This week was yet again another busy spring week. Not only with my work schedule and Kevin’s work schedule, but we also had appointments for Brutus, Lily, and our carpet installation.  Whew. And on top of that, as it turns out it was our last week as a family of three!

On Wednesday Brutus had an appointment with the vet to get neutered. The vet recommended he get fixed between 6 and 12 months, so this puts just shy of 8 months. Plus, you know, we figure since Lily is done with her cone of shame – isn’t it Brutus’ turn?  Joking of course. And as it turns out he’s quite scared and bothered by the cone. You put it on his head and he almost hovers and cowers to the floor! We certainly didn’t follow the advice of having it on him a majority of the time and as it turns out he healed just fine. He really didn’t bother his stitches and limiting his activity wasn’t really in the cards. He basically acted like nothing even happened. As a matter of fact I didn’t snap a single photo to document his disposition during any of it!

Kevin dropped Brutus off so I could be at work by 7 am to get setup for an employee appreciation event. We hired Chris Cakes to come out to Millcreek for a Pancake and Sausage breakfast for our employees. We’ve had a great year thus far, working not nearly as late into the evenings as we have in the past. We have a really smooth system that is working well and the team of people this year seems to be working like a well-oiled machine even though we have many new seasonals. So, as a thank you we started off the day with an all-you-can-eat pancake and sausage breakfast. One caveat is you have to catch your pancakes as he flips them to you. It was a fun start to the day.

I had to book it out of work and head to my weekly appointment for my non-stress test.  This week the test went well, however, my blood pressure was pretty high even after taking it several times over the course of my visit. I’ve been feeling really well this entire time and honestly not even uncomfortable. My blood pressure has periodically been up, but then the next visit it’s back to normal so it’s not been a concern. Today, however, they mentioned doing a blood panel to check out where things stand. After meeting with my doctor and discussing my current status  she wanted me to have an ultrasound to ensure he was still head down. As it turns out he was in the “oblique” position, which is sort of a 45 degree angle with his head down and feet off to my right side.  Kevin wasn’t able to be there, but I was able to get another sneak peak of our little boy and also an updated size estimate (today they estimated 8.5 pounds!). With all of that activity I had forgotten to inquire about the blood work and she didn’t mention it. So while I was checking out I mentioned to the front desk that they said the doctor may want to do lab work, but that I’d forgotten to discuss it with her. They went back and asked her, and thankfully I asked, as she did decide to have a blood panel workup done. So I waited a few more minutes and had my blood drawn before heading back to work. 

I wasn’t at work long before I had to leave to pickup Lily! She had her 2 month follow up appointment where they took radiographs of her right leg to check on the healing of the bone following her surgery. Kevin dropped her off in the morning (which by the way I had totally forgotten she wasn’t supposed to eat since they sedate her – oops!) and I picked her up once she was ready. It was really cool to see the before and after x-rays and speak with the doctor about her recovery. They asked if we had been limiting her activity and of course we had with her play pen in the kitchen for the last 2 months. I thought perhaps they were going to mention an issue with her healing – but to my surprise and excitement they said her bone healing looks amazing. It’s about as awesome as it gets. When looking at the below images, the “after” is on the left and the “before” taken at the completion of her surgery is on the right. The amazing part is you really can’t even see the line where the bone was cut and grew back together. It’s also rather interesting to see the plate and screws in her leg! After I dropped Lily at home I headed back to work for a couple of hours. When I got home and it was still light out Griffin and I went out and I walked and he rode his balance bike.  I hadn’t been progressing much in regards to my body getting ready to deliver a baby so my doctor suggested using a balance/yoga ball and also walking. So we headed out on a 30-40 minute excursion and stopped along the way at the ponds to check for ducks and to throw in some rocks. When we got back we enjoyed sitting in our front garden for a bit. It’s looking quite nice this year. Each week we have something new blooming and I’ve tried to lay it out so we have some repeating color and plants in large blocks. I’m happy with how it is coming together :). 

Here are a few pics from the touch-a-truck event that Finn went to with Debbie on Friday. 

On Friday morning I woke up with a very slight headache. I’ve been checking my blood pressure periodically at home, so Kevin got me setup and took my pressure. It was in the 160’s over 100’s. We took it a few times and consistently got the same thing. I got up and ready and headed in to work. I’d been there an hour or so and Kevin texted to see if my headache was any better, which it wasn’t, so he said I really should call my doctor.  I started getting a bit uneasy since it was Friday and we were heading into the weekend. On one hand I didn’t want to have regrets about not letting them know about my headache and home bp readings, but on the other hand I thought it was silly to call and tell them I had a headache!  Anyway, I thought Kevin was right and I should probably call. So when I spoke to the nurse I mentioned my blood draw from Wednesday and that I hadn’t heard anything and assumed no news is good news? She thought it was best for me to come in so they could get a reading of their own and see me.  So an hour later I was at their office and my blood pressure reading was about the same, 160’s/100’s. Because of that, they took me into a room and had me lye on my left side and then rechecked it about 15 minutes later and it was much better, high 130’s/low 90’s.  I figured I was good to go with the double thumbs up sign from the nurse! Then Dr. Guiness came in (I’ve seen her a couple times towards the end of my pregnancy as Dr. Costa has been out of the office). She asked how I felt and I said really pretty good other than my dull headache. She explained that my blood work looked pretty good, but did show that I had an elevated enzyme and a decreased platelet count. That along with my increased blood pressure, and that I had progressed from 1-2 cm to 3 cm since Wednesday is my body beginning to tell me that it is time. She said if I were 6 weeks from my due date, she would be inclined to monitor me, but since my due date is 2 days away she’s thinking she’d like to just send me to Riverside Labor and Delivery and be induced.  What??!! That is NOT what I was thinking she would say after the better blood pressure reading and the double thumbs up from the head nurse! I thought maybe some bed rest or something along those lines. After all, at work I had told them I’d be back after I had my blood pressure checked!  So….Dr. Guiness said if I deliver by 5 pm it would be her making the delivery, but if after that it would be Dr. Plante who happened to be out in the hallway. So she said to head home and get my bag and then head to Riverside and they would let them know that I would be heading in! Dr. Guiness introduced me to Dr. Plante on my way out the back door of the office.  It was great, she was like “so, let’s go have a baby!”.  I was relieved to have met her in advance of being at the hospital. We briefly discussed my status and the gameplan of breaking my water and pitocin, along with where things stand in my pregnancy and then I headed to the car. I immediately called Kevin, who was working from home, and told him the update and they started crying some! I wasn’t prepared for them to say “head to the hospital!” and he had plans to meet a friend at 2 pm for drinks and conversation! But as always, he was very encouraging and said “this is great! We are that much closer to meeting our son!”. So the dominoes were set into action. He called Debbie, who was at a touch-a truck event in Worthington with Griffin and asked her to come home so we could say bye to Finn. He called his parents and asked them to come up to relieve Debbie. I called my parents and sister who were going to be coming to the hospital.

Since we had carpet installed on Wednesday in the nursery and guest bedrooms, we hadn’t had time to put the rooms and beds back together! And of course, there was a huge snag/tear in the carpet for the guest room so they only installed it partially as it will need replaced. So, Kevin put together the bed in the guest room so his parents would have a place to sleep while staying with Griffin. We finished packing our hospital bags, got showered, and were able to give Finn some hugs and kisses and explain that we were going to be heading down to Riverside so his brother could be born!

The timing of everything ended up being perfect and looking back I’m glad for the decision Dr. Guiness made to send me to the hospital. It was a Friday afternoon and we arrived around 1:30 pm and got checked in to our room. Just as we were in our room and the nurse was getting acquainted with us and giving me the hospital gown to put on I was heading in to the bathroom and thought, “hmm, that feels weird”. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions and as it turns out my water had broken. Not a big break (thank goodness as I have extra fluid they say) but just a slight leak. As things moved along and we got all checked in and the nurse got everything up to date in the computer system and got me hooked up to various monitors my contractions continued to progress. They were at pretty regular intervals of 5 minutes or less. And at this point I didn’t even need any pitocin, thankfully. My parents had arrived also and around 4 pm they broke my water fully. That was a lot of fluid. Let me just say I was happy to have had that happen in the hospital and not while I was at work or in my car or in a public place! My contractions continued to get stronger at this point. My sister arrived also and it was great to have the support of our families – some with us at the hospital and others at home with Griffin!

Because of my experience laboring with Griffin, I wanted to go as far as possible before I got an epidural this time. I was moving along and by 7 pm I was about 7-8 cm and the contractions were pretty strong and I was ready for the epidural. It happened just prior to the nurse changeover and our nurse who’d been with us the entire time to this point said “I think we’re going to have a baby in a couple of hours!”. But as it turns out, my body does weird things! I had an extremely similar labor to Griffin’s from this point forward. My contractions remained regular but the time between them increased. The dilation of my cervix slowed down. It was difficult for them to maintain readings on the external monitors, so they switched to the internal monitors for both my contractions and the baby’s heartbeat. After awhile the baby’s heart rate would dip here and there so they decided to reintroduce fluid to my uterus – all of the same things that happened with Griffin! The nurses frequently checked my cervix and the baby had finally gotten into a good vertical position. They brought in one of the head nurses to check the baby’s position (her nickname there is “magic hands” as she has long fingers and specializes in determining the position of the baby). She told us that the baby is now completely up and down, however, his head was turned to the side. He obviously couldn’t be delivered that way, as that would mean he would be exiting with the widest part of his head. She explained this game plan: 40 minutes in one position of me on my right hip, right let bent and against the stirrup in the bed, left leg fully extended and my body positioned to curl onto my belly as much as possible.  Then 40 minutes on my hands and knees. Next: 40 minutes in the first position, only on my left side.  Then 40 minutes sitting up in the “throne” position. If after that the baby’s head hadn’t turned, she said it would be the doctors decision but she thinks based on his heart-rate strip that she would opt for a c-section. Ugh. This hadn’t been without stress! I was shaking crazily and somewhat uncontrollably. The nurses say it’s sometimes how your body reacts during active labor and it was also my from nerves (I know this as when I forced myself to take a deep breath and relax, they would go away briefly!). A few times when I had to lie on my back so they could check my cervix I felt really “off” and they gave me the oxygen mask to wear.  I’m not sure if I felt faint or what it was but I just didn’t feel normal!  At the end, in the throne position I has curled forward around a yoga ball, just hugging it.  And thankfully, after all of that – his head had turned! Praise the Lord. At that point, my cervix was around 9 cm, but there was still a small part kind of in the way. So once again, “magic hands” came in and had me push a couple of times to somehow move it around out of the way. At this point they said it was go time and had called the doctor and things went pretty quickly. There was some chatter like “where is Dr. Plante? I thought she was up in her office here?”, “oh, I thought she was in her car?” and as they were discussing this in she walked! The nurse had told me when it was time to push, that she needed me to push harder that I even think I could. Basically that it needed to be fast to get him out. So, Dr. Plante got suited up quickly and with the next contraction I pushed as hard as I could. The doctors and nurses were very encouraging.  Then, with the next contraction she told me in advance to push as hard as I could until she asked me to letup, then push super hard again in the same contraction. So, next came the contraction and that’s what I did – pushed super hard, let up while she did something – not really sure what, and then I pushed super hard again and he began to emerge! She asked me to letup a bit, this time while I believe she removed the cord some from his neck as he was exiting. All the while she was like “oh my goodness, we have a big one!” Then she asked me to push again and then he was all the way out! It was 1:51 am, May 20th. I just remember her saying how big he was! He did look quite big and his face was puffy! He had super huge cheeks and dark hair. He cried a little bit, Kevin was able to cut the cord, and he laid on my chest while I just looked at him 🙂 He definitely looks different than Griffin, dark hair and plenty of hit, but not as thick or long as Griffin’s.

Over the next 30-40 minutes we just got to hold him and look at him. We marveled at how long his fingers were, and in particular his nail beds (not just his long nails that already needed trimmed!). He also had big feet! At this point I was really curious how much he weighed since the doctor said he was a big boy! As it turns out, now they wait until at least 1 hour for the nurse to come in and weigh and measure them and put the vitamin K drops in their eyes. So before she came in I was able to nurse him. He caught on right away and did great. I was happy and surprised. It seemed so much easier than my experience when Griffin was born. All that past experience was quite helpful!.

So, here are many photos from the day. These are just our candids from our phones and camera. I’ll do another post of all the pretty and professional ones that we are grateful Amy was able to take. It was really lovely to have her there to capture his birth. Mind you, I haven’t told you his name yet as we hadn’t decided fully on that yet! He was born at 1:51 am, we got to our long-term room at about 4:30 am. We slept from perhaps 5:15 until 6 am, when they came in for the first check in. From that point on we were up, but had frequent visits from Doctors and nurses. Around 8 am they brought Reid into our room and gave him his first bath.  Then our parents arrived with Griffin so he could meet his brother.  It was the sweetest thing. I will never forget the smile on his face when he walked in, really quietly and shy. He had a big and happy smile on his face.  He walked over to his daddy and sat on his lap and just gazed at his brother. He loved looking at him and touching his face and hands. Throughout the day we had our parents and Amy, Andy, Graham, Rowan, and Greta visit. Kevin left for a couple of hours to take Griffin to his friend Coopers birthday party in the afternoon. The Manning’s brought us a lovely dinner from Northstar Cafe. Debbie came to visit. All of this to say that Kevin and I didn’t have any down time with one another to finalize our name choice! So, it wasn’t until about 10 pm or so that we decided on his name: Reid Christopher Armstrong! And his stats: born 5/20/17 at 1:51 am, 8 pounds 8 ounces, 20.25″.

We had other visitors on Sunday, including James, Laura, Audrey and Emmaline Kessler who came while Kevin was away taking Finn to his final Flag Football game of the season. I’m bummed that Kevin wasn’t there during their visit, as James prayed for Reid and our family. But I’m thankful that Kevin was able to spend that time with Griffin and that Griffin was able to go to his final game and receive his end of season trophy. He was really proud of it and brought it to the hospital to show me :).