We LOVE Jaiden Carter :)

After 20+ hours of labor and then a C-Section Jaiden Carter Combs has finally arrived. He was born Saturday December 19th at 8:02 pm weighing 6lbs 15ozs, 20 inches long. I’d say expecting the unexpected was the theme for his labor and delivery… not going to lie, it was rough; but I’d do it again tomorrow if I had to. He’s absolutely perfect and we love him so much already. My labor started at 11:50 on Friday night with my water breaking. I heard a slight popping noise and then came the gush. I had every intention of laboring as long as possible from home, but after getting in the shower, I realized that I had meconium staining. The Doctor had talked with us about the possibility of this happening and said that it was really important to get to the hospital quickly because both baby and I will need to be monitored extra closely. We arrived at the hospital around 2am and the chaos had began. I won’t get into all the nitty gritty details, but to sum it all up labor was slow, super intense, full of back labor, and the clock was ticking. In an ideal world, when meconium staining is present, Doctors usually like to have baby out within 12 to 18 hours. There is a large risk for infections and other potential problems the longer baby lingers inside. I was given an epidural at 12:15 and felt some relief, but little did I know that feeling would soon subside. I had roughly 2 hours of slight relief, and then the rest of the time.... absolutely nothing. My epidural didn’t work and all the nurses, doctors, and anesthesiologists were baffled. I no longer had any relief and was now feeling every second of pain and pressure with each coming contraction. I was put on oxygen and had to have an internal monitor placed on babys head because his heartbeat was slowing. By 5pm I had finally dilated to 9 and a half cm and this is where everything gets crazy. After being at 9 ½ cm for over 2 hours, the Doctor came in said we needed to talk. My cervix had not made any progress in hours and said that it truly was hard to say whether or not I would ever get to 10 cm and said we should probably start talking about a c-section. Anyone that has been in labor knows that being at 9 ½ cm and not being allowed to push is pretty much impossible, especially with no medical relief. The pressure was so intense and had taken all the energy I had left out of me. I had now reached 20 hours of labor and babys heartbeat wasn’t where they were hoping it would be. The Doctor left the room so we could talk about what we wanted to do, and in the next contraction I was screaming to get him back in the room and that I was alright with going ahead with a c-section. The anesthesiologist came in to administer the anesthesia for the c-section and then I was wheeled away. In the OR I kept telling the team of 8 people that the anesthesia was NOT working. I could feel everything still. They kept saying that it would kick in soon and I was so ready for this to happen. I never had any intentions on doing 20 hours of labor with no relief. They were washing my belly and through ragged breathing from contractions I kept commenting on how cold the soap was. They kept saying there is no way you can feel this. Hmmm, you are getting ready to cut me open and I can feel everything, someone needs to start believing me here because at this point I was freaking out. They hung up the curtain so I could no longer see anything and said that they were going to pinch me with this terrifying looking instrument… I nearly jumped off the table when they did it, and I could see that they finally believed me. They immediately decided that they had to put me under and then out came the gas. I’m sure Kevin was surprised when he walked into the room and saw me out cold, tubes in my mouth, tape over my eyes, and another oxygen mask over my nose. Definitely not what I had envisioned and planned on, but luckily everything went perfectly. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression, I loved my Doctor. The epidural not working only happens to such a small percentage of people that they were just so surprised! The Doctors did an amazing job and I’m so pleased with how everything turned out. The NICU nurses were in the OR ready to monitor little monkey as soon as he came out. I finally woke up an hour after he was born to my mom shaking me and telling me Jaiden was here. I will never forget what it was like seeing him for the first time. He was absolutely perfect and I would honestly go through all the pain and chaos for him again in a heartbeat. Our stay in the hospital was wonderful. We had the most caring nursing staff working with us. The only rough patch we had with Jaiden was his bilirubin levels. At around 1am on Tuesday we were woken up by a couple nurses telling us that his levels weren’t improving enough for him to be discharged the following morning. They were going to test him again at 8am, but if his levels hadn’t made a major improvement he would have to stay in the NICU for a couple days. They had brought us the “bili” lamp to use throughout the night and told me that the more I nursed, the better off he would be. Enough said. I stayed awake the entire night and nursed him every hour on the hour. The pediatrician came in after he had the results and said that I deserved a blue ribbon. I had nursed more than anyone else on the floor and his levels had dropped enough for him to be discharged. Wooooohooo! We arrived home late Tuesday and it felt amazing. There was always different people coming in to monitor Jaiden and I that being at home was so much more peaceful than I had dreamed. I am trying to stay as low key as I can because of the c-section and am enjoying every moment with our little guy. I have slight pain and discomfort throughout the day, but the worst part is all the swelling. Because of the meconium staining and long labor I was given 11 liters of fluid!!! Yuck! I thought I was swollen before! Hopefully only a couple more days of that.

Although Jaiden is only 5 days old, he has changed our lives forever. It’s truly amazing how you can love someone so much in such a short time. He is a perfect addition to our family and we are enjoying every moment with him. We can’t wait for you all to meet him. We have truly been blessed beyond belief this holiday season and are thanking God for all he has given us. Merry Christmas to all our family and friends. We love you.

1 more week until D-Day

Its official, I’m finally making progress!!! Woohooooo! Baby has made his way down and has settled head first in the birth canal. My cervix has thinned, no dilation yet, but labor could start at any point!! I still have no real complaints other than feeling a little off still, annoying edema, and of course the darn toothache is back! I swear, I’m about ready to yank it out of my mouth myself. Doctor gave me the green light to start up the Keflex antibiotic again if I need to, but I’m hoping baby will arrive before it gets too bad. Contractions are definitively getting stronger, longer, and closer together but are still coming at random times throughout the day. There will be times when I have 7 monster contractions in a half hour, and then nothing for the next 5 hours. It’s just a matter of time though. Our Doctor was pushing on my belly again to estimate Jaiden’s weight, and had us a little worried for a second. He kept saying, oh my, he’s going to be a BIG boy... WOW he’s really big.... and kept pushing my belly with a crazy look on his face. I shot Kevin a paranoid glance and then slowly asked the Doctor, how BIG are we talking?! He then asked me if I was having a mild contraction... I told him I was and he started to laugh. I didn’t think to say anything when he started pushing all around, but it was a little uncomfortable. He thought my entire uterus was just baby. He then waited for the contraction to be done and agreed with the previous Doctor thinking right around 7 lbs 7 oz, but under 8 lbs. Again, we shall see. With what I’ve heard from other new mom’s, I’m not holding my breath for that to be completely accurate. I have mastered the waddle-walk now as baby Jaide’s head is causing a little bit of pressure. I’m sure I look ridiculous walking around, but that’s alright. I now have people come up to me wherever I am and ask how much longer I have. I wish I could take a picture of their faces when I say oh, about a week! Haha Their eyes pop out and then ask me what I’m doing out... like I really have any desire to just sit and wait. I’m trying to stay busy people! If we make it to our next appointment, it will be next wednesday... little monkey's due date :)

I finally got our maternity/belly pictures from our shoot. My belly is obviously quite a bit bigger than in these pictures, but I thought I’d share a couple. These were taken when I was just about 35 weeks along.

Interesting Day

So the last couple days I have been feeling... off. Not sick, just different. I had commented to my mom and Kevin on a couple occasions that something felt different. I was thinking maybe it was just because I’m at the end of the pregnancy, or baby is just getting bigger and taking up more space, but my stomach has been weird. I’ve also had lots of swelling and a little headache to go along with it. I figured everything was probably fine and went about my day. This afternoon I had uncontrollable vomiting for about a half hour straight. Not so fun. I called the doctor and she asked me tons of questions and wanted me to get to some place where my blood pressure could be checked out and then to call them back to let them know. She also wanted to know all about baby’s movements throughout the day, and of course I started panicking. He’s always been so active but I remember a couple days this week telling Kevin he’s been on a little bit of a lull. He still is moving, but just not as much. By the time I got off the phone with the doctor I am now in a full panic mode. The doctor kept saying she thought everything was probably fine.... but call me crazy, I just needed a little more clarification then that. I called a couple friends to get there advice and all of them said that I should definitely just go into the OBGYN office to get peace of mind, especially being that today is Friday, the office is closed until Monday and that I really didn’t need to stress about everything for the next 3 days. I called them back and just said I would be so much more comfortable the next couple days if I knew everything was fine, not just with me, but baby too. They were fine with that and told me to come in when I could. I got to the office and they did a non-stress test for 20 minutes to monitor both myself and baby. Luckily, everything is perfect. My blood pressure was right where it should be, and Jaiden’s responses were perfect. She was explaining that they like to see at least 2 peaks in his heartbeat over a 20 minute period as it correlates to his movements and lets them know he’s doing alright in there. He had 3 peaks in 13 minutes, AND it actually recorded that I haven’t been losing my mind and had 3 contractions in the 20 minutes hooked up to the machine. She said there was a good chance that all of the feeling “off” is a sign of early labor!! Woohoo!! Obviously no one knows just how long "early" labor will last, but at least it's a step in the right direction! I won’t know much more about progression until my appointment on Monday, but she thought everything was completely fine and that there is no reason to stress about anything. I just hope that the throwing up thing doesn’t continue. I’m pretty sure I had my fair share of that in the beginning :( I will continue to keep everyone up to date!

Snowed In!

Today was supposed to be my 38 week appointment, but I had to cancel this morning. We are under a blizzard warning until this evening, and with good roads it takes over a half hour to get to my doctors office. Needless to say, we didn’t think it would be worth it to risk it. My next appointment is scheduled for Monday afternoon. This past Saturday, Sunday, and then again last night Kevin and I were timing some contractions so fingers crossed maybe we won’t have an appointment Monday. How’s that for wishful thinking?! haha! I am still having Braxton hicks throughout the day, but the contractions are much different. Now if I could only figure out how to keep ‘em coming we’d be in good shape. In the meantime I’m just trying to stay busy... time seems to be creeping I think in part because I’m just so ready for him finally be here. On the agenda for today, bake some Christmas cookies and work on some scrapbooking :) Hopefully I’ll have more news soon.

Dear December, I have been waiting 9 long months for you to arrive!!!

This morning I had my 37 week appointment. Little monkey was moving around constantly so they weren’t able to pinpoint an exact heartbeat, but it was somewhere between 147-153 bpm. I am still measuring to the exact day so they seem pleased with that. They left it completely up to me whether or not I would like to be checked for any progression... and at first I was like yessss I want to know. The more I thought about it, I decided against it. If I am dilated it would get my hopes up, and if there was no progression yet I’d be a little bummed! I figure little JaiderBug is going to come on his own time (possibly with a little, maybe a lot of coxing from me!) so no need to stress over anything. No reason to bring on any discomfort that isn’t necessary! He is officially considered to be full term now so he is welcome ANYTIME.... the sooner the better for me! I figure I’ll give him another week to be all comfy and cozy in the belly, but come December 13th, I will be doing/eating/cleaning/whatever I can to help this baby along. I was 10 days early, so we’re hoping maybe he will follow in that pattern... not to mention if he did come on the 13th he would share a birthday with his Grandpa Horan and Uncle Ryan. The nurse pushed all around on my belly and felt confident saying that Jaiden was right around 6 lbs give or take an ounce or two. She also said that if I went all the way to full term she didn’t think he would be any bigger than 7 lbs 7 oz... so we shall see. I am still feeling wonderful, with the exception of all the annoying swelling! I consider myself very fortunate to not have had problems with it up until this point, but it’s not fun. My ankles, calves, hands,... basically I feel gross, but only a couple more weeks! Baby boy has definitely dropped, so that’s something at least! I’ve developed quite the waddle when walking!!

Just a heads up, we will be taking the laptop to the hospital with us, and Kevin will be updating the blog to keep everyone up to date with news as it comes.