New Adventure – Parenthood

It’s been a long while since I posted.  I can’t believe our adventure in Brasil came to an end so long ago and now we’ve been settling down in Texas.

What’s new?

Well, on January 17th, 2018, Steven Reese Mortensen came into our life.

My water broke at 10pm Tuesday night (16th) but my contractions hadn’t started yet.  I took a shower and went to sleep.  I’m not sure exactly what time the contractions started, but I woke up around 3 or 4 or so feeling the pains.  I started a timer app on my phone and was shocked to see it progress so quickly.  In about an hour my contractions were close enough to think about heading to the hospital.  I was expecting at least 6 hours of laboring at home.  So I woke up my mom (who flew in from Phoenix to be there and to help) and Neal started packing everything in the car.  It was a good thing we left when we did.  By the time we made it to the hospital at 5:30am I was really feeling it.  They brought us back to a room and checked me.  I was only dilated to a 1 or 2! I couldn’t believe it.  I was in so much pain and was really considering getting an epidural.  I wanted to try without it, but it had progressed so fast that I couldn’t get into the right frame of mind.  But I waited for a little while and tried to suck it up to see if I would dilate quicker.  The next time they checked me I was at a 5 or 6.  I still couldn’t believe that I wasn’t dilated more, because by this point with every contraction I really wanted to push.  Actually, wanted to isn’t the right way to put it…I HAD to.  Everything within me HAD to push.  They kept telling me to stop, but it was so hard.  Everyone there thought that I would deliver really soon.  I can’t even describe the dread I felt that this would continue on for who knows how long.  I asked for the epidural a few times before Neal and my mom trusted me that I truly did want it.  It was so hard to hold still for it, but it went in and…then I fell asleep.  Yes, it’s true.  The nurses said that it wouldn’t slow my labor down at that point, but it brought it to a halt.  My contractions changed to irregular and about 5 min apart.  I was dilated to a 10 but going nowhere.  And then I started feeling my right side.  Every time I pushed the epidural button it made my left side fall asleep more and did nothing for my right side.  So, in came the anesthesiologist to give me more medication and I fell asleep again.  I will say, it was a welcome break and such a different experience than I anticipated.

Once I was awake again, the doctor and nurse wanted to give me pitocin to bring my contractions closer together.  I wasn’t quite comfortable with it at that point because everything I knew about it was that it was used to start labor and made contractions hurt more. After trying a few things to try and speed things up, the doctor had a heart to heart with me and explained why they suggested the pitocin.  Then they informed me that I would be getting it anyway after labor to help with delivering the placenta.  At that point I felt good about it and they started it.  It just so happened to be a shift change with the nurses.  My nurse was so wonderful and she was so sure she would be there for my delivery, so we were all sad when she had to leave.  It had already been over 12 hours because the shift change was at 7pm.   I had done some “practice” pushes with the doctor and my first nurse, so when the new nurse came in we started getting serious.  She was straight with me and gave me a deadline.  Since my water had broken so long beforehand, they were nervous about infections.  I was on antibiotics since I first arrived due to being group B positive, so that helped ease their minds a little.  However, my new nurse was not going to mess around.  She gave me a deadline of 3 hours and counted the number of pushes I would have in that amount of time.  She said “look, in all the deliveries I’ve been a part of, only 2 have gone to surgery.  Don’t ruin my odds!”  So I was invested.  I couldn’t let her down!  Reese was only at a 0 or -1 station because we was getting stuck.  I was at risk for needing a c-section.  She told me that she normally doesn’t start pushing with patients at that point, but we were going to go for it.  She tried different techniques to help to get me to push effectively.  It was really hard to feel what I needed to feel with the epidural.  They kept asking me if I felt the urge to push.  I had felt that urge before I got the epidural and I wasn’t feeling anything like that.  Once the pitocin really got working, I began to feel it and started working with the contractions.  It’s crazy what the body does!  My mom and Neal were there helping every step of the way.  Holding my feet up, getting me ice chips, cheering me on and telling me I was doing fantastic.  And then the nurse was the drill sergeant telling me to push harder and longer and in the correct place.  It was just what I needed to hear because it made me really try harder to get it right.  I didn’t want to ruin her odds! Before I knew it, Reese was past the scary part and was getting closer and closer.  By this point I had a mirror to see what was going on.  In the birth class that we took, when they mentioned the mirror, I said, oh no, no way I would ever use a mirror!  But there I was, in labor looking at a mirror at my *ahem lady region watching my son’s head slowly creep its way out.  Such a surreal moment.  When it got to a certain point, the doctor was called in and not much longer after that we saw his head really crowning.  I had to pause in between contractions and we just saw the top of his little head with all his hair.  After hearing all the stories about the “ring of fire” I was really grateful that I had the epidural at this point!  On the next push his little face emerged, all purple and scrunched up.  It didn’t look real!  The doctor then started working his shoulders through and then he was on my chest!  I couldn’t believe it.  He started breathing and started his little cry that I would get to know a little too well in the following weeks.  The doctor started a countdown and after a minute Neal cut the umbilical cord.  They then took him to be measured and such while I got stitched up.  I didn’t know it at the time, and the mirror was quickly turned, but apparently it wasn’t pretty.  I had a 3rd degree tear.  My mom said that there was a lot of blood.  I’m sure glad I didn’t see that.  I sure have felt it though.

Somewhere around the craziness of getting the cord cut and me stitched up, I noticed something different about Reese’s left hand.  I wasn’t sure if I was just hallucinating or having a strange reaction from the drugs, but I only saw 2 little fingers.  I pointed it out to whoever was listening just to have them confirm it.  I wasn’t in any place to be tactful about it.  I think I said something like, “Look at his hand!”  I just wanted confirmation that I wasn’t crazy.  Neal said later that he noticed it when his arm came out, but wasn’t sure what to make of it either.  It was quite the surprise!

It was 8:52pm when Reese was born.  It had been a very long day.  I remember getting some food and waiting for such a long time to be moved to the recovery room.  Neal was so tired that my mom ended up driving herself back to our place while we got settled.  Once we got into our new room, we both just crashed.  Then came my first of many “I’m a horrible parent” moments.

Neal and I were both out cold and in comes the nursery nurse, wheeling this brand new baby into our room all perfectly swaddled and asleep.  So, after saying hello, I was out cold again.  Then came the cry…  I have no clue was time it was, but oh, that cry.  This kid has some lungs!  So I did what any new mom of a few hours would do.  I took what they had quickly shown me after delivery and tried to breastfeed him…cause he must be famished of course.  I tried and I tried, and he wailed and he wailed, and I was sure a nurse would come in thinking something horrible must be going on.  And Neal slept, haha.  After a long time, much longer than was necessary, I finally gave in and paged the nurses.  I was so stubborn, and thought for sure that I was good.  As soon as the nurse came in she went straight to his diaper and proudly pronounced, “he has had his first dirty diaper!”  Duh!  Why didn’t I think of that?  I mean, I was a mother going on a few hours, and completely spent after the long day of laboring, I should have thought of that first. 🙂  Needless to say, it was a good lesson on humility.

The hospital stay was a quick blur after that.  The first day was a constant stream of doctors and nurses and lactation consultants.  We even had a newborn photography session and little Reese had his circumcision.   Plus there were a lot of emotions to process.  We were completely blindsided by his hand and I was an emotional mess trying to feed this firecracker of a baby.  Who knew breastfeeding could be so difficult and emotional?  And then the day after that we were discharged.

We are still having fun getting to know this little guy and getting little sleep.  He sure has taken over our hearts and our lives 🙂

This isn’t the most eloquent post, but such is life with a newborn!

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(These awesome pictures not from the hospital were taken by our amazing friend Vanessa Bordasch.  I will make a separate post about the newborn photo shoot she did.  It was fantastic!)

Category : Reese