Welcome our little man!

It's been weird to be a mom, because while I know that he's my baby, I don't think the full reality of it has set in yet. I'm not sure when it will hit, haha. My mom loved taking pictures of him, and I'm glad she was there!

The next photos were taken over the next couple days while we were still in Boise.

Right after we got back to our apartment.

  His first "bath." I can't wait for his cord to come off so he can have a real bath!

She stayed with us until Wednesday, but it was crazy back at the house, so she needed to go back home. I wanted to have the extra help, so Tyler and I packed up and went to Firth after Kai's Dr. appointment that morning. He had gained almost all his weight back (6 pounds 9 ounces) and the nurse there measured him at 19 1/4". It was a long drive right after having a baby, and I about had a breakdown when I had to try and nurse him in public. It was too hot to stay in the car, and I knew I couldn't handle sitting in a bathroom stall, so we ended up finding a booth at Arby's, and it was really stressful. He was crying because he was hungry, but I couldn't hold him right without pillows and trying to navigate the nursing cover. Hopefully I'll have a better grasp on it next time I need to nurse in public. We stayed with my parents until Thursday the 22nd, then headed back to Boise. Kai had a second Dr.'s appointment (weight up to 7 pounds 5 ounces already!), and Tyler had a dentist appointment.

These next few photos my mom took while we were staying with my parents for a week.

 

Tyler starts school/work on the 26th, so then I'll really be on my own! It's tiring to get up every 3ish hours to feed him, but fortunately I have about 2 more months off of work, and maybe he'll be sleeping a little longer by then.

Anyway, it's amazing to see the miracles in our lives. I had a humbling moment when I realized that Kai isn't MY baby. Heavenly Father has allowed me to take care of this little spirit, and that's a pretty big responsibility. It's just one more way that I've seen the Plan of Salvation active in my life. Thank goodness for the atonement, because I know that I won't be even close to being a perfect parent, but Heavenly Father is a perfect parent, and through Him, I can raise a family that will be strong in the Gospel.

Happy anniversary to us, happy birthday to our little man!

Up to this point, night shifts at the hospital were doing well, Tyler moved up to Boise to be with me, and we were pretty much settled in to our apartment. Tyler's brother, Kendall, was coming home from his mission in Sapporo, Japan, on Friday August 9th, so Tyler went to southern Utah on Thursday to welcome him home. He took the car so that in case I went into labor he could leave immediately rather than having to wait for a flight out. That left me carless, but I know a few people who would be willing to give me a ride to the hospital if I needed it, and a girl I work with gave me a ride to work Thursday night.

Our 2-year anniversary was August 10th, but because we thought he might come early, we had already gone to dinner a week before. Worked out well since Tyler would be in Utah on our anniversary anyway!

Friday morning I had a Dr.'s appointment, so I just stayed for the appointment and planned to ride the bus home. The Dr. said I was about 70% effaced but "not really dilated," and he thought I would be fine until Monday night when Tyler would get home. I missed the bus, but I was able to call a wonderful girl, Abbie, from the ward who came and rescued me so I didn't have to either wait 3 hours or walk home. I got home and slept for a couple hours before getting back up to go (Abbie also drove me to this) to my "functional review", a test the hospital wanted me to do to make sure I could do my job ok with my shoulder, at 1:30. This consisted of me lifting a basket around (table to waist-height shelf, shelf to floor, and table to high shelf, plus some others), and each time I did it, the guy would add a weight. Anyway, it was a LOT of lifting, especially for someone as pregnant as I was! 

My water broke while I was there (around 2:30pm), but I wasn't totally sure if that's what it was or not, so I waited about an hour and a half before I called my cousin Stephanie to let her know. I had told mom and Tyler before that I thought it was broken, but I wanted to know for sure before I called Steph. I told her that I wanted to wait around at the apartment instead of going to the hospital, but she said I'd better call Labor and Delivery and make sure they didn't want me to come in right then. I called the hospital and they did want me to come, so I called Steph back and asked her for a ride. By the time she and Jason got there around 5, I was started to have some pretty good contractions. They did a test to make sure that my water really did break, then actually admitted me to the hospital. I called Tyler when they decided to admit me and told him he'd better get on the road, but I didn't know if he was going to make it or not. I intentionally waited to tell him to come because he had just driven the 9 hours down there the day before, and I really wanted him to see Kendall. The plane was scheduled to land at 5:52pm, and by the time he got off the plane, Tyler was able to spend about a half hour with Kendall before he hopped in the car. My mom also scrambled to gather last minute stuff and headed over.

My nurse, Missy, checked my cervix as soon as I was admitted (around 6pm), and I was dilated to 5cm. By about 7pm the contractions were coming fast and hard, and I was super exhausted because I had worked a night shift the two nights before, then stayed up all day because I had to go in for the functional review. The only way I could tolerate contractions was standing, and my legs were shaking! I knew there was no way I could have enough energy to go through the labor if I didn't get some sleep, so I got an epidural. It was a good thing I did because it slowed the contractions down a lot!  Steph and Jason stayed with me at the hospital, and Jason gave me a priesthood blessing. When my mom called to check on me at about 8:30pm, I they had just checked me and I was dilated to 7cm. Mom had got there about 10:30pm, and Steph and Jason went home. My nurse and the Dr. new I was progressing pretty quickly, but they agreed that as long as the baby seemed to be alright, they would try not to do anything to speed it up and I could try to wait for Tyler. 

 Me as I waited for Tyler to get there. I tried to sleep between the contractions.

At about 2am my nurse went to get some "lunch", and while she was out, another nurse came in and wanted to check my cervix because the doctor was getting worried I would have the baby without her there. She said I was fully dilated and that the baby was right there close (and who knows how long I had been that way), and that I could start pushing if I wanted ! Tyler was still a good 2.5 hours away by our calculations, but everything looked good by the monitors, so the doctor said I could try and wait until Tyler got there. I was feeling a LOT of pressure with each contraction, and a couple times I called the nurse in to make sure I wasn't having the baby even though I wasn't pushing. I think Heavenly Father wanted Tyler to be there because I was able to wait until he got there at about 4am. 

 Tyler as he walked in the door!

As soon as he got there, the nurse called the Dr. and started setting everything up and told me to start pushing. Partway through, the Dr. told me I could reach down and feel his head if I wanted to. It was surreal! After what seemed like forever, little Kai was born at 4:54am on August 10, 2013! It was pretty crazy, but I know that Heavenly Father was watching out for all of us because everyone was able to get there safely before he was born, and there weren't any complications. (Sidenote, because the Dr. knew I was an RN, she let me see my placenta, which was surprisingly small, even to her, haha.)

That little purple thing in the middle at the bottom is some part of the baby, not sure what though, haha.

Welcome Kai Noah Whiting! He weighed 6 pounds, 9.6 ounces, and measured 20" long. When we left the hospital, he was down to about 6 pounds 2 ounces, but eating alright and still just perfect. Happy anniversary to us :)

July: Temporarily husbandless and labor pending

We moved up to Boise on Monday, July 1st, got a lot of stuff settled in, I went to my appointment with HR to get my paperwork done on the 2nd, then we went back to Firth for the 4th of July. On the 4th, we watched Jace run the Firecracker 5K in Idaho Falls, ate at the community pancake breakfast, my dad and I went to a garage sale while Tyler took a nap, then we canoed/floated the Snake River before eating dutch oven dinner and watching the Idaho Falls Malaleuca fireworks show. We came back to Boise on Saturday, went to church Sunday morning, and I dropped Tyler off at the airport to fly back to Utah. We didn't really want to be apart until mid-August, which had been the original plan, especially it would be so close to my due-date. However, we didn't really know how to fix it at that point, so we decided to just play it by ear.

The next week is when it got interesting. I had just started general orientation at the hospital on July 8, which was conveniently one floor above my OB's office. I was having some funny cramping down low for a couple days, and I wasn't sure if that was normal or not, so I went down to the office on Wednesday July 10th to ask the nurse about it. She was unavailable, but they sent me across the hall to be monitored because they thought the cramping might be contractions. I didn't really feel like they were contractions. I just thought it was him pushing up towards my ribs, because he had been doing that for a while, with the addition of the low cramps. Anyway, they did a non-stress test (NST), and sure enough, I was having contractions! They were fairly consistent, but not too strong. They sent me back over to the Dr.'s office because he wanted to check me out. I wasn't dilating or anything, but because I was only 33.5 weeks along, he was worried that I might go into labor. 

Originally he suggested I be admitted to the hospital to be monitored, but I told him that we didn't have health insurance yet since I had just started working. He then suggested I just stay home and rest, but told him I had just started orientation and wanted to get through the general part because I didn't know when they could reschedule me. He reluctantly agreed to let me continue, as long as I exerted myself as little as possible, took some medication to stop the contractions, and got steroid shots to help the baby's lungs develop (which HURT by the way). For the rest of the week, I parked in the "patient parking" and did very little at home. My wonderful cousin Stephanie and her husband Jason came over that Friday, helped me do a little cleaning (since we still had a LOT of our stuff to unpack and put away), brought me dinner, then took me back to their house for the weekend. I wanted to go back to my apartment Sunday morning so I could go to church at my ward and try to make a few more connections, especially since at this point Tyler was still in southern Utah! I didn't even know when he would be coming up! I was having a lot of contractions that morning, about every 5 minutes, so Stephanie made me stay there. I was a little reluctant, but I'm glad I did. I don't like to ask for help, but it was really nice to have someone watching out for me so I didn't have to be alone. It was scary knowing that the baby might come so early without Tyler there with me.

I continued on through general orientation and started onto the floor for precepted orientation the next week, and things didn't seem to get any worse. I went back to my Dr., and he said I still wasn't dilating so I could keep doing what I was doing. I kept taking the medication, but let me tell you, it had some interesting side effects. Like clockwork, about a half hour after I took the pills, I would get lightheaded, dizzy, and feel like I was going to fall over. Not a good thing when I was trying to take care of patients! I had been doing fine with them before I was on my feet, but that first shift, I learned I needed a plan when I about fell over in front of the charge nurse. I worked it out with my preceptors to take the pills about 20 minutes before we went to lunch so that I was feeling fine by the time I had to go back out on the floor. I worked day shifts for a couple weeks, then switched to nights on the 30th. I was actually scheduled for the 29th, but I got confused with my sleep schedule and missed it! Oh my gosh, I thought the world was going to end. Luckily, as a new employee they were nice and rescheduled it. Note to self though, don't do that again!

Me after my first 12 hour shift as an RN, 34 weeks pregnant and exhausted!

Although I started to work on the floor at 34 weeks pregnant, for some reason Employee Health was having a cow about my shoulder, not my pregnancy. They wanted me to go into a Dr. to have it evaluated, which was impractical because it would take forever to get into a specialist, and I didn't want to pay the big bucks for it anyway! After talking to several people, Employee Health was able to schedule me a "functional review" at the rehab center (more on that next post). 

Night shifts went pretty well, and although the time is inconvenient, I'm actually glad I'll be on nights for a couple reasons: 1) Nights are a little bit slower paced, and I have a lot to learn! 2) If I work nights, there will only be the 3 hours in the evening where Tyler has class that someone will need to watch the baby, and that's if I work on the days he has class. Otherwise, one of us will always be home and the baby won't have to go to daycare!

Next post: Happy Anniversary to us, Happy Birthday to little man!