Friday, December 30, 2011

Gavin's Birth Story

 Here is the story of Gavin's Birth Day. It is really long, and I wrote it down for my record, but if you would like to read it, feel free to do so.


It all started on Thursday, December 22nd. Jayden and I decided to go on a date, since we knew it would be the last date for a while by ourselves. We went to Moochies Meatballs for dinner, where we ate philly cheesesteaks. We then went to the Hogle Zoo to see the zoo lights. We hoped that the walking around would help to jumpstart labor, but I hardly had any contractions the whole evening. The whole week I was trying everything to try to start labor contractions. I know most of them are wives tales, but we decided to try it all anyway. Later that night, we realized the only thing that we hadn't tried was castor oil. I have heard good and bad things about castor oil, and was a little skeptical, but I decided to give it a try. We headed to Walgreens at about 11 pm to buy some. I didn't want to take too much, so I only took about half of the recommended amount. I was sure that it wouldn't send me into labor. We went to bed at about 12:30. I woke up around 3 am, with some cramping, and didn't really think anything of it. I tried to go back to sleep, but realized the cramping was getting stronger and stronger. Around 3:30, I knew that they were contractions, and they started to hurt really bad! I didn't want to get too excited in case it wasn't the real thing, so I laid in bed through contractions for about two hours, trying to tough them out. When we timed my contractions, we realized that they were only getting closer together and stronger. We decided that this was it! We started gathering our stuff for the hospital and jumped into the car.

Once we got to the hospital, they took us to a room and checked me. I was only dilated to a 2 and was a little disappointed, because they can send you home if you aren't far enough. They hooked me up to the contraction monitor and saw how regular my contractions were. The nurse told me that she was 95% sure that I would be staying because of how strong and frequent my contractions were. We decided to walk around the halls through my contractions to see if it would help progress anything. After about ten minutes of walking, I felt a big pop! All of a sudden I had water running down my legs, and I knew that my water had broken. I never thought that my water would break on its own, I always imagined the doctor having to break it when I was in Labor. Jayden found a wheelchair and pushed me back to our room. Once my water broke, my contractions got stronger and stronger. I knew that I wanted an epidural once I felt how strong they were. Labor and Delivery wasn't that crowded and the anesthesiologist came really fast to give me my epidural. The epidural wasn't painful at all and it was a really quick process. Once I got my epidural I was so relaxed. I couldn't feel my contractions at all and I was able to rest a little. About two hours after I arrived at the hospital, they decided to check me again, I was dilated to a 6! I was progressing really fast. We decided to call our parents and let them know that they should probably come to the hospital soon. Our parents arrived not too long after, and it was fun just hanging out with everyone. Once I was dilated to a 7, things slowed down a bit. I was at a 7 for probably an hour or two, when they suggested giving me a little bit of pitocin to help speed things up again. After the pitocin, things definitely started speeding up again. The doctor came in to check me right after and I was at an 8. It was probably only 30 minutes later when they checked me again and I was complete, which means you are ready to push!

We had our families leave to sit in the waiting room, so it was just Jayden and I in the delivery room. The doctor wasn't at the hospital yet, but the nurse wanted me to try a few practice pushes. I pushed through a couple contractions when she told me to stop, and that she was going to see where the doctor was. The doctor was stuck in traffic and didn't come for 30-40 minutes, so I had to lay there trying not to push, which was so hard and so painful! I could feel Gavin trying to make his way out, and it was so hard not to push. Once the doctor arrived, I knew that it was go time. I pushed for about 20-30 minutes with all the strength and energy that I had and he was here! Pushing was the most tiring and painful part of labor for me. It felt like I was there and my body was doing the work, but almost like I was watching what was happening. After Gavin was born, they put him on my chest, and Jayden cut the umbilical cord. Everything after was such a blur. I was so exhausted and trying not to pass out. I don't remember a lot of the things that happened after he was born, like when they delivered the placenta and stitched me up ( I had a few tears, but nothing too bad). Once Gavin and I were all cleaned up, Jayden went to get our families. It was emotional to see the reaction of our families when they saw Gavin for the first time. After the delivery, things were a little rough for me. I lost more blood then usual, which they considered a hemorrhage. I remember my body shaking so bad, like I was freezing cold, but I couldn't control my body. I kept on having the urge to fall asleep and felt like I couldn't keep a conversation very well. Once we were settled into our recovery room and all the visitors left, I fell asleep pretty fast. When I woke up the next morning, I felt so much better. I felt like myself again and I felt coherent.

The next morning, we had our families come back to visit. Originally we were going to go home on Christmas Eve night, but they wanted us to stay until Christmas morning. At first I was a little bummed, but it actually turned out great. The hospital brings you and your spouse a celebratory dinner, which was actually pretty good for hospital food. Gavin had to spend the night in the nursery under the blue lights for jaundice, so we had the whole night to ourselves. We watched a Christmas Story while we ate our dinner. We then cuddled together in my hospital bed while we watched the nativity story. It was a great Christmas Eve. We were able to go home Christmas morning around 10:00 am, which was perfect. We were able to come home, shower, and clean up a bit before our families came over. We are so blessed to have a healthy and beautiful baby boy. 

Getting changed into my hospital gown

Getting through a contraction

Right after my water broke

to view the collage: just click on it to make it larger



Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Gavin Jay Garfield

Gavin Jay Garfield is finally here! 

Born on December 23 at 3:57 pm

8 lbs 6 oz.

&

21 inches long

 




This last week has been incredible and I will post soon about his birth and post more pictures for everyone to see. We are so happy that our baby boy is here and healthy! We are all doing well and are loving having Gavin here with us. 

Monday, December 19, 2011

39 weeks & Bokeh

Today is the first day of my Christmas break. Jayden is working this week and we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of baby G. I am trying to relax and not let the waiting get to me too much. I have been trying to keep myself busy and to have fun. Today we had a doctors appointment and everything is still looking good. I will have to admit that it was a pretty disappointing appointment. The last two weeks I have only been at 1 cm dilated. I was hoping that I could have my membranes stripped today, but that would mean I would have to be dilated to at least a 2. Unfortunately, I am still only 1 cm dilated. However, my cervix is a little more thinned out, to about a 70%. Dilated and effacement aren't good indicators of when labor will start, since it is different for everyone. At least my body is getting ready and it really could be anytime now, so we are keeping our fingers crossed!
39 weeks and 2 days



Today I had some fun playing around with my camera and our Christmas tree lights. I wanted to try Bokeh, which is a photography technique which includes blurred lights. These are the images that I got, I think they turned out pretty good.




Friday, December 16, 2011

Love Story

Just had to share this:



This is for everyone who didn't read or understand the twilight books or movies. I seriously don't get the hype about Twilight, unless you are watching or reading them for a good laugh. I love the movie UP, especially the love story at the beginning, and the image above is so true.

Salt Lake City Lovin'

I LOVE living in Salt Lake. Ever since I graduated high school, I have lived in Salt Lake City while attending the University of Utah. Every year that I have lived in Salt Lake, I have lived somewhere different. My first year, I lived in the dorms on campus at the U. My second year I lived in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, which is where I met Jayden, and there were a lot of awesome adventures living downtown. My third year ( the first year Jayden and I were married) we lived on Foothill Dr. which is close to Parleys canyon. This year we still live in the same apartment complex as last year, just a different apartment. Living in different parts of Salt Lake City, we have gotten to know Salt Lake City pretty well. There are a lot of great things to do and see in Salt Lake City, and we are discovering new things all the time. I want to start sharing some of my favorite things about Salt Lake City with everyone, that everyone might not know. I will start these posts regularly, but for today, I want to share some pictures of Salt Lake City that I took not too long ago. Salt Lake City really comes alive at night and has such a different feel than during the day. These are photos that were taken at night of downtown Salt Lake City. I love the way night photographs look. I hope you like them, and I would love feedback!

Oh and they look way better if you open them up and look and them full screen sized!









Tuesday, December 13, 2011

When the Sweater Doesn't Fit

This past weekend we headed up to Logan to visit friends and to attend a Christmas Party. We decided we would stay over night at our friends Trevin & Randees apartment. So we packed our bags ( and threw the hospital bags in the car) in case I went into labor up in Logan. We had a lot of fun going to dinner and spending the night with Trevin & Randee. The next day we attended an Ugly Sweater Party (Thanks to Brian & Kelsey), it was a ton of fun! We even won a $15 gift card to cold stone for winning first place in the gingerbread decorating contest. We decided to do the Utes Stadium, we named it "Ice Eccles Stadium".  We knew that it would be hard to find ugly sweaters at the last minute, since they are pretty picked over this time of year. Jayden found one pretty easily, but I knew that for me the challenge would be a lot harder. When I realized that I wouldn't be able to find a sweater so easily that would fit over my huge belly, I decided to wear something different. We were at walmart picking up a few things, when we saw a rack of Christmas shirts. We started looking through the shirts when I found the perfect UGLY Christmas shirt for my belly. ( See pictures below) The shirt says "Does this suit make me look fat?" haha. The only size they had was a women's 2XL so I had to improvise a little bit, but it was the one ugly Christmas top that I could find to fit this gigantic belly of mine. Also, Logan isn't such a bad town, it treated us well and we had a lot of fun!







Monday, December 12, 2011

12 days...

Well we are officially less than two weeks away from my due date! This week I am three finals ( two tonight and one one Friday)  & Jayden has four finals this week, so we are praying that Baby Garfield won't make an appearance until after Friday. We have another doctor appointment tomorrow so we will see how much progress I have made this week. It is surreal that the baby time is actually here. We are running out of days and it still doesn't seem possible that we will be bringing home a baby in the next few weeks. We are so excited to meet our little guy and to share the name we have picked out. We will keep everyone posted!




Friday, December 9, 2011

Waiting

I am 38 weeks pregnant tomorrow

Classes are over

Finals are next week (two monday & one friday)

All of my Christmas shopping is done

Our nursery is ready for a baby

Baby could come at any time

We are now just waiting

It is exciting not knowing when Baby Garfield will make his arrival

It could be next week during finals or it could be Christmas week

I'm just praying that I won't go past Christmas

We would love to have our baby with us when we wake up on Christmas morning

My body is getting ready and gearing up for labor ( I have had more and more symptoms every day)

Now lets just get baby Garfield here!







Tuesday, December 6, 2011

37 + 3

This week I am 37 weeks pregnant. Today we had another doctor appointment and I have made some progress! Last week I wasn't dilated at all and 50% effaced. This week I am 1 cm dilated and 60 % effaced. It is good to know that my body is getting ready to go into labor. I am hoping we make it through finals without going into labor, however, I would love if I went into labor right after finals are done! Everything is still looking great with the baby. He has dropped down a little more and is looking good. We are just excited for finals to be over and for our little guy to finally be here with us! I hope the next 2 weeks go by fast, I can't focus on anything else besides meeting our little guy. I am still feeling pretty good, nothing to complain about too much.



Sunday, December 4, 2011

Holiday Weekend

This weekend really helped us get into the Holiday spirit. On Friday night we went with our friends Alyx and Spencer out to dinner at Macaroni Grill and to the Festival of Trees. Jayden and Spencer had never been to festival of trees before, and we had a lot of fun. The only bad thing was that it was SO crowded and it was pretty slow going to see the trees. Then on Saturday night, we celebrated my Dad's birthday. We went to Temple Square to see the lights, to dinner at Tucano's and then to the movie "Arthur Christmas". "Arthur Christmas" was really cute, I would recommend seeing it!

At Festival of Trees

Alyx and Spencer
Alyx and I at Festival of Trees

having fun with Instagram on my iphone!


Cheese!


Celebrating my Dad's Birthday.






My Dad, Mom, and Drew