He's Here!!

Well he is here. Before I go over the whole delivery let's go back to my last post. I'm not really sure what all we did for the past few weeks but I have a few pictures to tell me we were still out and about some.

I made it to my 37 and 38 week appointments. At 37 weeks he didn't even check me because I wasn't really contracting, etc. He said we'd check at 38 weeks. I wanted to kill the doctor. I was so ready to be done. Besides being really uncomfortable I developed insomnia and really bad heartburn. So I was spending a lot of nights on the couch trying to sleep. That makes for a miserable Alissa at work; having a hard time being nice to people.

That weekend after the 36 week appointment we went to a comedy show. We saw Mary Lynn Rajskub; AKA Chloe on the TV show 24. We went with Stephanie and Bart, Teri, Trudi, Scott, Dave and Jane, Jimmy and Lori, and another couple I can't remember their names. It was a lot of fun and something we don't do very often.

We didn't do much more the holiday weekend. John's parents got here from Idaho and I know we probably spent some time either going to see them or them coming to the house, etc.

The following weekend I had a prenatal massage. I splurged and got the 90 minute massage. It was so worth it. I think it was this weekend that we went and watched Guardians of the Galaxy. That was pretty good but not at all what I expected. We also went to dinner (still not sure on my dates) and as we were driving to Cheddars we were driving into this Haboob. 

I know it was Monday the 8th that we had our crazy rain storm down here. This happened

It was a crazy day at work because we had about 16 of 23 people call out. I almost called out but not because of the rain because I had been up all night with heartburn and was exhausted. I was even woken up at about 4 am to the frogs in the neighbors backyard.

Friday was my 38 week appointment. Dr. Alperin checked and said I was dilated to 4 cm and he stripped my membranes. He was hoping I'd go into labor that night because he was on call. He then sent me on my way. Let me tell you, having a 20-30 minute commute after having that done wasn't fun. I was cramping/contracting and very uncomfortable trying to get home in afternoon traffic. This was my proof that I was driving home (apparently with my giant swollen hands)

I've been meaning to put a picture of Dr. Alperin on here for a while. I was referred to him by a friend when I found out I was pregnant and I've really loved having him as my doctor. John and I both felt really comfortable the first time we met with him and I did throughout my pregnancy. As with any service provider I read some great and some not so great reviews but personally he was a great fit for me. He wasn't pushy about things and let me pretty much set the pace for how things were going to go. As I think is normal about 34 or 35 weeks I started to stress about having him be the one to deliver me. I'd really started to like my appointments and used them as milestones of time progressing and I'm sort of going to miss going to those appointments.

Back to Friday and after my doctor's appointment. The doctor said he wanted me to go for a walk and particularly I should try and find stairs. So we went and had some dinner and headed to the mall since it's air conditioned and we thought had stairs (note to self, there are NO stairs in the Chandler mall). So I found my own stairs in Sears. As you can tell by this point I didn't give a crap about my appearance. And now onto my long winded version of the delivery. Stop now if you don't want to read a novel......

I was contracting but not consistently or anything and after about 2 hours I was tired and wanted to go home. By about 10 pm my contractions were about 15 minutes apart consistently. I was up most of the night because it's sort of hard to sleep when you're having contractions like that and I was timing them. By 2 am they were about 5-7 minutes apart. I text Stephanie and my mom and told them I was getting John up to head to the hospital. We got to the hospital about 4 am would be my guess. I went into the triage area where they got me all set up and checked......and I was still at only 4 cm. So they sent us walking for an hour to see if we could progress at all. After an hour still nothing so.....they sent us home. It was a little depressing to have to go home and I was sure it was going to be another 2 weeks before I'd deliver. Now what confused me is they said, if your contractions are 5 min apart come in; so we did. They'd been 5 minutes apart for about an hour when we left the house. Well when they discharged us they said, come in when they are 2 minutes apart for 1-2 hours. Are you kidding me?!

Well so began my day of hell. My contractions never stopped. They slowed down to about 10-13 minutes and kept going ALL DAY LONG. I tried to sleep, tried to shower, tried anything to get them going or stopping because just having contractions every 10 minutes is not fun.

At around 3 pm John packed my stuff and took me to the pool. Hoping this would again make it stop or progress. We swam for about an hour and we were down to about 7 minutes between contractions. We went and had dinner at John's parents house and then headed home. I guess the good in all this is that my parents had headed down here that morning and they were able to make it about 6 pm Saturday night. So we came home, contractions about 7 minutes apart, going on almost 24 hours of consistent contractions. By 9 pm I was even more miserable than I knew I could be. I just wanted it to start or stop. I couldn't imagine trying to get through another full night of what the day had been. We called the triage line and their only suggestion was nipple stimulation. Seriously. Well, that wasn't happening. Even though it was hot outside we went for a walk about 9pm. I actually felt like the contractions were subsiding at that time so we headed to bed.

I never made it to sleep; the contractions started picking up and by about 11 pm they were averaging 2 minutes apart for about 45 minutes. I had one contraction so painful I jumped out of bed faster than I've moved this past 9 months. I am surprised I didn't scream bloody murder with that one. By this time John decided we were headed back to the hospital. So we got all into triage and they checked and I was dilated to 6 cm! So at 1 am Sunday morning they said they were keeping me and we were having this baby. They were really quick in getting me into labor and delivery from there so that they could give me the epidural; I don't know why the rush at this time but it seemed like they were hurrying for one reason or another.

As I'm sure most people are; I was really nervous about the epidural. However, the doctor came into to give it to me and he was very good about telling me exactly what to expect and how long it would last. Like, the lidocaine shot...burns for 5 seconds and it went exactly as he said it would. John said that you could tell almost immediately when that epidural was in and the instant relief it gave me because I started joking again. About this time all the parents showed up at the hospital. I'm not sure how long they hung out but around 3 am they checked me again and I was at a 7 I think and they kicked everyone out for 2 hours so I could try and sleep.

I might have slept a little but thanks to the amazing epidural I wasn't feeling the contractions anymore so I didn't care. The epidural is a funny thing because I felt like my feet were cold but really they were burning hot. My right leg was 100% dead but my left wasn't. Every 2 hours they would come in and roll me (which helps keep the epidural numbness even...we found this out when I started to feel labor pains on my left side) and do a catheter, etc. It seemed that I was going about 1 cm every 2 hours. They said the epidural didn't slow the labor down because I continued to progress but it sure seemed that it slowed it down some. They also kept telling me Dr. Alperin was coming in to deliver me and then he wasn't and then he was and then he wasn't. I didn't really care anymore because I had an epidural that took all the pain away. My honest thought is if I'd been ready to push around 8-10am he would have come in because it seems he is there about that time everyday anyways, but we weren't ready at that time so it was Dr. Damore who eventually delivered the baby.

The labor and delivery room. Notice the clock on the wall... more to come on that.

Every 2 hours when they would check me everyone would take a walk and apparently get themselves locked out of the hospital.

So at about 11:30 my delivery nurse, Tammy said that we were going to start pushing. At this point, they'd told me only 2-3 people in the room because there would be those people, plus Tammy, plus the doctor, plus the doctor's nurse and it just gets too crazy with all those people. So my plan had always been to have John and Stephanie in there thinking that my mom would never make it in time for the actual delivery, but since we were going on 36 hours at this point she was there so that made up my 3 people.

The actual delivery was very surreal to me. Remember in the picture above of the delivery room... well that clock was on the wall that I stared at through the whole delivery. Everyone else was facing the OTHER wall. So they had no idea of what time or how long things were taking while I had a front row seat to every stinking minute of the 2 1/2 hours of pushing. I don't know what constitutes 'the time of a person's labor' but from when my contractions started consistently to when JJ was born was 40 hours. It was a long damn time.

But back to the pushing. I don't know that I agree with them when they say that it gets too crazy with more than 2-3 people in the room because it never 'got crazy'. It was exactly perfect though I think because everyone served a purpose. It was very unlike the movies. I would stare at the clock (Tammy had said she figured the pushing would be 2 hours so I was using that as a measure of time a lot) and everyone else would stare at the monitor waiting for the next contraction so I could push. In between we would sometimes talk and sometimes not. Sometimes it was only 1-2 minutes in between and sometimes it was a little longer. For some reason I spiked a fever during all this. So I was laying there shaking so bad Stephanie was holding me down to make sure I wasn't bouncing off the bed. It's those little things that have stuck with me on the delivery. It was her holding me down and telling me to breath that helped me calm my breathing. It was Tammy's counting during the pushing that kept me focused. It was John ripping the blood pressure cuff off my arm when it was turning purple, and my mom's encouraging words that I was doing a good job that kept me grounded. I'll spare any gory details but eventually the doctor showed up and shortly after John James Risch was born; at 1:58 pm on September 14, 2014.

The hospital does an hour of bonding time after the birth for skin to skin with mom and baby. Well... I feel a little gypped on that. I barely held him and they took him away. He wasn't pinking up the way they wanted. I will give credit that apparently the cord was partially around his neck and I never knew it because they never let it show if there was any concern, etc. on the part of the staff. They took him over and did what they needed to do and I was pretty oblivious to the whole thing. Although, if I'd been thinking I would have remembered in the hospital tour that they said they call the 'nursery' if it's something that needs to be looked at and requires more than they have in the room and I knew they had called the nursery. When they finally gave him back to me, we'd kicked my mom and Stephanie out so we could have our quiet time; just John and I. Honestly I wanted that skin to skin time but I had been sitting there watching it all and John hadn't even had a chance to hold the baby and I really wanted him to make that connection as well. So by the time it was said and done John and I probably got only 20 minutes of alone time.

John James Risch 5 lbs 11 oz.

Then we just had to be moved to recovery. We actually ran into Dr. Alperin on our way up to recovery and he stopped to talk to us and see how things were going. From Sunday evening to Wednesday is really a blur. There is so much going on all the time from people checking you to checking the baby. They're taking him for a bath, they're checking his hearing, they're checking vitals, they're cleaning the room, they're restocking all my supplies, they're having me fill out paperwork, they're doing circumcision, they're lactation specialists to see how feeding is going, etc. Sometimes it was like an endless parade of people which got a little annoying when you're trying to rest.

Dr. Alperin would have let us go Monday but he highly recommended staying another day to get the benefit of the lactation specialists, etc. So we did and it was probably a good thing because they had so many of those people mentioned above constantly coming and going I don't know how they would have gotten them all in and still discharged us.

Then came the bad news. The last test they had to complete the pediatrician didn't like the results and they were going to keep him and discharge me. The hospital was very nice about moving us to a 'nesting' room. Basically we got to stay there and they would bring him to us every 3 hours but otherwise he was in the nursery under the UV lights. I knew he was going to be okay and everything but the last thing a mom wants to hear after having gone through all of that is that you can't take your baby home. So John and I prepared to spend another night at the hospital.

The next morning we went up to the nursery and the nurse said the new test results had come back a lot better and she thought the doctor would let us take him. So we were very happy when the doctor called us shortly after that and said exactly that; we were going home. We did have to follow up with the pediatrician the next day on the jaundice and there was concern on his weight. When we left the hospital he'd dropped to 5 lbs 4 oz.

So there we are. We're now trying to settle into our new normal. It's been really nice having my mom here to help and I'm not sure what I'm going to do when she leaves; both because she helps with the night feedings and also to keep me sane being home 'alone'. There's also been a lot of help from John's mom with dinners, and Shar, and some people from the ward which is much appreciated. We'll see how I'm faring in 4-6 weeks.

Almost time?

Here are a few of the pictures from last weekend. Honestly, most of these are the rejects. I have plans for the others. I'm not going to lie I think this pictures turned out great, but I don't really like the way I look. I should have probably done these about a month ago or maybe more then maybe I would like them better. I look bigger than I'd like. I may have also chosen the wrong clothes because as a coworker said it looked like the baby had dropped in the pictures; more so than it looks normally. But still a huge thank you to Nick for taking them (http://nickcardonaphotography.com/) and I love my hair that Casi did, etc.

With that being said, I had my 36 week appointment yesterday. The doctor said at this point I can deliver whenever as they consider the baby full term. I think he was a little surprised when he checked and I am dilated to 3 cm already. I don't think he expected that since it's my first. He kept telling me before he checked that I may not be dilated and that's ok and most first time moms go anywhere from the week before to a week after their due date, etc. and who knows I still might! But I'm also taking into consideration I had some pretty intense contractions at work for a few hours the other day and the way I am feeling and I don't think I will make my due date. So I guess that means it's almost time or he could come at any time. So I spent yesterday afternoon picking up a last few items and getting that hospital bag packed. It's really hard to pack for something you don't know when it will happen or really what you'll need. Oh well, John will get really good at driving from the house to the hospital I'm sure.

With good authority

Alright, so I have to eat my words ....a little. I said I would not do pregnancy pictures. And I almost stuck to it. After several different people told me I just needed to do it so I don't regret it later I decided to ask Nick to take a few pictures. I seriously was thinking like 3 pictures and done. It managed to work out where I got my hair done right before we decided to do the pictures so that was nice because then I had someone else to do my  hair! That's a step up right there. Let's face it the whole photo situation was a recipe for disaster. I didn't really want to do it, I don't like pictures of myself anyways, I'm 36 weeks pregnant, and so on.

I got home from the salon and literally had 20 minutes to get dressed and do my makeup which probably only lasted 3 minutes because it was so hot outside!! I'm sure I sweat it all off in no time. But I should have known better once Stephanie said she and Bart would come for support. It helps to have extra sets of eyes and extra conversation to keep it fun.

Originally I wasn't going to tell anyone I was doing this or had done this. That way if the pictures didn't turn out or something no one would ever know.... but Nick and I were flipping through the pictures really quick last night and I think there are some good ones; so I'm pretty excited about that. I have no idea what I'll do with these pictures except probably make a picture book for the baby at some point, but at least I will have them since I was told on good authority I will regret it if I don't.

Photo credit to Bart - good job!!

Since my last post I guess there have been  just one or two items of note. Last weekend was John's work staycation. We stayed at the Arizona Grand Friday and Saturday night. We went to Aunt Chilada's Friday night for the manager dinner and then Rustler's Roost Saturday for the employee dinner. We spent all day Saturday at the water park and they'd gotten us a cabana with a prepaid tab which was nice. It was hot, but I liked hanging out in the lazy river and being poolside with the cabana that had shade and a fan, etc. It was a nice diversion and good to get some sun.

Monday night after that John decided to get sick; really sick. He was up throwing up every hour all night long. I kept waiting for his stomach to be empty and to dry heave but crap just kept coming. I was afraid it was something viral and I was going to get it, but so far nothing. Not sure if it was food related or sun or what. I made him stay home from work Tuesday and it probably wasn't until Friday that he started to feel normal again.

I think it was Tuesday night Shar came over. She brought me a 'last month survival basket'. It has a movie in it, some candy, bubble bath, gift cards for Frost, Kneaders, my pedicure place, and probably some other stuff I can't remember. I was surprised and thought it was really nice. Not that I need the candy but I've been eating it... happily..... every day.

We had our hospital tour yesterday morning. It was good, but not quite what I expected. It was really more of go here then here then here. Very logistical versus anything about what to expect. Oh well. I guess I know what door to go in now and they said to just scream from there and they will help the rest of the way. Really it will be up to John to remember how to get from triage to labor and delivery to recovery and how to get everyone else there too. So good luck with that! 

After the pictures last night we went to dinner with Stephanie and Bart because we were all on the verge of hangry. Since Steph and Bart just got back from California and they were getting the Halloween stuff out I'd given her the job of finding my Nightmare Before Christmas onesies in a 3 mos. but she couldn't find it. I think maybe it was last years style or something. She did find this super cute one though! And luckily I had tried to buy it online and gave up because I couldn't remember my username and password! I love it.

Then we finished off the night over at Frost. On our way over there I was on my phone and John yells out did you see those owls? I was like...no.... owls? Why are there owls at the mall? So he had to turn around and show me and sure enough two little owls were hanging out by the Dick's sporting goods. We pulled up and I told him to stop so I could take a picture. I couldn't get my phone to focus very well, but you can definitely tell they are owls. One of them was still there when we left.

That's about it for the past two weeks. We're down to just over 4 weeks till my due date. So maybe longer maybe shorter than that. No, I haven't packed a bag yet....makes it too real? I am ready to be done but not ready at the same time. Sleeping is what I most want to do and most hate doing. I can't sleep and pretty much everything hurts when I try. I'm losing my patience with work so hopefully I can survive that for the 4 weeks or so. Otherwise, I think I'm ready. In my mind the 36 week doctor appointment is sort of a milestone and that is this coming Friday so we'll see what they say then. Stephanie really wants them to tell me what size they think he is, but they haven't yet. I saw a coworkers picture of her 8 lb 15 oz baby and I don't want a baby that big. Nope, too big. No way. It was giant. Nothing that big coming out of you know what. So I'm still hoping for a baby in the 6 lb range. That's my deal with the baby. I also let my doctor know this is not an October baby to which he laughed. So we can't go a week over and then schedule an induction because that puts us into October. He's meant to be a September baby. The fact that my wedding ring has sapphires and that is September's birthstone is proof. He's a September baby.

Here's just a random picture of the cutest baby dog ever!!!

FOREVER

I had a bunch of ideas of things to say but of course I didn't write any of them down and I can't really remember any of them now. I really thought I'd skipped the pregnancy brain and the clumsiness but nope! The last week or so you may as well plan on telling me everything twice. I was packing my desk to move at work and just tried to move something 6 inches over and dumped the whole thing. So I guess I didn't escape either of those things.

I'm trying to enjoy the last part of pregnancy and tell myself not to rush it, and so on and so on, but ... in reality..... I'm ready to be done. I'm tired, uncomfortable, can't sleep, can't breathe. I want to have more than 2 pairs of pants to wear and I want to lay on my back and stomach to sleep. I want to sit on the couch and not have a stomach in my bladder and ribs. I want to not be burning up 24/7 and not have giant swollen feet. I want this pregnancy carpal tunnel to go away. I want my back to not hurt....or my hips and I want everything to stop going numb. Ok, I think that is all my complaints.

I am surprised we're almost 1/2 through August already. We haven't done a whole lot since the reunion. We did a very small friends lunch so some old coworkers/friends could give me presents, I guess. It's always fun to get together with them so I was fine with it. John, Stephanie, Bart, and I went to Jersey Boys. We'd splurged on lower level seats and I liked it except that all the seats in Gammage are so squished together.

We have some fun stuff coming up in the weekends before my due date so hopefully I'll feel ok for all of them. That is something new.... I've been coming home several days nauseous and not feeling well. I think some of it is just exhaustion and some must be something else. I can tell that I've been a little moody/grouchy too which I think I've done okay avoiding for the most part, but again I'm going to blame not sleeping at nights and being hot.

I got these photos from Jena from the shower. Thanks Jena!!

Just a few of the other items that have shown up in the mail or from other people. It's a little like Christmas sometimes coming home to unexpected presents.

Coming out of the movie the other night into a haboob

John trying to put together one of the presents

Jersey Boys

I got the book of these from the shower. It was fun to read them all.

50 days left

I'm sure it will go by faster than I can imagine but right now it seems like I've been pregnant forever! But I'll just take it one day at a time.