Our first Week at home!!

I can't believe that Reese is already 11 days old. After coming home, we spent 5 days on the home bilibed, so there wasn't much opportunity for picture taking. I have snapped a few pictures in the past few days that I wanted to share with my friends. Here you go..




Asleep as usual..




Check out the smile on Karli's face. This was the first time she got to "hold" Reese.


Trying to share her paci...LOL


Finally caught her awake..

Here is my birth story complete with pictures.. I think I did pretty well considering that Reese will be 6 days old today. I wrote this birth story a little differently than I wrote Karli's, only because I believe I had a few days that led up to the delivery of Reese. Placed on full bedrest at 34 weeks due to history of preterm delivery, increase in Blood Pressure, protein in urine and dilation of cervix. I am allowed 1-2 trips per week mainly for Church and Dr's appts.

Friday January 29th--4th day of full bedrest. I was going to Bunco tonight.. Woohoo, excited to get out of the house. Around noon I started having some braxton hicks contractions, I knew they weren't the real deal because they weren't in any kind of rhythm or pattern. Well after about two hours, they settled into a pretty good pattern,coming every 3-7 minutes. I decided to drink some water and lay down,they didn't go away. Then I decided to take a bath to see if that would make them stop..Nope..Called the Dr..called my friends to tell them I wasn't going to make bunco...Dr called back, told me too lay down on my left side and time contrax for 1 hr, if they didn't space out to call her back..It was 3:45.. Layed down, no change...Call Dr back, wanted me too come in for monitoring...Arrived at L&D at 6pm..Hooked to monitors. Dr comes in to check me, cervix still 1cm, thick and baby is high..monitored for 2 hours, still having contrax, but not strong enough to do anything. Dr sent me home and told me too come back if they got stronger.


Saturday, January 30th- 5th day full bedrest- Still having a few contrax. Lost my mucous plug. Really, really tired all day. Drinking a ton of fluid, felt like I was really dehydrated. Took a long nap in the afternoon.

Sunday, January 31st- 6th day full bedrest- It was our Sunday to take breakfast to our Sunday School class, so we decided to skip Worship and go to Sunday School. I was MISERABLE. I couldn't walk, sit, or stand comfortably. I am pretty sure that that baby dropped sometime in the last 12 hours or so, because I am having to pee like every 15 minutes only to be able to trickle...LOL... Got home from Church and took a 4.5 hour nap. Thank goodness for a child that still takes long naps, another child that can occupy himself, and a hubby that lets me sleep...

Monday, February 1st--7th day full bedrest- Had an uneventful morning. Had a Dr's appt scheduled at 3:30pm. Got to the Dr's, cervix was now dilated to 2cm, thick, but baby is fully engaged. Dr. noticed some ? pooling of fluid so decided to test to see if my membranes were ruptured. Litmus paper was positive for amniotic fluid(but urine can turn it positive too???) so she decided to do a slide and check for ferning.. Negative.. Dr wants an U/S to check fluid levels..YAY we get to see Reese again. U/S great, fluid levels perfect,estimated baby weight 7lbs 4oz!!! We make a followup appt for Thursday, due to my blood pressure still being elevated.

Later that same night....I am feeling good, have had a few contrax and some pink discharge, just thinking it is from the internal at my appt. After Randall leaves for work, I decide that I want to unpack the hospital bag and make sure we have everything( our trip on Friday kinda spooked me that I had forgotten something important). Everything is there, so I repack the bag. Go to bed around 1am. I wake up at 3:35 thinking that I am wetting the bed..Great, now Im totally incontinent...Get up and go to the restroom, decide to go ahead and put on a pad. As I am walking back to the bed I had a small trickle..Lay down on the bed and after about five minutes switch positions and have another gush of fluid.. UhOh!!! My water broke.. I decided to wait to see if I was going to start having any contrax. I did and rather quickly.. they were coming every 3 minutes like clockwork, but not hurting at all. I called Ran at work at 4am and said we have two options...I can call and wake my Mom up to come on down here to watch the kids, or we can wait until you get off work at 6:30 and go then.. He was confused and said What?, I said my water broke. He said I don't like option 2.. So he headed home from work. I called the Dr and my Dr wasn't on call.Great!! He told me to go to L&D. Got there around 5:10 and the nurses were in the middle of shift change. They verified that my water was broken, hooked me up to the monitors and left to get report and assign patients. A nurse finally came in( not my nurse) and asked me some questions, then about 6am my nurse Beth came into the room..It took 3 tries and 2 nurses to get my IV started, and a 4th stick to get my labs drawn. I finally got my IV antibiotics started at 8am. I was having contractions, but very irregular and ranging in intensity. My Dr came in a little after 8am and checked me. I was now dilated to 3cm, 50% effaced. Yay I was making progress. She still wanted to start Pitocin!!! I hate that drug. She did know that I was going to try and go natural, so she told Beth that once my contrax were in a good pattern that she could turn the pit off. So the pit went up right around 9am. I was doing good with contrax, they were hurting but not too bad. I had my IPOD on, so that is how I was distracting myself during contrax. About 10 am I requested to be checked again, I was now at 5-6cm, 100%.. WOOHOO...After that check the contrax went CRAZY...They became almost unbearable, one right on top of the other, coming every 2 minutes but lasting for longer than a minute a piece... I was having a very hard time dealing with them. Randall was massaging my back and that was helping. I knew that my body was starting to lock up on me and if I was going to dilate I had to relax. I caved and asked for the epidural. Ran went to get something to eat while they put it in. I asked for the walking epidural so that I would still be able to walk and move around. The Dr laughed and said are you sure, they only last about 2 hours. I said yes, this baby will be here in about an hour. The Dr and Beth both laughed. The epi was in at 1053am.. At 1145, Beth's break relief came in the room. Beth left for lunch, the relief nurse was about to hang my second dose of antibiotics and I told her she better run it in half the time, because I was complete and ready to push.. That statement scared her.. Randall came back about this time. The nurse checked me and said,, OMG don't push. She then called for setup for delivery( the room wasn't even ready)and called Beth to tell her that I was complete, and called my Dr to tell her that I was ready. Then she told me that we needed to do some practice pushes.. I laughed and told her if we practiced then she would be delivering the baby by herself.. My first I didn't even push, and my second I only pushed twice.. She said okay then we won't practice, just breath through the contrax and fight the urge to push. Beth came back in the room and they started breaking the bed down, the right stirrup was broken and wouldn't stay in position..LOL.. Dr came in the room and got ready, she told me to wait for a contrax and then push...I felt the contrax and started pushing and at 12:15pm Harper Reese joined our family.



Harper Reese Jones
2-2-2010 @ 12:15pm
7lbs 2oz
20.5 inches
13.5 head



Here are some more pictures for you to enjoy.








We came home on Thursday after a 2 day stay in the hospital..Yay...It was great to have her in the room with me and get to nurse whenever she wanted, and to bring her home with us was the best feeling in the world!!! She is now on home phototherapy for her jaundice. Praying that it continues to come down and she comes off soon, so that we can snuggle with her...

35 wks 3 days and Still Preggo!!!WooHoo

Let's start this off by saying that I have had contractions all weekend long. They have not been in a regular pattern since my trip to L&D on Friday, but I was still having them none the less and they weren't braxton hicks!! Yesterday, Sunday we went to Church(this is my one allowed fieldtrip each week other than the Dr) and then all afternoon I was hurting, not contracting, just plain old hurting. I figured out why last night the baby finally dropped and is way low. Along with this I lost my mucuous plug(I would say all of it) and had to start wearing a pad, as everytime I move I was leaking something. I wasn't sure if it was discharge or urine, or heaven forbid my membranes had a slow leak. I decided to just wear a pad and mention it today at my Dr's appt. So at 10pm I took an extra strength tylenol and I went to bed, I woke up at 2am, wide awake after having a few hours of great sleep. Seriously I thought I had been asleep all night the way I felt when I woke up. My hips were killing me though and I could barely walk. I decided to just sit in the tub in the hottest water I could stand and that helped a ton...Well then I was totally awake and knew I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep. Gotta love pregnancy insomnia.. So I probably peed like 150 times in the middle of the night.

Karli decided to wake up early too, so at 5:15 she got up and was bright eyed, bushy tailed and ready to go. Ran got home from work at 6:45 and we got the kids fed, and ready to go. Korey went to school and Karli went to my in laws. I decided to lay down and sleep with Randall and I slept from about 8:30 until 1:30.. great sleep. When I woke up I could walk again..YAY... I took a bath, then woke up Randall so that we could get ready for my appt.

Dr appt update:


Gained 6 lbs in a week, not swollen.BP up a little, urine normal.
Dilated to 2cm( was still 1cm in L&D on Friday).Baby fully engaged!!
Got my GBS swab done,Dr saw some leaking.
Dr ?'s whether my water was broken. Did a litmus paper swab, positive. Did a slide to test for ferning, negative. Sent me for U/S to check fluid level.
U/S results: Fluid level at 165 so great!! Normal is 80-180.. Turns out im just leaking urine.. wonderful...
Babies weight 7lbs 4oz..She is measuring exactly 3 weeks ahead on all measurements.. and yes she is still a girl...LOL
I go back on Thursday..