Evelyn Nancy Thompson

It has been a week since our sweet Evelyn joined our family! She was born 2/13/19 at 1:06 pm. I planned to be induced with her on the 13 since mine and Nick's parents were coming into town. The few weeks leading up to her birth I was already dialated to a 3 and then a 4 a week before her birth, so my anxiety was eased that being induced might mean a long, hard labor for me if my body wasn't ready. We went in to the hospital on the 9 (saturday), because I thought I was leaking fluid. They checked me and hooked me up to the monitors and everything was fine, I wasn't leaking. It was nice to go because we found where to park and were able to visit L&D before I was actually induced. The morning of the 13 we woke up at 5AM since we needed to be in L&D at 6AM. We left a little late and ended up getting there about 6:20. We had to wait a little bit and were finally put in our room around 6:35. Our nurse was Mandy and she was really great. She hooked me up to the contraction and baby heart rate monitor, and started me on pitocin around 7:15AM. Pretty quickly I started to feel contractions, and I started dilate. When she checked me right when I first got there I was about a 4.5 and 90% effaced. After I was hooked up to pitocin things started to go really quickly! Dr. Laraway came and broke my water around 8:45AM, and at right after I asked for the epidural. The contractions were getting pretty intense so luckily the anethesiologist came right away! He had me sit on the edge of the bed and bend over as much as I could. At that point the contractions were SUPER painful. Nick was so awesome as I was getting the epidural done. He put his head down close to mine and told me how great I was doing. When the anethesiologist placed the first time he asked me if I had any ringing in my ears or if my heart started to race. Both happened. He and the nurse both said that had only happened about 4 times the whole time they had worked there. He placed a second time and it worked! (I was so nervous that it wasn't going to and I would have to labor without an epidural). The epidural kicked in and I didn't feel a thing. It was nice, but I didn't necessarily enjoy that half my body was numb. It was wierd. Things kept progressing after that, I was dilating about a centimeter an hour. At 10:19 I was dilated to a 6.5. Kate, our birth photographer, got there around 10:30 so we just hung out and chatted with her for a while. By 11:45 I was dilated to a 9! By 12:30 I was fully dilated and pushing! I was in shock that I had progressed so quickly. Pushing was probably the hardest part. I did 3 sets of 10, and by the time I had done the third set I thought I was going to puke. It was so hard to push while under anesthesia! They told me how but I really couldn't feel how hard I was pushing. It was SO HARD. Near the end they had me doing a 4th set and I was SO tired. It was encouraging near the end when I could tell the nurse and Nick were getting excited and telling me to keep going. At one point Nick told me that he could see her hair and it was brown like mine :) Finally after 45 minutes Evelyn was born! I remember how emotional I felt and how hard I was crying. The doctor pulled her out and she had the chubbiest cheeks! I remember thinking that she looked like a pretty chubby baby. They put her on my chest but she was pretty limp so they had Nick cut the cord quickly and then they took her over to the other side of the room to get her crying. As soon as Nick cut the cord she was crying. They had the NICU team in there because I have OI and they wanted to make sure she was okay. She was perfect! She weighed 8 lbs 8 oz (The originally said 9 oz but I guess they were wrong) and 18.5 inches. It was an amazing feeling to finally have her out of my body. I guess I tore quite a bit so the doc was stitching me up for about an hour while I held her. Having a baby is no walk in the park, that's for sure! I am so grateful though that my labor was so quick and that everything (minus the tearing) went smoothly. They transferred me to the mother and baby room a while after her birth and it was nice just to have it be Nick, Evie, and I. It was a little piece of heaven. I told Nick to go home the first night to sleep in our bed and get some rest. I loved the one on one skin to skin time I got with Evie. She is such a sweet little girl. I love how she calms down when I hold her. Breastfeeding has proven to be difficult, it's super painful and my nipples are cracked and bleeding and scabby. The first couple days I don't think we were feeding her enough because she didn't poop or pee for 48 hours on Friday and Saturday. She had her first well child check on Sunday and her bilirubin levels were pretty high, so we had to have her on jaundice lights on Sunday night. It was awful. We couldn't swaddle her so none of us got very much sleep. We took her back Monday to get tested again and they were still a little high but had decreased significantly, so they told us to keep her on the lights for about 12 more hours and then come back to get restested on Thursday. We opted out of doing the lights because it was so hard. She has been peeing and pooping like crazy though so we aren't worried.

We decided to find Cooper a new family because the last few days have been really hard with him wanting and needing attention and we are so focused on Evie that we couldn't give him the attention he needed. Nick told me to ask Jenny, the lady who watched him over Christmas, if they would be interested in taking him. She was thrilled! She said they were thinking of getting their own dog and  her family talks about him daily. They keep saying they need to find a "cooper". It couldn't have worked out more perfectly! The thing that was hardest for me is that Nick was SO sad. He called his dad after we talked to Jenny and when he came back to the living room I could tell his eyes were really red. That night we were in our room and I just held him and he sobbed. I've never seen him so sad. After Jenny came and got him yesterday we had a good cry together. Nick is doing okay now that he knows that Cooper is much happier with Jenny's family. She has an 11 year old son that attached to Cooper alot I guess when they watched him over christmas. He will be Cooper's best friend and Nick knows that.

Week 37

Pregnancy is getting more and more uncomfortable but Evie is healthy and growing alot! It's hard to breath sometimes because she is pressing on my lungs and when I don't drink enough water my heart starts to race and I feel out of breath. At my last appt the doctor said she weighs over 6 lbs. I was able to set a day to get induced- Feb 13! Mom, dad, Blake, and Vickie are all flying in the 12. Dad, Blake, and Vickie are leaving the 17 and mom will stay until the 22. I can't believe we will have a baby in 2.5 weeks!

Yesterday Nick and I went to breakfast at cracker barrel and it was really nice to have some quality time before the baby comes.

Week 33!

I can't believe little Evie will be here in 6-7 weeks! Time is honestly flying. Nick and I spent the last two weeks in Texas with our families. It was so fun! All my siblings were together for the first time. Little Bobbie is so cute! She makes the funniest facial expressions and has such an attitude. All the siblings pitched in to get dad a Traeger for Christmas and he was so surprised! It was a great Christmas.

Being 33 weeks pregnant now I feel so huge and uncomfortable. Evie moves around so much and I can often feel what I think are little hands and feet portruding out of my stomach. I feel like I waddle every where now. We can't wait until she is here in our arms!