I can't believe it's been over a year since I've updated our blog. Its a bit of an understatement to say I've been busy. School, work, Dextin, and being pregnant have definitely kept me running. I'm happy to say that I have just begun my last semester. Only three more months until I graduate! And as long as I can pass the NCLEX I can say that all the stress and child neglect has been worth it. I wish I would have finished school before having kids, but at least they are young enough to not remember. I imagine this blog won't be updated again until after I finish. So I figured I should write while I have a few weeks off of work. I will start with the most important so that it for sure gets done.
We were very excited to welcome little Aeven Kristopher Barrett to our family on Saturday April 27. He was 6 lbs 13 oz and 18.5 inches long. He came out with dark curly hair, which I'm hoping doesn't all fall out. So far he has been a really good baby, though I think he spends more time eating than he does sleeping. By his two week appointment he was already up to 7 lbs 5 oz (he came home at 6 lbs 8 oz). Aeven's due date was May 4, but Dextin was born a week and a half early so I was hopeful that he would be similar. My only concern was that I had finals on April 24, which was about a week and a half before the due date. Luckily I made it through finals and I began having contractions that night. I was up half the night, but they never became regular. The next day they started up again so we went for a walk trying to get the contractions to become more consistent. I thought for sure by the end of the night they would pick up, but the night was similar to the one before. Friday morning was disappointingly slow, so I did everything I could think of (and find on google) to try and get things going again. We went on an extremely long walk and even ended the day with Chinese food (I'm still not sure how that was supposed to help). That night they started up again and this time were much stronger. They still weren't very consistent, but we live about 35 minutes from the hospital so at around 1 am I decided we should head down. We met my mom at the hospital and she took Dextin to her house. We checked in and they set us up in triage to see how things were going. I was dilated to a 4 and 90% effaced. Since my contractions still weren't regular they decided to wait an hour and see what happened. An hour later the nurse came back and she said nothing much had changed except that my bag of waters was bulging a little more. She decided to wait another hour, which was pretty miserable. I was in a lot of pain and all Justin had was a chair to sit in, which wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't the middle of the night. When she came back again the only change was I was completely effaced, but still only about a 4. She decided to call the midwife who said I should stay another hour. By this time it was about 3:30 and the nurse said she would give me until 5. That was probably the longest hour and a half of my life. My contractions were definitely stronger, but the monitors weren't reading them very well so the nurse waited until 5 to come in. By that time I was dilated to about a 6. The nurse was very excited to finally admit me and I was excited to finally get an epidural. Justin was happy to finally have a bed. The anesthesiologist was quick to get to me, which was so nice. The midwife soon arrived and decided to break my water to try and speed things up. After a while she decided to start me on Pitocin because things still weren't moving that fast. They had to keep adjusting me because the baby's heart rate kept dropping (I have a feeling it was due to the Pitocin since the same thing happened with Dextin when they started me on it). My contractions finally picked up some more and at 9:24 am I began pushing. Aeven was born at 9:30. My labor was quite a bit longer this time, but I pushed for ten minutes less than I did with Dextin. Everything went really well and we were able to go home Sunday afternoon. It was so nice going home a day early instead of staying an extra day like we did with Dextin. It is definitely an adjustment having two and much harder for me to run errands alone, but it has been fun. Dextin just adores him and kisses him every chance he gets. He has yet to try and carry him around, which is something I feared, though sometimes he does love him a little too hard. I cant wait until Aeven gets bigger and is actually able to play with Dextin, I think they will be good friends.
