous. Once the epidural began to take effect I just remember feeling  so relaxed. At 10 PM my doctor came in and broke my water. They also put me on oxygen to help with the baby’s heart rate dropping, though this was not as concerning as with Jonah. The baby seemed to like me being in a certain position so whenever I would get back into that his heart rate did just fine. The nurse had me bear down to get the baby into position and by 11:30 PM they had paged the doctor to come in and deliver him. I was pushing for about 10 minutes before the doctor said the baby’s heart rate was going down too much and he would need to use forceps. The nurse accidentally brought over premie forceps and when she left to get the normal size forceps I had another contraction and pushed him out on my own. Apparently nothing can strike fear into the heart of a woman giving birth like the word, “forceps.” Kidding, of course.

The baby was born at 11:46 PM just barely making his birthday the 6th of July rather than the 7th. He was 9 lbs 4 oz and 20 inches long! I didn’t know I was capable of making such a big baby– Luke was 7lbs 8 oz, Penny was 6 lbs 11 oz and Jonah was 7 lbs 6 oz. I made lots of jokes about having eaten too much fast food this pregnancy. The baby did not have any notable problems apart from some minor bruising but he cried and cried for a long time after birth and did not want to be comforted. I was able to nurse him in the delivery room and that seemed to go decently. He also had a lot of dark brown hair and he reminded me most of Penny as a baby. All my babies had a lot of hair but Owen probably had the most.

We got wheeled into the Mother and Baby unit and got settled and at this point it was very late so I sent the baby to the nursery, planning to have the nurse bring him back to me to breastfeed him throughout the night. Bryan went home to get a little rest before rejoining me the next day.n The next time the nurse came in she said that the baby had low blood sugar which meant they had to give him a measured feed instead of letting me nurse him. They gave me the option of giving him formula or pasteurized human milk (PHM) and I chose the latter but wasn’t happy about not being able to feed him. I felt so disconnected from my baby. At the next feeding again he had low blood sugar and they had to feed him– meaning that I didn’t feed my baby the entire first night after having him. It was a very weird feeling. The next morning the pediatrician on call came in and I told him about this and he asked if they had given me the option to pump. They had not discussed this with me so the next time the nurse came in I brought it up and they got me set up with a pump. The pediatrician also said that he had a bit of a heart murmur, which can be common with newborns, but they were planning on doing an echocardiogram just to be safe. 

Despite the low blood sugar and need for an echo I was surprisingly calm, considering how things had gone with Jonah. I truly believe that Bryan’s blessing of faith over fear was something that Heavenly Father had endowed me with because through all the tiny dramas that occurred with the baby I never really got upset. Another thing that came up was that the baby didn’t seem to want to suck. The nurses were concerned about this and wanted me to meet with the lactation consultant. While also pumping to make sure I had a supply, we tried bottle feeding the PHM and various other things but He didn’t want to suck. I just knew that he’d get there in the end and wasn’t worried. 

Bryan got into the hospital after all this and while the baby was having his echo. So much can happen in one night in the hospital and I had to catch him up on it all. My dad had a physical therapy appointment that morning and came straight to the hospital from that while my mom got all the kids dressed and ready and brought them in the van to meet their new baby brother. Once the baby was done his echo the nurse wanted me to try feeding him with the lactation consultant so my dad and Bryan left to meet my mom and the kids in the cafeteria for lunch and then my mom came up to be with me while the lactation consultant was there. He still had trouble sucking and she discussed different positions and things with me but didn’t seem too worried either. 

After lunch my dad came up to visit the baby with my mom because, including Bryan, there were too many visitors to be in the room at once. My parents got to meet him and hold him and then my dad had another appointment to go to so Bryan and the kids came up. They swarmed me with hugs when they came in and initially barely gave a glance to their new baby brother. Eventually we had each of them take a turn holding him and took pictures of them with him and then as a new family of six! My mom took the kids home but not before Luke had a difficult time saying goodbye to us— of all our kids he feels our absence most deeply when away from us. 

Once everyone had left we needed to officially decide on his name. We went into the hospital with a list of seven names but Owen had always been at the top for me. Bryan had been hesitating on it but a week or so before had said, “If he comes out with chubby cheeks and brown hair he’ll be an Owen.” He had totally forgotten saying this but I reminded him when the baby had just been born and he was commenting on his brown hair and chubby cheeks! We narrowed it down to Owen and Miles, a name that had been on our list since we were pregnant with Luke, but in the end officially decided on Owen Spencer Whitney. 

Later that day I had pumped some colostrum and was trying to get Owen to eat it by dipping my finger in it and putting it in his mouth. He actually started sucking on my finger when I did this and ate most of it this way! That night he had no problems nursing– he fed well all night and the concerns about sucking dissipated. The next morning we found out that the echo showed no serious concerns and the murmur was expected to resolve itself. His bilirubin levels were checked and they were “low to intermediate risk” so they never did light therapy or had to send us home with a bili blanket or anything. The pediatrician would check on the heart murmur and bilirubin levels the next day but we were able to be discharged!

I ordered one last free lunch from the hospital cafeteria, fed Owen and then we made our way home to our kids! I usually want to stay in the hospital longer but I guess my long stay with Jonah cured me of that. I was happy to get home and to have all my kids together there. We got home and my parents stayed just for a bit, getting a chance to hold him a bit and then left for us to get settled.

Part III

Well here we are six weeks later and finally posting about Owen’s birth. Though it feels like the blink of an eye to the reader to just say, “6 weeks later” I can assure you that every week and day was hard fought to get to. Owen has not been any harder a baby than any of my others and in some ways he is easier but time flows differently with a newborn. I know that I’ll be able to look back on this time and say, “In the grand scheme of things that was actually such a short time,” but when you are in it it feels like a very long time. I measure my life in two hour increments for feeding during the day and though he goes in longer stretches at night I am still quite exhausted.

One blessing that we’ve had is that Owen has been a much easier baby to nurse. I can count on one hand the number of times he has fought me and cried about latching. His latch is not always perfect but he will generally always go on very easily. Usually he eats for 30-45 minutes! When you measure time to next feed from the beginning of a feed that leaves a small window of time before you’re doing it again! Breastfeeding is just constant but I know we’ll get to a good place where it doesn’t feel so much that way. I’m just so grateful that he generally nurses well and little by little it is becoming less painful, though not all the way yet. 

I have always eventually transitioned by younger babies to sleeping in a swing but recently the AAP cautioned against swing sleep or sleep in anything with an incline. I was so worried about how I was going to figure sleep out because I relied on that motion to help soothe them before eventually weaning them off of it and putting them in their crib. After seeing ads for the Snoo for a while, I dreamed of being able to get one but they are exorbitant. Luckily they have an option to rent one month to month so we decided to do this for 3-4 months, which is usually about when I transition my babies to their crib. So far I wouldn’t say it is perfect but lately he has been sleeping well in it at night. Around 8:30 PM I feed him and then Bryan holds him for a bit while I get a head start on sleep. Bryan usually puts him in the Snoo around 10:30 PM and then he’ll sleep until around 2 AM. After I feed him and put him back to sleep he’ll sleep in it again until 5-6 on a good night. Sometimes he isn’t settled enough when I put him down and requires some snuggling to get to sleep. During the day lately I have been trying to put him down for naps in it more. He usually only lasts in it a maximum of thirty minutes for naps but I know he’s still young and this is normal. I look forward to things falling into a more predictable pattern! As someone who likes structure, the newborn stage is very hard for me. 

Postpartum depression has not been too bad this time– once I got through the first two weeks of intense hormonal changes I would say there are only a couple of times where I could tell I was feeling down chemically rather than situationally. Mostly the constant breastfeeding, being cried at and sleep deprivation have made things difficult but that is to be expected. Every second of every day I am relieved to know that this is the last time we’ll do this. It’s nice to know that I won’t wonder what might have been.

One thing that has been nice is having someone to go through this with. My sister and I text each other to see how each other and our babies are doing often. We give each other advice and comfort. I am so grateful for that and I love knowing that Owen will be growing up with a built in friend. 

The older kids love the baby so much, particularly Penny. When Owen is awake and happy sometimes I lay him on a playmat or sit him in his bouncer and have one of them come talk to him and entertain him so I can get something done. They are also feeling the effects of a not very present mom. I’m so consumed with baby that they are often left to themselves. I’m glad they have each other even if they fight way more than I wish. Luke says he wants to remember this time because he doesn’t remember it with Penny or Jonah so he writes about it in his journal. Some days he really feels the effects of our being so distracted and misses how things were before. He will start school this week and I think that will be really good for him. Jonah started preschool last week and Penny will start Kindergarten next week! I have no idea how I’m going to manage all the drop offs and pick ups with Owen and his needs too but we’ll manage. We’re in for a wild ride this year!

We sure love our newest and last addition. He is sweet and snuggly and oh, so handsome. Our family feels complete now with Owen and it is a very peaceful feeling. 

Jonah Thurston Whitney

And just over a year later... Well, turns out a lot can happen in a year, including an entire pregnancy! As of my last post I had no idea I would be making this post a year later but here it is nonetheless.

Part I

One day in April or May Bryan and I were driving to the temple and he said, "We need to talk." Uhoh. He went on, "We need to talk about baby #3." I was a little speechless. Penny was around 16 months and I felt I had my hands full with two kids and a little part of me was thinking maybe I could be done and happy with just them. I really hadn't thought about starting to try again but we decided to think about it while we were at the temple that day and give it serious consideration. I remember sitting in the chapel before our session started just trying to imagine myself pregnant again or our life with another child and it felt scary but possible. The idea even seemed kind of exciting but still-- I was nervous. We decided we would stop birth control and see what happened. Bryan reasoned that since we have fertility issues that we likely wouldn't be pregnant for a long time anyway. I was hesitant to give into that reasoning because everyone says it happens when you stop trying. Still, we decided to move forward and not pursue any fertility treatment. I was ready to accept that I was only going to have two kids. But I bought a set of HCG test strips just the same to check on things every once in a while. 
We stopped birth control and for the first time in like two years, since being pregnant with Penny and breastfeeding and such, I had a period. A few weeks later on a Saturday Bryan's company had a Lagoon day. We spent the day going on fun rides with the kids and, because Bryan's mom came with us and was able to help with the kids, Bryan even had me go on a few roller coasters with him! 

The very next day was fast Sunday and, on a whim, I decided to take a test. I'm not sure why I did since I didn't have any symptoms-- I didn't even tell Bryan I was doing it. I walked into the bathroom and picked up the test and stared at two lines for a whole minute, I think. Bryan was laying on the bed in our room and finally I said, "Uh... this is a big deal." He said, "What, did you get your period?" I walked out of the bathroom with it in my hand and said, "I'm pregnant..." He had been resting and suddenly he snapped to attention and said, "No, you're not." I told him about the lines and he said, "It's because you're fasting, that's all. Eat something and take another one." I said that wasn't really how it worked and fasting actually made it more accurate but I acquiesced and with every test I took I continued to get the same positive result. We were floored because Luke took 15 months and a round of clomid to conceive and Penny took 13 months, 6 rounds of clomid and finally an IUI to conceive. This baby just decided it was going to exist! I hate to be a stereotype but we definitely fell into the category of, "Once you stop trying..."

We usually go over to my parents' house on Sundays for dinner and I was ready to announce it to them that very day but we had a family reunion coming up at the end of the month and Bryan wanted to wait until we could tell them all together. I did end up telling my mom first beforehand. She came over one day and I said, "I need to tell you something about Penny." (Trying to throw her off the scent so she could really be surprised) and then I said, "Penny is going to be a big sister." Bryan liked that approach so much he decided to do it with his side of the family-- only we were going to his mom's for a birthday party and he texted her beforehand and said, "We need to tell you something about Penny when we get there," which put her on edge for the hour long drive before we got there! Finally at the family reunion we were playing a game where we all wrote down a fact most people didn't know about us and everyone had to guess who said it. My sister was reading them off and when she got to mine, which said, "I'm pregnant," I saw her put it at the bottom of the slips of papers to be read last. Obviously, all the groups of people we told her so happy and surprised! 
For various reasons Bryan and I decided that this would be a good time to finish our basement. We had talked about it previously but upcoming baby put it on a faster track than other projects because our four bedroom house was making use of all four bedrooms with one of them being a guest room and we wanted to free it up for a nursery as neither Penny nor a baby would be able to share a room coming up. This was a very exciting project for us and every day we would go down to the basement to see what progress had been made. We love our finished basement so much! Not only do we now have an extra bedroom (and craft room) but we have a nice storage room and I feel more confident about the kids playing down there unsupervised and even taking the baby down to be with them while they play. 

From the moment we finally started telling everyone we were pregnant it seems like most of my friends were predicting it was a girl. My instincts were also telling me it was a girl and they had been right both times before so I felt fairly confident in my prediction-- though not confident enough to buy anything girl specific or paint the nursery (I had already decided I was going to paint it purple once we got the definite news that it would be a girl). I thought this could be the perfect end to the kids we would have. I grew up with all sisters and thought it would be nice for Penny to have a little sister and I was feeling like I might not be up for another baby after this. The only person who really, truly believed the baby was a boy was Luke... up until about three days before our ultrasound when Bryan changed his mind to think the baby was a boy. Well, obviously I was wrong. The moment the ultrasound tech told us that baby would be a boy I definitely didn't feel disappointed but a little thought saying maybe we would end up having a fourth came into my mind. Not that I can guarantee that baby would be a girl but I had been so sure we would be done after this and this was the moment that changed. We obviously don't need to think about that for a long time but it's on the table as a possibility. Suddenly, though, my mind shifted to start getting used to thinking of this baby as a boy instead of a girl. I'm glad we found out. I know it's popular to not find out with a tie breaker baby but I'm too much of a planner to let myself do that. 

Overall I had a very normal pregnancy as compared to my others. As with my others, I wasn't too nauseous but I did need to eat something right away in the morning before I could get up and move around. I think I threw up a handful of times with Luke and even less with Penny but I didn't throw up once with this once. However, I started having a really bad dry cough that felt like I was about to throw up (even though I never did) and that lasted the entire pregnancy (and is still lingering a little). I would also get winded really easily and had a hard time getting the motivation to walk upstairs. My heartburn was not horrible but definitely unpleasant and I certainly didn't have a lot of energy. As I had done with Penny, I went on anti-depressants a few weeks before being full term to help with postpartum depression. Still, I was mostly myself but by the end, once I had checked off all my major baby to dos, I was so done and so ready for this baby to be born.

Whenever anyone would ask when I was due I would repeat the same mantra: March 4th but my other babies have been early so I'm expecting a February baby. Luke came at 38 weeks 6 days and Penny at 37 weeks 6 days and I had it in my mind that the trend for coming even earlier than the last would continue. I was just hoping I could make it past Valentine's Day because I've never wanted my kids to share their birthday with a holiday and Valentine's Day is one of my favorites. I also wanted the baby to be born in February because up until this point our birthdays have landed neatly in a row by month-- October, November, December, January and I felt it would be a shame to miss out on continuing the trend with the baby being due so close to February. 37 weeks 6 days rolled around and nothing happened and nothing continued to happen... I had an OB appointment at 38 weeks and was dilated to a 3 but with Luke I had already been a 4 at 37. It doesn't necessarily mean anything but I was a little disappointed. I asked the doctor if I could be induced before the end of February so we set up a date for the 27th so I was guaranteed to get my February baby. The doctor and I both thought he would come before that, though. That whole week I did almost everything I'd heard of to get myself to go into labor. Bryan's mom is even living with us right now waiting to move into her new home and we thought it would be perfect if he came in the night so we would just have someone here already. The Thursday night before my induction I thought I was having contractions. They were even fairly regular (4 minutes apart) but they weren't so bad I couldn't talk through them so Bryan and I decided to get some rest and assumed I'd wake up with more painful contractions later that night but instead I woke up later thinking, "Where did my contractions go?" So that was disappointing. It just so happened that Bryan's mom had scheduled a vacation before we ever found out we were pregnant for the following week. We finally just assumed we'd make it to induction day and that's exactly what happened.

Part II

The night before the induction my parents came and spent the night to be able to be with the kids while we were in the hospital so that was nice. Having family nearby is so wonderful. Bryan always gives me a blessing when I'm about to have a baby so this time he did it the night before. He blessed us to have no major complications but talked about my need to rely on the Savior. That felt a little ominous but I tried not to dwell on it. We got up and called the hospital to see if we could still come in and they told us to be there around 7:45. So I decided to get all dolled up since it was a planned labor. I curled my hair and did my make up and we drove to the hospital in such excited anticipation. It was like Christmas morning!

I got checked in and they asked me a million questions. They poked me three times before getting in a successful IV. That wasn't particularly pleasant. On advice from friends I opted to get an epidural right at the beginning and around the same time that was happening they finally hooked me up to pitocin. I don't even know what time that happened. My doctor came in said I was a 4 and broke my water and predicted it would be around 1:30 PM before the baby was delivered (but that he had my blessing if he came earlier) and that we should relax and get some rest while the pitocin and my body did their thing. Well, every time it seemed like we were about the get to rest for any length of time the nurse would come back in for one thing or another. The heart rate monitor kept shifting and being unable to pick up baby's heart beat so they put one in me that went slightly into his head. His heart rate would drop when I had contractions and so they decided to add more synthetic amniotic fluid back into me as a way to cushion him and that seemed to help his heart rate. The nurse joked that I had as many things going into me as was possible. I started to dilate quickly and they even took me off of pitocin to help yet again with baby's heart rate. I was a five and then before I knew it I was a seven and then I started to feel the pressure pretty quickly and before I knew it I was a nine and my doctor was back in the room and getting me ready to push. I asked if he had hair, as my other two both did, and he told me yes and that it was actually pretty light! I didn't push for very long and soon it became apparent what the reason for the heart rate dropping was-- the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. The doctor was about to cut it but decided to have me push when I wasn't contracting and he was born then at 11:27 AM MST (3.5 hours after arriving at the hospital!). He was 7 lbs 6 oz and 19 inches long.The doctor unwrapped the cord from his neck and Bryan cut it. They laid him on my chest and we were shocked that he had red hair! I just remember feeling a great sense of relief and soon they took him over to do all their tests while the doctor stitched me up. 

I could sense that something was wrong while they were working on him, trying to get him to pink up. Bryan says when he came out he was "blue as a blueberry." He seemed to have swallowed fluid and was having trouble breathing. They tried giving him oxygen through a tube there but it wasn't working so they told me that they needed to take him up to the Special Care Nursery to do a CPAP on him. It was scary. They only let me hold him for the shortest minute and I didn't get to try to breastfeed him before they whisked him away.

I would have liked to have Bryan with me but more than that I wanted him with the baby so I sent him with them to watch over him and to text me about what was going on. Then, I was alone in the recovery room. It was a strange feeling. Minutes before this little being had been very much a part of me and suddenly he'd been taken and my biological need for my child to be near me was overwhelming. They got him hooked up to the CPAP and he seemed to stabilize. They said he just had a lot of gunk in his lungs and that usually with a longer labor and delivery it gets squeezed out on it's own before they have to breath on their own but with how fast I labored and then delivered he didn't have the time to do that.

In the mean time they got me wheeled over to my room and set up there and I immediately wanted to go up to the Special Care Nursery. They tested his blood sugar and it was low so they fed him a sugar gel paste and then I was able to breastfeed him for the first time.

Part III

After a short stay in Special Care baby was allowed to join me in the Mom & Baby Unit and it seemed like we were finally in our normal postpartum hospital time. Whenever anyone would ask if we had a name picked out I told them we had a list and we would decide for certain at the hospital. I had a favorite but we have always wanted until baby was born and we could see him/her to give them their name. His red hair threw us a curve ball and for a bit a name we had crossed off the list resurfaced. We narrowed the list little by little. We went back and forth between two names and finally didn't choose either and went with the original favorite because it was the only one that felt right. So, we named him Jonah Thurston Whitney. We had had Thurston picked out as a middle name for a possible second son since the dawn of our marriage. It's my dad's middle name and was his dad's before him. My dad had six daughters, though, so he never had the chance to use it. He is also one of the best men ever to exist, basically, so I felt strongly that I wanted to use it.

Things were going pretty well, I thought. All the nurses gushed over the baby and his full head of red hair. Bryan went home each night and slept in our bed rather than being in the hospital with me. He did that with Penny too but with Luke, since we didn't have other is, he stayed with me. The next day we had the kids come by to meet their new brother and we were just basking in our new baby. 

Breastfeeding was going decently and I'd had a good enough amount of sleep with him going into the nursery at night and only bring brought to me for feedings. He was a little jittery but they said that was likely from the antidepressants in my system and that it would wear off quickly. He took forever to have his first poop and the nurse had to help him along and by the point that he did have it he'd had enough colostrum in his system that it wasn't just a meconium poop anymore. The next night they performed a car seat test on him where he had to sit in his car seat for 90 minutes without struggling to breath. They do this with babies who have had oxygen issues. Well, he failed it. Twice. They did another test in something called a car bed that is for baby to lay flat in and he barely passed that. 

They also said he had high bilirubin levels and had him go under the bili lights. He also randomly had a high temperature, though that ended up dissipating It felt like one thing after another. The pediatrician said that we could still go home the anticipated next day but he'd have to get photo therapy at home for his bilirubin and go home in the car bed. I was a little stressed and sad but hopeful that we could go home. 

That night Jonah had kind of off feedings and it concerned the nurse who was helping us. For one thing he pretty much refused to nurse on my left side, just like Penny had. I always tried him on that side first and then switched him. Penny worked it out so I figured that would be ok but he also started eating for short amounts of time-- 3-5 minutes or so a feeding. He also just wanted to sleep and didn't want to wake up to eat. I saw the obstetrician on call and he said that since I was recovering well I'd definitely need to be discharged myself because insurance wouldn't cover more. The nurse came in later with a concerned look on her face and said, "So..." and I said, "Uh oh..." She told us that they were still concerned about him and his rapid breathing and how he wasn't eating for very long amounts of time. They didn't think they could discharge him yet but that I would need to be discharged. Since I was breastfeeding I was allowed to stay in the hospital but without care and that I would be discharged. I felt so crushed and I cried and felt like a failure at breastfeeding. He got to be in the room with us while on his bili lights but we couldn't hold him as much as we would like because he needed to be under the lights. 

Bryan went home early that night so he could take care if the kids because my parents had been doing it for days and we wanted to give them a break. That night he failed his car seat test again. I waited around for so long the next morning before seeing my baby and before anyone came into the room. I felt so lonely and lost and filled with a need to be near my baby. I hated how separated from him I felt. The pediatrician finally came in to talk to me with the same concerned look on her face that the nurse had had the day before. She said she had wanted to send him home and it seemed like he was a healthy, term baby but that something was off. He kept failing the car seat test and he had "desatted" and turned blue at one point (which no one had told me). She decided that he needed to go back upstairs to the Special Care Nursery. They also did an x-ray of his chest and tested him for all manner of infections, though his bilirubin levels had gone down so he no longer needed to be under the light. As I cried unashamedly in front of the pediatrician I said, "I feel like this is all my fault! I made him come earlier than he wanted by inducing him for no real reason." And then she wiped away that mom guilt in about two seconds by telling me that it was good we had induced him earlier and that if he'd gotten bigger and we'd waited that I would probably have had an emergency C-section. I'm so grateful for that peace of mind, at least.

Since we were going to the Special Care Nursery (essentially a level 1 NICU) I would no longer be staying in the room I had been in but instead sleeping on a couch in his room with him. While not terribly excited with the sleeping arrangements, I was happier to be with him at all times and to always know what was going on with him. The infections came back negative but the x-ray showed that he had a pneumothorax. The nurse explained to me that our lungs are like bunches of grapes (except really tiny) and that a small handful of those "grapes" had burst. It is essentially a collapsed lung, though that makes it sound more dramatic than it was. This could have been caused from too much pressure with the umbilical cord around his neck at birth or as an unfortunate side effect of the CPAP that caused a tiny rupture. She said that it would heal and quickly but it would need the help of oxygen. He was on 21% oxygen, which is just room air but he simply needed the flow to help him. They also had placed an IV in his head in case they needed to administer antibiotics for a possible infection but never ended up needing to use it. 

I was happy that he was getting the help he needed and that there were watchful eyes on him. During this time my milk came in and it wasn't the most comfortable experience. I pumped some just for relief. His nursing was a bit of a struggle-- he would take sometimes 15-20 minutes just to get the latch he would like and then he would eat for about three minutes and be out. The good thing was that when he was eating he seemed to be gulping it down and he continued to have wet and poopy diapers and was gaining weight. All were good signs even though I wished he would eat for longer so I could feel certain he was done. One thing that was really nice about our time there was that I happened to get the same day nurse and night nurse pretty much the whole time we were in there. It felt better to keep things consistent and they knew us and how our feedings were going, etc. On Saturday night Sandi got back from her vacation to Las Vegas and was able to help take care if the kids so Bryan could spend more time in the hospital with me. 

On early Sunday morning I was trying to feed Jonah and he was getting so mad at me that his heart rate was going so high and the machine started beeping like crazy at me. I was so scared and pressed the nurse button but they didn't come and I put him down and opened the door but there were no nurses to be found anywhere. I kept crying out, "help!" Finally one came and said it was okay, there was nothing wrong with him he was just extremely mad. I probably overreacted but when the machine your son is hooked up to starts blaring at you and no one is around to ease your mind it is a terrifying experience! During all this time he was hooked up to a cannula going up his nose and he was stuffy, which is a big part of why he was struggling with breastfeeding. The pediatrician was nervous that he had a cold and said that would prolong our stay by several days so she ran a panel on that. They took him off oxygen that morning to see how he did. If he could go 24 hours without desatting he could come home, as long as he didn't have a cold. Despite the good news, this was all an emotional time for me. It was Sunday and Bryan and I went across the street to a chapel and took the sacrament. It was really important to me because the words of Bryan's blessing to me kept coming back to my mind. It felt so good to be there and to feel the peace that the gospel brings. When we got back to the hospital we found out that he did not have a cold and the cannula itself had been the reason for his stuffiness. His second x-ray showed that the pneumothorax was gone but there was a little fluid around it that the pediatrician wasn't concerned about. If he could go the night without desatting he could go home the next day! Bryan and I were so happy that night and packed up a bunch of stuff to take home because we felt sure that it would be the last night. 

That night I woke up to hear his monitors continually beeping. He kept desatting and was struggling to recover on his own. Our nurse sadly decided he needed just a bit more oxygen and hooked him up for the remainder of the night, though it was the barest minimum of air flow to help him. They took him off again later that morning but the 24 hour oxygen free stipulation was reset. I was so crestfallen. I knew it had been a mistake to get my hopes up so high and it was extremely emotional for me. Bryan was unable to come be with me that day because we didn't have other childcare for the other kids. And speaking of, I haven't mentioned it until now but another emotionally difficult thing for me was feeling torn in two separate directions. I missed my older kids so much and wanted to be with them but didn't want to be separated from Jonah either. Luke, especially, had a hard time with me being gone. We came home one night for a short visit and he said, "Yay!!!!" when I came in the door and hugged me and I burst into tears. They came to the hospital a few times on my insistence because I missed them so much but it was pretty hard to have them there, mostly two year old Penny who only has one volume. So, he stayed with them and was going to join me in the later afternoon. My mom was out of town and my sister was coming down with a cold so there I was, on my own. I tried to comfort myself with hymns and talks about Christ and let Him be my companion that day. Around mid day one of my friends came to visit for a little bit and that was nice to have some company for a little while. Bryan didn't end up getting to the hospital until about 6:30 at night and it was hard! It had been an overall lonely and sad day for me with just a couple bright spots. I was emotionally an physically exhausted and I was trying to not get my hopes up about going home the next day. Bryan told me that he kept thinking of the concept of approaching a stop light-- some aggressive drivers try to speed through the light if it turns yellow but that whenever there is a stop light you should act as though you'll need to stop at any given moment. The night before we were trying to plow through the light only to have to slam on our breaks when it turned red but instead this night we would approach the light as though we would need to stop. Full of anxiety about what the night would hold, I went to sleep. Not long later I heard his monitors beeping. I got up and asked the nurse about it and she said not to worry, that she was watching it and that he didn't need to go back on oxygen just yet.

Morning arrived and his 24 hours were up. The pediatrician said we would be able to go home that day! However, he would need to do the car seat test one last time to see if he needed to go home in the car bed or not. The pediatrician said that if any newborn was hooked up to these machines they would probably desat sometimes as well. Breathing is just tricky for newborns but unless there is a need to hook them up they usually aren't monitored that way so they aren't kept. The fact that he would desat and recover was okay. 

One disappointing thing was that this was the morning that I had a new nurse who didn't really know us the way the other two had the whole time we had been up in Special Care. I fed him right before they were going to do the car seat test and then we were going to leave and get breakfast because I was too stressed to be there while it happened. After that feeding he kept desatting and the nurse was concerned and called a specialist to come in and check him out. In the mean time she switched his monitor to the other foot and his oxygen was totally fine. The monitor must have gotten kicked into a bad position or something-- something our other nurses would often fix and he would be ok. The specialist came in and checked him out and said he sounded good and so they went ahead to perform the car seat test. It was really disconcerting to leave after that desatting experience. The whole time we were gone I was full of anxiety that he would have failed immediately. I barely enjoyed my Kneaders breakfast and even had a hard time enjoying walking around Target! When we got back to the hospital he had a few minutes to go and I went to the bathroom while Bryan stood outside his door. He had a sad look on his face when I got back and said Jonah had been desatting the whole time he had been standing there. However, the nurse said he had done well for 80 out of the 90 minute car seat test and had only desatted in the last ten minutes and would recover on his own. That was encouraging! So we thought we were all set to go home, possibly with the car bed (but we had to hear back from the pediatrician on that) and were ready to be discharged. There was some confusion and we thought they were getting the car bed ready for us to take home if we needed to but apparently the nurse was about to repeat another 90 minute car bed test. We were getting so anxious to leave at this point. We talked to the pediatrician on the phone and she said that we wouldn't need to repeat that test since he had already passed it before but that for legal and insurance reasons, since he had been desatting in his most recent car seat test, she had to have us go home with the car bed. The nurses were trying to find one that hadn't expired even though I had had one in our room with me most of the time I had been in there and it had only recently been removed for some reason. It was incredibly frustrating. Finally, though, we were discharged and awkwardly got Jonah hooked up with the car bed and drove away from the hospital with our newborn baby... Not the best hospital experience I have had. Bryan said he gave that discharge experience 1 out of 5 stars. 

Of course, I am so grateful to all the doctors and nurses who took such great care of us while we were there. The end was rocky but I can't hold the confusion against them. Still, I used to drive by the hospital with a warm feeling in my heart about how Penny had been born there and how happy we had been there. I think that driving past the hospital will be a different experience from now on-- not because I'm not grateful but because it was such an emotionally traumatic experience this time.

End

We've been at home with Jonah for over a week now and things are going pretty normally at least for what this time of life is. We are all a little more exhausted and I've been dealing with pain from breastfeeding and out of whack hormones that always accompany the first couple weeks after having a baby. There are small things I work myself up to be worried about with him, especially, because of what he went through compared to my other kids. I thought Luke was going to be my hardest! Breastfeeding started to get better basically the first day we were home, though. He has stopped taking so long to latch and will eat fine on either side. He seems to eat for longer, though I don't keep track of it now that I don't have to because it doesn't help me to go with the flow. That's something I learned with my experience breastfeeding Penny which, while not perfect, did work! Luke continues to tell me how much he missed me while I was in the hospital. He likes to be helpful and to give his little brother gentle kisses. He's a sweet boy. Penny often says, "hold him" and every night when we ask her what she's grateful for (a nightly family tradition) she says, "baby Jonah." 

I have never chosen a theme word for my kids before but Jonah certainly has one and that is: unpredictable. He was conceived when we weren't expecting it, went against my instincts for gender, stayed in longer that were expecting, came out with red hair and then of course all the unforeseen medical complications. I just hope from here on out he's unpredictable in a good way! This one might give me a run for my money but he sure is adorable and we all love him so much. 

Another Year in Review

I'm a little late in posting this, but Penny is a year old! The main thing I want to say is... you guys, I did it. I breastfed a baby for a whole year. 12 months and some change. That might not be a big deal to most of you but if you know me or have been reading my blog for a while you know that it's a big deal to me. For a brief summary, I wasn't able to breastfeed Luke and I pumped exclusively for 8 months. It was very hard on me emotionally because I had always longed to breastfeed my baby. Well, I did! And I have to be honest that it wasn't my favorite thing. Don't get me wrong, I am so glad I did it and it was bittersweet to wean her but she was ready and so I was I. We've been weaned for about two weeks! It was never easy to breastfeed her away from home and now I feel a little more free to go out. It's also nice feeling to know that I could leave her at home with her dad and go somewhere and not have to be back by a certain time.

But enough about me. This little girl is still on the little side for her age. She's 20 lbs and I don't remember how long. Isn't that funny? I wrote everything down for Luke but life moves too fast now to give her the year in review she probably deserves. She's not walking-- she's done things a little later than Luke seemed to. He walked around 13 months so I'm not expecting it for a little while and I think that's okay. She can go at her own pace. She gets into everything, though. She is a great little crawler and loves to climb the stairs-- which is scary to me since she doesn't know how to back down them yet! If we don't have them blocked off she beelines for them. She cries more than I remember Luke crying but I think part of that is that Luke didn't have an older sibling grabbing toys out of his hand all the time! Oh, the life of a second born. She has the best smile and laugh and, of course, so much hair. I've given her less haircuts than I gave Luke by now but that's pretty understandable with her being a girl. I've trimmed her bangs a few times and evened things out in the back once. She doesn't hold still for much so for now I've had to delay my desires of fun hairstyles. If I'm lucky I can do a little pony on the top. She brings us so much joy and was meant to be a part of our family. We love our little girly!