The Story

ALERT: Cute video below.

As some of you have followed this blog for forever, there hasn't been much activity lately because of all the craziness with this pregnancy. This third pregnancy has hit me hard from the beginning. But it has been especially challenging in the last three to four weeks.

Let's just say that I am totally pumped for what is ahead of us and to spend tons of time this summer with the kids to make up for all of the time that I had to lay in bed while they were doing other things.

So a couple of weeks ago, I noticed some bumps like abscesses popping up. I got a staph infection. Just before this they started to monitor my blood pressure because it was a little high. I started some antibiotics, but the infection only got a little better and then worse.

By this time, the kids came to know that mommy was tired and they adjusted somewhat, but I think that they certainly were not themselves either.

About a week before the set induction date of 4/14, the doctor thought that I would need IV antibiotics to get this thing under control. I thought this would be the case and my mom came with me to the doctor appointment and I went straight to the hospital. Now in this time period, I also had two false alarms of labor. Can you believe it? I really got to know all of the nurses in L&D. I was quickly put in the isolation room in postpartum for Thursday to Saturday. It certainly wasn't like staying at the Ritz and I only wanted to be home. We hoped that the baby may come early just because we were already there, but I didn't want him to have any health issues either.

Finally, home sweet home and on bedrest. The IV treatment worked and I got to spend some time with the kiddos even if I didn't do too much. I could tell they missed us. Thanks to grandparents they were very happy to have been busy with other things.

Then Tuesday night came and it was time to go back to the hospital for delivery in the morning. I couldn't believe it and I was definitely ready to get this show on the road. Kaitlyn was counting down the days too. She totally knew that a baby was going to be coming soon, but she thought that they were going to open my stomach and pull the baby out and then put a bandaid on me to heal it. Jackson just missed me and didn't know where we were.

Wednesday morning came and I had some sleeping aids so I was totally out of it and couldn't open my eyes hardly. At noon, the doc came and broke my water. So much for the race with my cousin-in-law, Sarah Meche Lafleur, who was delivering her first baby on 4/14 too. She delivered two hours before me.

I had the baby within the hour of my water breaking. The labor pains were the worst, I guess because of the induction. The epidural did not do "jack" for me. Oh well, if that was the worst, it didn't last long. He came out with two pushes and he was big, 8 pounds 15 ounces. He cried with they started touching him and he was just as beautiful as Kaitlyn and Jackson. He is definitely his own little man.

He cried when they put a shirt and diaper on him, but he was fast asleep when they pricked his heel several times. He started nursing immediately and never had a problem. Not that I felt like a pro at this, but I felt okay with it and didn't feel that I had to ask for help. That was good because I was so tired of nurses checking me, etc.

Kaitlyn and Jackson just loved on him and had so much fun coming to visit us in the hospital. They wanted us to come home immediately!

We had lots of visitors and it wore us out, but it was sooo nice to have them, especially since I was still stuck in an isolation room and Ethan had to stay with us too. It was nice to have him always with us, but that meant very little sleep. He just looked so much smaller than Jackson that I really felt that we had a little baby. I just can't believe this healthy baby boy had me going through so much, but it was well worth it and we made it. Now it is recovery time and time for another blog post on the last 11 days of coming home!

Here is video of little Ethan at 9 days old sleeping with his sweet little baby noises.