Birth Story

So I really have meant to write a few posts before Alice actually got here but that didn't happen as we can see. Sorry about that!
I have had a few requests to share my birth story, and i would like to have it written somewhere so i don't forget it so here it is...

Wednesday September 24th i lost my "Plug" i was so excited because id heard and googled it and lots of what i found said that if closer to your due date you lost this it meant labour was soon on its way. I was so excited because i was 5 days away from due date and i felt like i was never going to have this baby girl, I felt like i was going to be largely pregnant forever! Wednesday went on and nothing happened no painful contractions just the usual Braxton Hicks. Travis got home from work we ate dinner and watched Netflix before going to bed at about 10:30-11:00. I remember waking up at 12:30 and thinking what a weird dream i had just had and felt the urge to pee. As i lay perfectly still in bed trying to convince myself i could hold it i realized i felt like i had maybe peed a little already so i quickly jumped up and ran to the bathroom. Well as i got up a gush of fluid came out of me! I was so sleepy i wasn't sure what had happened actually happened.... after peeing I put my contacts in got dressed and prepared in case what i thought had happened (that my water had broken) actually happened. I climbed back in bed and woke Travis up telling him i thought that my water broke but i wasn't sure. I asked if we should go to the hospital or wait. He told me whatever i felt like we should do we would do. I told him lets go back to sleep and if i get painful contractions we will go. I lay back down and not 3 minutes later i had 2 sharp painful contractions that felt like really painful menstrual cramps with the addition of my whole stomach going hard as a rock. I woke Travis up and said its Go Time!! He jumped right up got dressed and out the door we went! We ended up at Labor and Delivery at about 1am. The Nurses were asking me all these questions and all i could focus on was the fact that i felt like i was PEEING MY PANTS!! As we got the Labor and Delivery another bigger gush of fluids came. The got me into a nice big room that had a big comfy sofa and told me to get completely undressed and into their hospital gown. They checked to make sure the fluid was actually amniotic fluid and sure enough it was. So i was officially there in the hospital until our girl was born. Travis and i were so excited, they got me all hooked up to monitors got an IV going and then it was time to wait. I dilated to about a 4 before i realized that i could have the epidural anytime i wanted since my water was already broken. So i told them to go ahead and call the anesthesiologist. The worst part about the epidural was the small poke at the very beginning to numb you. My whole body was shaking from being tired and in pain from the contractions that having to hunch forward over my massive belly and get a sharp poke in my back just wasn't very fun. But it was short lived and after that i had the gloriousness of no longer feeling pain. At one point my whole right side went completely numb and i had to be propped to the side to even out the drugs haha. I couldn't imagine doing all this without the epidural especially because i knew i didn't have to. It was a life saver.
Not much happened during the day besides waiting and waiting and watching Travis eat since i wasn't allowed to. I was in Labor for 20 hours. I dilated all the way to a 9 and then my body decided to STOP! They upped my Pitocin from a 2 to a 6.... another hour went by, no change. They upped my pitocin to an 8 and let another hour go by... and still no change and by now i was feeling each contraction no matter how many times i pushed the button for more epidural fluid to numb the pain. I was feeling it all! After no change in 2 1/2 hours at a 9 my Dr finally came in checked me and said lets up her to 10 on Pitocin and if nothing changes in half hour with that we may want to talk about doing a C-Section. He was worried that with my water being broken for already 20 hrs that risk of infection could happen. Baby was fine she wasn't stressed i was fine i wasn't stressed but he didn't want to wait any longer. So after half hour passed and there was still no change we scheduled the C-Section and after 20 minutes we were headed to have our baby!! I was so nervous because i knew you were awake for C-Sections and i was freaking out thinking i was going to feel everything that the anesthesia wasn't going to work right on me. But after i was all prepped and ready they tested the anesthesia and i passed i was numb even though i was able to wiggle my toes which totally freaked me out. I couldn't feel pain but i could feel pressure and tugging it wasn't very pleasant. As the Dr was getting to where the baby was and they could finally see her they said, " Wow no wonder your body stopped dilating look at the cheeks on this girl!!"
The Dr. looked at Travis and said, "Dad do you want to watch this?" Travis jumped up after being by my head and went around the curtain blocking my view. What sounded like a water balloon popped and i heard a faint little whimper and then felt them pull her out of me, it was like someone had been sitting on my stomach and they had just gotten up. Weight was lifted off my back and i felt light. I started to cry uncontrollably as i head that baby make her little noise. The lifted her over the curtain so i could see her and all i saw was dark brown hair and indeed cheeks!!! I was so happy. Travis was able to come around and show her to me before he went with her up to the nursery, she was beautiful and i had never been more in love with Travis then seeing him hold our little girl for the very first time! Travis left with Alice to the nursery and that's when the worst of it all happened. The tugging and the pulling and everything to put me back together and all that jazz that goes along with having a C-section, i asked for more pain medicine since the pressure and tugging was getting too much my body was shaking so bad i couldn't control myself. My anesthesiologist was amazing and so so nice. after giving me more paid meds through my IV i almost immediately felt comfortable and almost fell asleep on the operating table.
Once they were done stitching me up they wheeled me into the room we had been in all day and there was my parents and youngest sister Cassie and Travis mom and oldest sister Tiffany. Travis came in with Alice all nice and clean. He handed her to me and i was in heaven. I had started to shake again and was so tired and week that it was difficult for me to hold my baby girl so i made Travis sit on the bed with me holding her so i could look at her and touch her.
After everyone left we were taken to a "recovery room" it had two beds in it and was smaller then the first room but still pretty big!
We decided to take Alice for the first night to the Nursery since we were both so exhausted after being up 24 hrs but as Travis walked her to the Nursery he passed it and came right back telling me he couldn't do it. And i told him i was glad because i hoped he would bring her back. Our little angel was so quiet hardly made any noise and was doing awesome at latching on to feed.

I didn't get much sleep but enough to give me energy for the next day. My Dr. came in and told me how he had gone to the nursery after stitching me up and told Travis that he has no idea how he was delivering a baby from me. After Alice came out he was checking my organs and fallopian tubes and ovaries to make sure everything was ok and he told us with how much scar tissue was covering my ovaries, tubes, and uterus the ONLY explanation for us conceiving a child was that it was a miracle. There was no way that we should have been able to become pregnant on our own. But he was only telling us what we already knew :). He also told us that while he was in there he removed as much of the scar tissue as he felt was safe and possible without causing more scar tissue to help us with future pregnancies in being naturally conceived. This C-Section was a blessing in disguise.

We were in the hospital for 4 days. And on our second day there, the day after id just delivered the head nurse came into our room.....
She started out with, "Now i don't want you to freak out,".... but obviously starting with that I'm freaking out. She went on the say how there had been 2 C-Sections, mine last night and another this morning and after each procedure they do a "tool" check make sure that all the things they used are accounted for... and there was a pair of metal clamps missing.... and the morning C-Section all accounted for their items so it was from my C-Section last night... she said she wanted to do an Xray to make sure that they didn't leave it inside of me.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! YOUR TELLING ME I MIGHT HAVE SOME METAL CLAMP INSIDE OF ME?!?! THAT I MIGHT HAVE TO BE OPENED BACK UP TO GET THIS THING OUT!!! she told me that its not likely that its in there but better to be safe then sorry. I was FREAKING OUT!! After about 5 minutes after the Xray she came back in and said, "Your good its not in there." and then told me that sometimes Dr's don't think about it and will take extra tools home with them or that they get put in the wrong spots or other things like that but it is procedure to make sure its not left INSIDE SOMEONE!!! ugh if i were to complain about anything during my time in the hospital it would be this. haha Its ok to look back now and laugh about it but i wasn't laughing about it while in the hospital!

Alice is now 2 1/2 weeks old and everything is amazing! I am loving being a mom and Travis is an amazing dad. We couldn't be happier.

We did have a pretty traumatizing experience 4 days after coming home from the hospital. On Alice's 1 week she threw up that night all over Travis and stopped breathing. She turned purple and we were freaking out we tried to get her to breath but she just wouldn't... i ran downstairs and grabbed my mom who had already gone to bed and she didn't know what to do either. Travis called 911 and had them send an Ambulance while i tried to suction out her nose to see if it would help her breath. I was on the phone with the dispatcher as Travis was at the front door waiting for the Ambulance to arrive. It felt like FOREVER waiting for them to get there. i had Alice on her back on the floor with her head tilted back so that her airways were open and she was getting short little breaths in but was still getting more purple.
The ambulance finally arrived and they grabbed her and off we went to the hospital. The Lady that had Alice was suctioning out her nose and mouth and having to give Alice mouth to mouth because she was refusing to breath on her own.
Once we got to the ER she was doing much better but was needing oxygen assistance. They did an Xray of her lungs to make sure there was no infection or any other problem. It came back normal. The ER Dr told us that she needed to be on oxygen until she was able to breath well enough on her own and that with such a traumatic experience like this for her at so young it raised her chances of SIDS. Just what us new parents wanted to hear. So we took an ambulance ride up to Timpanogos Hospital Pediatrics where they were waiting for us.
We were there for another 4 days as they did all kinds of tests that they could think of to make sure they crossed everything off the list. Our little angel passed all the tests with flying colors. What they say must have happened is when she threw up she inhaled some back down and couldn't catch her breath and after that her lungs being so new were exhausted and needed help for a few days after until they were strong again.
They sent us home with oxygen and a monitor for her breathing and heart rate for our piece of mind. She didn't end up needing any oxygen at home thank the heavens and we were able to take her off the monitors after 3 days at home.
She is happy healthy and perfect today. And even though i had hopped to NEVER have an experience like that it has taught us a lot and we now know how to handle the situation should it ever happen again.

Our baby girl Alice was born September 25th at 9:59pm weighing 9lbs 13oz and was 21 1/2 inches long. She was a big baby... my mom said that i was 9lbs 12oz so i guess she takes after me.


Also to any expecting moms... I wished someone had warned me about this before so let me share with you, if you decide to breast feed (which if you can, i highly recommend it, it has helped me to recover so quickly and has so many amazing benifits.) But if you decide to breast feed know this... when your milk comes in it will hurt! You will feel like you have two massive boulders on your chest. I found that a warm shower helps a little with this. Also feeding will hurt really really bad the first week, a warm shower is also helpful to help with the pain. And lastly.... RT hurts when you are breast feeding so keep those girls warm ALWAYS! this may not be the same for everyone but this was my experience so i am sharing incase it helps anyone else. :)

I dont have the hospital pictures on my computer just yet so here are some pictures my best friend took of little Alice at 6 days old. enjoy :)

P.s i hope this all makes sense. I feel like i just jumbled all my thoughts and memories on here and so i hope it makes sense to you.

30 Weeks and a Photoshoot!

So i have this best friend who is a pretty amazing photographer and yesterday she did maternity pictures for me! They were so fun and i love how they turned out! If you are looking for a photographer she is your gal!
I wanted my pictures to turn out kind of woodland dream feeling and i feel like that's what i got and I'm so so happy with it so i figured i would share some of the photos she gave me with you!!

I love them and am so happy with them!!! Thank you Courtney you are the BEST!!

Also on other news, I am at 30 weeks!!!! The count down begins! 10 weeks left at the most! Great news is that my Dr. doesn't like his patients to go past their due dates so its pretty exciting to know that there are only 10 weeks at the most left!!!! AHHHH I cannot believe it! After 4 1/2 long years and many many tears, prayers, needles and trials of loss later we are ALMOST holding our baby girl! I honestly never thought this day would happen but i am so glad that it is!

2 weeks ago i had to do the Glucose test and my results came back perfect which was nice! I wasn't worried but there is always that small worry. Baby girl is growing just perfect and her heartbeat is still nice and strong! She still moves ALOT! Now that she is bigger its not so much kicks anymore but just her rolling around kicking, elbow knees shoulders on my hips and all that fun stuff! I'm loving it! The only part that isn't so fun is when she kicks my bladder and no matter how much is in there i always feel like i have to pee soooo bad! But all in all i have LOVED being pregnant i have had such an awesome experience!

20 Weeks, Halfway there!!

Tuesday May 13th, we had our 20 week ultrasound and check up. I'm not sure why but i was SO nervous for this check up! I wanted everything to be perfect with our little angel that i was afraid of surprises. But the Lord has blessed us tremendously and we have a healthy perfect little girl growing a week ahead of schedule! However our Dr. does not want to move up the due date, which I am ok with :) While checking everything out and measuring her we caught her yawning and then sucking her thumb! Cutest thing EVER!!! Its amazing how much i love this little girl already. You think you know what love is when you find your life partner, the love of your life, your other half, your spouse. But I honestly think that for a woman, you never truly understand the deep love as that of a mother. To feel that life growing inside of you, to feel them kick and squirm. Its amazing and even though I had to go through SO MUCH to get this gift i am so thankful and wouldn't have it any other way. I know Travis and I were meant to wait those 4 1/2 long years so that he and i could grow stronger together and so that we were truly ready for this little girl to enter into our lives, to make sure that we could give her the best life possible! I cant tell you how excited i am to see Travis in action as a father its going to be amazing!
Travis actually finally got to feel little Alice kick last night! She has been getting strong and she has finally gotten strong enough where he was able to feel her little kick! It was so cool!
 The Dr. mentioned that my placenta is in the front so i wonder if that made it more difficult for him to feel her or not.
Something cute our Dr. told us was one of his theories about the placenta being in front. He said that for babies with the placenta in front the baby is closer to the heart and feels that beat more strongly than if it were in back. So his theory is that children grown with the placenta in front are more musically inclined, that they will carry a beat better and that to comfort that child holding it close to your heart will be the most calming thing for her. Now he says obviously he cant prove any of this, but i liked his theory and so im going along with it haha! How sweet is that? Anyways. Im growing good. My belly gets bigger and bigger everyday and so does my sweet tooth which im starting to worry about! I dont want to gain excessive weight because of all this junk im eating so ive decided to start being better about how i eat and not always giving into those sweet temptations.
I have started to get painful leg cramps when i stretch first thing in the morning, they hurt so bad!!!
Also a little back pain and sometimes i feel a sharp pain shoot down my butt to my leg... its awful, thankfully it doesnt last long.
Other than that.... things are just peachy and i am loving being pregnant!
It really makes me sad to hear of expecting mothers just complain non stop about being pregnant, granted i dont know how they are feeling or how their body handles it but it does make me sad that not everyone is able to enjoy pregnancy.
Its crazy to me to think that i am already 21 weeks.... i never thought i would make it here. Honestly after losing 2 babies already and going through infertility struggles that end goal just seemed to get farther and farther out of reach. So i am so grateful each and everyday that this baby girl grows strong and healthy and i love feeling her kick because i know her heart is still beating strong!
To all my Infertility friends, i know how hard it is to wait and watch everyone else around you getting pregnant, honestly it sucks and its so hard to be happy for them even though you want to be. I hope because i obviously dont know when it will happen for you but i do hope and pray that it does happen for each of you! I do think of you all the time even if i dont always reach out to you, for that im sorry. Women who have to go through infertility in my opinion are some of the strongest women i have met. And through my experience not a whole lot can be said to make infertility easier or to make you feel better so i wont do that. Just know i think of you girls often and pray that in some form you get the opportunity to become moms! I love you all!!


Here are just a few pictures to show progress on the belly growth!

18 weeks and an Appendectomy

So this week has been CRAZY! I know people say that all the time but listen to this. Travis just got hired on a new job Monday morning he was to go do the drug test for that job. Sunday night before bed he was complaining he had a bad stomach ache. We thought this was from drinking too much soda. Travis woke up Monday morning in A LOT of pain and had been throwing up off and on all night. He still went to do the drug test but felt like he was dying (the employees thought he was shady and was hiding something.) As Travis is driving home he calls me and tells me he needs to go to the hospital that something is very wrong. So we get to the ER and poor guy can hardly stand. They get an IV in him and some morphine for the pain. We thought he was having kidney stones. Sadly not a whole lot you can do for kidney stones but wait to pass them unless something is really wrong then they would do surgery. They didn't find any stones in the ultrasound so they sent him home with pain meds and said,  "Good luck hope they pass soon!" Not 3 hours later we were back in the ER in the same amount of pain. After doing a CT scan we realized there were no kidney stones.... It was his appendix. Travis went into surgery late Monday night. The surgeon said his appendix was dying, that it had turned black and blue and had puss coming from it. It was close to erupting all that poison into his blood! Thankfully we got it out in time! We stayed the night at the hospital, (those hospital pull out chair beds are so uncomfortable especially at 18 weeks pregnant) and then he was released Tuesday morning. He was feeling great and did a little more then he should have and by 7 that night started to get hot and have a pretty bad headache. 3:30 am we were back at the ER. Travis was in excruciating pain from his headache and had been throwing up and after just having surgery he was in a lot of pain. We got him on morphine and did another CT to make sure none of the stitches had busted from the trauma of throwing up. Everything looked great. The migraine they concluded started from caffeine withdrawals (since he is a big soda drinker) and because he had the headache couldn't keep up on the pain and was throwing up all his pain meds. So after we got the pain under control we went home Wednesday at 6am and went to bed. We have been keeping up on his meds ( I was waking up every 2-4 hrs to give him his meds in the night) and he has been doing great!
Sadly yesterday evening we found a leak in a downstairs bedroom from a broken pipe in our bathroom, thank goodness for good neighbors who helped us out so Travis didn't have to do it all on his own.
Is this week over yet?! Haha I am so exhausted!

Friday was our 5 year anniversary!! Crazy it's been this long already and at the same time crazy it's only been 5 years :) hard to believe there was a life when I wasn't married to the man of my dreams!!! They have been amazing and I'm excited and looking forward to many many more years together!!!

On a plus note we were impatient and found out 2 weeks ago that we are having a little GIRL!!!!!!! We cheated and paid a ultrasound tech to check the gender for us at the end of our 16 weeks!!!! We are so so so happy!!!! We have already started on her nursery it's going to be amazing!!
Today we are 19 weeks! We are almost HALF WAY!! Can you believe that? Because im having a hard time believing it myself if it weren't for these little kicks that im starting to feel more and more each day!! Im loving feeling our little girl move, it is honestly the greatest feeling in the WORLD!
Its crazy since becoming pregnant i haven't gained that "Trucker appetite" in fact i have to force myself to eat sometimes because i've realized i haven't eaten in hours. And when i do want to eat its almost always something sweet that im wanting! Which is not me at all, this girl is definitely her daddy's little girl because he loves sweets and eats them all the time. Im having a harder time sleeping at night and finding a comfy position. My nose is constantly feeling stuffy but there is nothing up there its just swollen i guess from the increased blood flow i guess. The headaches are pretty much history, I might get one every few weeks which isn't bad. I have gained about 3-4 pounds since learning i was pregnant. My face is still having battles with acne but ive learned to just live with it. :) And that's about all my updates from the last post to this one :)
Here are some pictures.

Our 16 week gender ultrasound :)

Our gender announcement and name reveal!!

16 weeks avocado status.

17 weeks

6-18 weeks difference. wow.

Cassie had ankle surgery and Trav had appendix surgery.

pumped up on morphine getting ready to head into surgery. 

post surgery recovery, still out of it from the anesthesia. 

Pictures!

So things have been going great since my last post. My nausea mostly went away, it still comes and goes but its nothing compared. I have become uncomfortable at night when trying to sleep... since i am a stomach sleeper this has been really hard for me, i love sleeping on my stomach and since i found out i was pregnant i haven't been able to sleep that way because it makes me SUPER sick to my stomach. blah! I get a few headaches every now and then but thankfully nothing unbearable. My acne is relentless and will not go away but I'm learning to live with it... being pregnant is like a do whatever, dress however, feel however you want card in my eyes ;) so Ive learned not to care so much because, I have a beautiful baby inside that is making that happen and it is all worth it to me!! Lets see other than that not a whole lot is going on, I'm feeling great and growing week by week! I LOVE IT!! I am 15 weeks 4 days today and have my 16 week check up on Tuesday!!! YAY heartbeat time!! My Dr. doesn't do the gender ultrasound until 20 weeks so I still have another month to wait. I was hoping that i could know by week 16 but id rather know for sure at 20 than find out early and possibly be wrong. So i am happy to wait but still so anxious! I want an ultrasound just to see my baby i don't even need to know the gender yet i just want to see "her" which is what we call the baby until proven otherwise.

So there you have it. My prego life update and now for some pictures....

Also my parents are back here in Utah living with us. Things are going great so far. I know my dad is itching to get a job and a place of their own but I'm not in a hurry for them to get their own place things have been working out nicely i think :) We are happy to have them here!! Cassie is loving school and all the boys!! So that's good. And now.... that really is all the update of info i have for everyone.

until Tuesday.