A Baby Birth story

This is the birth story of the arrival of our handsome little guy.

Nine months....it had finally come down to the day we were going to the hospital. We had decided to set an official date to be induced to welcome our son into the world due to him being a big baby and the fact I had kidney stones and was in discomfort due to those. So anyways.

We had just spent our last morning with it being us and Marley, it was a bittersweet time knowing our time of being just her was about to go out the window...I was a little emotional about it that morning and dropping her off wasn't any easier. We arranged for our good friend to watch Marley while we hung out at the hospital (she has a little girl the same age as Marz) so I knew she was being well taken care of, and probably not missing us too much. (Though it didn't help when we were leaving she stayed at door watching us with such a sad face)

We arrived and got checked in at 9 that morning, very quiet and peaceful. It didn't even seem real to me- that's how quiet the labor and delivery floor was! After getting settled in we met our delivery nurse and had the routine questions and paperwork to fill out. By 9:30 my doctor had stopped by -showing up in....get this....camo pants and crocs! No joke, and this is why my doctor is so awesome! Haha!- There was a little mix up and we had lost our nurse because she was being called to another doctor but really it was my doctor that was calling for her. When we finally got both the doctor and nurse in our room together they broke my water. I hadn't had my IV or anything put in yet but they checked my dialation to see if I was even able to have my water broken yet. I was at a 4 with already mild contractions (I didn't feel anything) so I got the okay to get things started. 

We had a little floozy with my IV and ended up having to switch hands, which made me pretty queasy and was put on some oxygen to keep me comfortable. By 11 my IV was in and my mom had arrived, I was starting to have regular contractions but still not really feeling anything. By 11:30 my nurse stopped in and said they were doing a low dose of pitocin since I was already progressing so fast and we talked about the epidural schedule. They had a c-section scheduled for 1, so my time frame to get the epidural was going to have to be now or after they got out (estimated at about 1:30) My contractions weren't bad and I decided to wait it out and see how I felt in an hour or so.

 We passed the time jamming to some Billy Joel and playing Phase Ten, and it was great! Super calming, though my mom would watch the monitor EVERY TIME I had a contraction and I could see her tensing up just waiting for me to react... but I really couldn't because I had learned from Marley's birth to breath through them and relax the body (Thanks to my awesome doula and midwife for coaching me on that!). But hey, I knew I was contracting because every time I would have a contraction my mom would rub my feet, so I consider that to be a win-win! ;)

Around 1:00 I could start feeling my contractions and had gotten up to pee (its really confusing when your water is leaking as well because I felt like I was peeing but it was really just water from my uterus-haha!) and that was when the contractions didn't really go down, but rather stay consistent and no breaking in between. I was still able to breath easy and still relaxed; plus I was up and around so I could sway my hips back and forth to relieve the discomfort. My mom had gone to get some lunch and by the time she came back I was thinking about calling my nurse to see what times they could do the epidural since they had c-section schedules to obtain. Just when I was about to call my nurse -and this is how awesome she was!- She walked through the door with the epidural cart and said she had been monitoring me from the station and figured I might be in some discomfort and snagged the epidural cart so they had to come into my room to get it! She was so amazing, and the anesthesiologist soon enough came by looking for his cart ;)

After that was all said and done, the epidural started kicking in at 2, and I pretty much made my nurse stay in the room to check because I kept feeling like pushing. So this is how it went; I had to check TJ's texts to time how fast I progressed and all.

2:19 - I got checked and I was at a 4-5

2:30ish - I call my nurse and tell her I keep feeling like I need to push, she checks and that 'maybe 5' was a 'definite 7'

2:47- she was still in our room and decided to check before she left and I was at a 'call the doctor and tell him to get on his way over to the hospital' (he lived like 5 minutes away)

-during this time, they got the room set up but my nurse didn't want me lifting up my legs because she didn't want to end up delivering my baby without my doctor-

2:55 my doctor rolls in still in his camo pants and crocs, scrubbed down and got everything ready, and the mirror set up so I could see

3:00- "Lets give a little push" One push later and his head was out. "alright lets give another push"

3:05-  "Look down" Corbett Rhyder entered the world! 

It was amazing! I could feel the pressure of him crowning but it was such an amazing feeling and it was really cool to see it as well, and no, it didn't hurt. All I got was a little skid mark but needed no stitching! Wahoo!!!!

TJ and I tried betting on his weight but I guess Corbett didn't want any unfairness; TJ said 9.6 and I said 9.2; he came out at 9.4 so we both considered it a win for us all! 

They took him to get cleaned up and I ordered lunch, which was nice but I really wanted to hold my son! But something wasn't right, they were examining him and had some concerns about his little manhood, so it seemed like forever before I got to hold him. They told us a pediatrician would be by later that evening to talk with us about what was going on, but nothing to worry about during the meantime.
The nurses just loved him and kept calling him the 'toddler' baby because how big he was ;)

Marley was still at our friends house during all the hype and it was starting to get late in the afternoon so my mom headed out to grab Marley so she could meet her new little brother! In the meantime I enjoyed some snuggles with my little guy and got cleaned up from delivery.

When Marley arrived at he hospital, TJ went out to get Marley and bring her into meet her little brother. She was not so thrilled to see me holding him and was not comfortable with TJ letting her go. This was all new to her and so I knew it was going to take some time, but she warmed up right away! She would want to hug him but was done with him two seconds later. :)

Corbett was even nice enough to get Marley a 'birth' gift (I did some reading and found that siblings adjusted better to a new arrival with a gift from them so they don't feel left out from the attention being shifted). It was a nice new baby (just like her brother) that she could help feed and care for. It cries like a baby and has a bottle to help feed and calm the baby. This was a great gift to also teach her that mommy was going to take care of the new baby and she had a new baby to take care of as well. 

We enjoyed the wonderful time we got to spend with Marley and it was hard to see her leave that night to go and sleepover at Granny's house. We knew we were going to have a rough couple of days so we tried to get some sleep.

It was a long night of nurses coming in to check on us, and for some reason our room was bipolar and was really cold- so TJ was up and the couch/bed wasn't the most comfortable place to be. Lucky for me though, his discomfort and lack of sleep allowed him to help take care of Corbett. But we still had nurses in every few hours to help us out as well. Normally after a baby is born they tend to get hungry, but our little Corbett was not wanting to eat at all. The nurses didn't seem too worried but we were up a lot trying to get him to want to nurse.

On Saturday we had a nice calm morning just Corbett and I (TJ left around 4am to go home so he could sleep) and by around noon we had a train full of visitors that we loved having come shower us with love! Marley was loads of fun and loved kissing on her new little brother. She also loved my cake from the cafeteria. I had figured out from that point it was going to be a little difficult watching two kids....during the time I was feeding Corbett, Marley had gotten into the cake from the cafeteria and torn into little pieces ALL over the room....it literally looked like the window was open and snow had fallen all over our suite! (The housecleaning ladies thought it was hysterical and didn't mind cleaning up that mess. Haha!)

Saturday night TJ decided to head home and get some rest so he could be well rested and help out with Marley for when we headed home. It seemed like the night was dragging on...I was just too anxious to get home I barley slept a wink! TJ said he would be there first thing in the morning to pick us up, so by the time 6 rolled around I was up getting everything gathered to leave.

I had everything ready to go, had my breakfast, my doctor had come by and gave me my discharge papers, my nurse had everything ready for me to leave and we were just waiting on the pediatrician to come by to release Corbett to come home. Oh and we were also waiting for TJ to come and pick us up. I called him and he was still asleep after 9, he picked up the phone and sounded awful! Turns out the minor cough he had on Friday had turned into something more....the flu.

This meant that A. TJ could not hold Corbett, and B. he could not be around me since I needed to well enough to take care of Corbett and keep him healthy.

So during this time of figuring out what we were going to do with TJ being sick and how we would take care of Marley (since I couldn't get up and take care of her and Corbett) the pediatrician finally came by to check on Corbett, and hopefully give us good news to go home.

What a regular check up to be released turned out to be a new twist to this birth story...

Okay, this is the part where I talk about what is happening with our little boy and his manhood...if it makes you uncomfortable, you are free to close this screen now.

When Corbett was born he had what is called a hydrocele (fluid surrounding the testicles) the doctor mentioned that it is common and nothing we did was wrong. Well we had noticed the swelling had been going down over the weekend. When the pediatrician looked he noticed the the color was getting darker and the swelling was coming back. He was concerned, trying to flash light through it to see if the fluid was coming back. Nothing came through, indicating it wasn't fluid. So he ordered an ultrasound to be done.  We waited and waited longer until the ultrasound tech could come by. (Since it was Sunday, the hospital seemed to be on a more chill schedule and everything was slower)

When the tech came to get Corbett, I had a hard time keeping my emotions in check and broke down in tears, the tech wouldn't be able to tell us anything until after discussing with the doctor and reading the results, so just the waiting alone was agonizing. Our amazing nurse let us know that the tech did mention that there was little to no blood flow in his testicle. Even though it was sad news it was news nonetheless. Now it was just time to wait for the pediatrician again.

Meanwhile, I was a mess. TJ was super sick (with the FLU) and could not comfort either Corbett, or I. So he called my mom and had her come and be with me, and TJ made arrangements for Marley to stay with our friends for awhile until we figured everything out. TJ headed home so he could get some rest and we were hopeful to be heading home soon as well.

The pediatrician finally came in to give us some less exciting news: He was in communication with the Primary Urologist along with Ogden's urologist, and the decision was made that Corbett needed to go to Primary Childrens Hospital to have surgery done. Saying there was little to no blood flow to his testicle and in fear it was dieing, and in order to save it he needed to have surgery done that day.

This is no news a mother wants to hear- that her newborn baby needed to have surgery and wasn't sure that he was going to be okay. So we hurried and got things put together to leave. Our discharge nurse was phenomenal and basically got everything packed and gave us additional things we might need. (Fun fact: The discharge nurse we had with Corbett, was the same discharge nurse we had with Marley!) She was even a shoulder to cry on before my mom arrived, so she really made this easiest as the situation could have been. We got loaded into the car and headed out...the opposite direction from home....

Bringing home a new baby makes you want to drive slow and easy- I mean you have some really special cargo with you!- but knowing Corbett needed to be at Primary's ASAP, I really wanted to put my lead foot on that gas pedal (good thing I was not driving). But we made it to Primary's and not knowing where to go we ended up in the Emergency room entrance. Being the dead of winter and cold and flu season, the ER was FULL of sick kids and having a two day old baby made this situation even more emotional and made for an even more paranoid mom!

We got sent into a room and the never ending questions began again (you would think the list wouldn't be that long for a two day old baby). I was tired to say the least and kept falling asleep sitting up. It had been a few hours since we left Ogden and my pain was coming back (postpartum pains) so we were getting things in order to get my medicine ordered at the hospital. My mom was awesome and took care of Corbett when they came in to give him his IV and get prepped for surgery. So she sent me out of the room to call TJ and give him an update.

I came back in and we met one of the surgeons who would be helping operate on Corbett; and it helped knowing he really was in the best capable hands. So we headed up to the surgery floor where we met with the pediatric urologist and the anaesthesiologist who were going to perform the surgery. We had a brief chat with the urologist who described what they were going to do (good thing my mom was with my because the lack of sleep plus over-emotional melt downs I was not paying the best of attention) and then the anaesthesiologist came to tell me what his role would be in as well and the best method of putting a two day old baby under. My mom had left to get my prescriptions taken care of and I sat and held my baby until they took him into surgery. A nurse came over with some tissues and ushered me off to the waiting area and told me the surgeon would be by after the surgery to come get me.

My mom had made her way to the waiting room with prescriptions in hand and we decided it had been a long day and we needed food to eat. So we headed to the cafeteria to grab some grub and keep my mind a little busy while my little baby 'bett was in surgery.

There are a lot of little moments and times that seem to pass on forever, this was another one of those times as we waited for the surgeon to come and get us. I had been crying -like usual that day- (and it didn't help that our entire family was split up...we were all in different places and not together. And that was very hard on me) and the surgeon came to tell us how the surgery went. He told us when we went in to check the testicle it was completely dark and dead so it meant he was born with it already dead (which was good-that meant he wasn't in any pain when it did happen) so they had to remove it and sutured the other testicle down to prevent any future twisting to happen. He was also kind enough to check on his shaft as well. He told us what he noticed and made future notes that we would be needing to see him in 6 months so he could get that issue taken care of.

The surgeon took me back to see our little boy who was groggy from the anesthetic but was hungry so that was a very good sign! I got to sit and nurse him before we got moved around again onto another floor, and we even googled TJ to update him from the surgery and let him know everything went well.

Then came the more moving around (I swear we ended up walking a 5k maze in that hospital) and we got settled in our new room for that night. They wanted to  keep him overnight to monitor him and how he was coming out of the anesthetic haze.

It was a long night on a very uncomfortable chair/bed so my mom and I switched every few hours so we could kind of get some rest. It was a long night and I could not wait for the doctor to come check on Corbett and  tell us it was finally time to go home.

You would think I would be used to this answer by now....no we couldn't go home yet, they still needed to monitor him and make sure he was eating and having enough wet diapers to be able to come home. But since he was still groggy he wasn't really into eating too much....so that put us in a tough spot. So onto more waiting.

My mom had called into work and had someone cover her day so she could stay with us and my brother even offered to come and be with us as we waited, but I just so badly wanted to leave and go home. And even more, I wanted my Marley.

After a looooooong day, they came to check on him and noticed his umbilical cord was having some puss come out and causing redness around his belly. My goodness, could my baby just be okay for five seconds!?! So we had to wait even longer for the doctors to find out what was going on with that and if we needed to stay yet another night. When they came back a few hours later they told us it was not something they wanted us to have to stay overnight for (yay!) but to keep an eye on it and let our pediatrician know what was going on. And then they said the sweetest words I had ever heard....we could go home!

So the nurses rounded up the discharge papers, we gathered our bags and were headed out to go home!

And this was our crazy birth story. I now have to say my wonderful speeches about the people that really were so wonderful to me/us during this time. First is the wonderful nurses in Ogden regional who really made my stay amazing and were so awesome in taking care of us. They really do do a wonderful job and I will always recommend them to anybody who is having a baby to go to Ogden Regional. My doctor was phenomenal and allowed my body to do its thing and not rush anything...just allowed my body to take its time in bringing our sweet Corbett here.

TJ had it pretty rough being sick and not being able to be with us but he really held it together for us and I could never have done it without him (literally, haha!) From our friends who watched Marley on Friday to the ones who took care of Marley over the weekend so my mom could be with me and TJ could rest.

I really cannot give enough gratitude to my mom, she really was amazing. She was my proxy husband at Primary's and took over for me when I just couldn't and made sure I was taken care of as well. She missed work to be with us and make sure we were okay. She was there playing games before Corbett was born to after when we finally brought Corbett home. She even came in on Monday night (after the exhausting sleepless night on Sunday) and cleaned my apartment a bit so I would rest...she is truly an amazing woman, and I am SO glad I get to call her mom and learn so much from this incredible woman.

This was really a long birth story! (sorry!) Now I have lots of pictures so, enjoy!

Last moments of being pregnant!!!!!!

 Me and my amazing mom!

My handsome husband :)

 So this was the only decent picture I found of when he came out that didn't make me feel completely violated if I put it on the Internet. The first time I held my son!

 Getting all cleaned up!

 Marley meeting Corbett for the very first time. She was so cute and kept playing with her hair. Its a habit she picked up when she is nervous and doesn't know what to do. :) Oh goodness, she just melts me

 Opening her gift from her brother

 She became the pro of un-wrapping over the past few days

 She needed to get ALL the paper off before she would even see what she got!

 Some of our wonderful visitors! (My aunt and cousin-who also just had a baby)

 Her new baby that she can feed (and cries, when you put the bottle in the mouth the baby stops)

 Waiting for me to take the bottle off the babies wrist (she did NOT like the bottle being attached to the baby...that is my little OCD girl :) )

 "Okay, I am all done holding brother, let me down to play!"

                                           Sunday morning after we were all ready to leave.

 This was Friday morning before we left for the hospital. Our last few moments with our little girl as an only child.

                                       And she likes to spend them being silly ;) Love her!

                                                          Saturday afternoon snuggles

 She wanted her own picture taken as well :)

                                                          Our precious little boy :)

 Dad and son :)

 This little sweetheart just kills me! I love her cheesy smiles!

 Poor sleepy little guy. We monitored his pain level and only needed one dose of Tylenol on Monday morning and half a dose on Tuesday morning. 

Getting dressed to finally head home! Still looks groggy from pain medicine, but at least we were heading home :)

Christmas: Its the most wonderful time of the year!

So I am FINALLY getting around to even thinking about blogging and it's while I have two seconds to even think. So lets start off with our wonderful holiday. Christmas was so much fun and we really enjoyed our time as our small family before we added on with our son. It was a great time to do special Marley and us things. Anyways, we had our small family Christmas on Christmas Eve, for a couple reasons and we are glad we did...since we went to my moms for Christmas it made it feel really special having our own little day to celebrate fully with Marley and soak up that last time with it being just her.

TJ went into work on Christmas Eve so it was just Marley and I during the day. (He had a 'party' and was getting paid so I couldn't really complain) so I decided Marley and I would make Christmas cookies to hand out to our neighbors and friends. I got a cool cookie press that had a few seasonal cutouts I wanted to try with a sugar cookie recipe. And then of course decorating is always fun! Marley really enjoys sitting on the counter while I cook/bake anything so she was game....plus the cookies were really good and she couldn't get enough! Well I tried a Christmas tree cutout along with a snowflake....least to say they turned out really...not looking like trees and snowflakes. BUT they were delicious! And I have learned that decorating cookies with a toddler results in no cookies getting frosted...so we ended up loosing cookies and icing into Marley's mouth, haha.

I originally had planned on handing out cookies to our neighbors and giving them to TJ's coworkers...well, we gave them out to our friends who just had a baby....and that was basically it. 2 batches of cookies. And we gave out one plate of cookies. The rest? Well they sat on our table for a few days and got eaten slowly over the next week...I know, gross. Haha.

So anyways, Christmas Eve, making cookies. After ALL the cookies were baked I realized it was getting late and I hadn't started on dinner or anything! We couldn't have leftovers or the grab-what-you-can-find night....it was a special night so I thought I might as well try and make a tradition meal out of it. What better meal to make than breakfast for dinner! TJ doesn't like breakfast for dinner and I try to get it any chance I can...so I said lets make it a tradition we make cookies and deliver them and also have breakfast for dinner. He was game for it so I get to have breakfast for dinner at least once a year now and it be okay. SCORE! ;)

Well, then we opened presents. This was.....an interesting experience with Marley, she would start to unwrap gifts and start sobbing while continuing opening gifts....it was comical to say the least and it was all fun in games until she opened her Mr. Potato head.....she saw the face and RAN to her room crying. Well, we got him along with Mrs. Potato head....and we only got her one or two more things and two of those gifts made her cry. Crap. So now we have a potato head set in our closet until we can try for her birthday or something. I thought it would be great since she is learning body parts....well, apparently not. But she loved her stuffed puppy we got her and a little kid tablet v-tech thingy her great grandma got her.

All month long I had TJ convinced he didn't get anything for Christmas. That I didn't want anything and I couldn't find anything he liked. I had him so convinced that all the presents were for Marley. After we opened what were the last of Marley's gifts I surprised him with a few and he was very surprised! He wanted a watch for sometime and kept mentioning how nice it would be to have a watch again. He was pretty happy with it and wears it all the time. The second gift was more of a family gift but it really was mainly for him since he complained about it the most (haha). Best Buy had a sale going on and I ended up caving in and getting him a sound bar for the living room TV. We enjoyed setting it up and listening to some Christmas tunes the rest of the evening.

Oh, and TJ was a sweetheart and got me a year membership to the gym and new work out clothes, I am excited to hit the gym again when I am cleared!

The main point of being so busy that day was to keep myself preoccupied with only days left until we ventured off into bringing our son into the world, so that evening we went and visited our friends in the hospital who just had their baby the day prior. This was so exciting for us because we were about to be in that same position and it made it seem more real! It was a joyous visit and while one of us went in the other chased Marley around. TJ got the short visit because chasing Marley around the hospital was fun but very tiring for me. But Marley LOVED running around and seeing the baby pictures they have on the walls saying baby every time she saw one. It was pretty cute :)

We went home and just enjoyed the rest of the evening together.

The next day was of course fun and relaxing.....growing up I was always the early bird and maybe it was the uncomfort of having a baby in me but I didn't really sleep...so I was up at the crack of 2 am, ha! We had a slow morning just slowly getting ready and taking a nap before we went out to my moms. When we arrived we spent time opening presents for Marley. She is such a little girl and has a thing for shoes...she ended up getting a couple pairs and wouldn't let them go after opening them, so her lap got pretty full! She also received Frozen things, such as an Elsa dress, an Olaf snowman, a lunch box and hat and gloves. My mom loves it because anytime Marley sees something with Anna, Elsa, Olaf...she starts singing Let it Go. So she of course sang "Let it Go" when a gift Frozen related was open. Its pretty cute, she carries her Elsa dress around with her (its a little too big and she cant walk with it on without stepping on it) and her favorite hat is her Anna hat. Though, Olaf kind of freaks her out right now.

She also got a few books with animals in them (touch and feel) since we are working on her animals right now. She knows: a bee, dog, sheep, and a cow...well kind of on the cow. Apparently a cow says 'cow, cow, cow' and an egg says 'crack, crack, crack' haha...we always getting a good laugh out of it :)

We spent the rest of the day playing our favorite game Dominion and I feasted on egg nog and lots of shrimp! (It was my last day being pregnant and I wanted to enjoy some yummy foods) It was a very enjoyable Christmas and we ended up going home super late to try and keep our minds busy so we could sleep as much as possible for our special next day :)

Well, that was our wonderful Christmas. Marley enjoyed it. We enjoyed it. And we hope you enjoyed yours as well.  Happy Holidays!

A new dress for this growing girl!

This was the 'scary' toy....so we didn't get any pictures with her near it...maybe for her birthday

Her dog we got her for Christmas. She loves combing her dog and only lets certain people touch her dog

A V-tech tablet from Great grandma Miller

A CD from Grandma and Grandpa T

She loved unwrapping gifts once she knew toys came with it

Mega blocks from Sam and Rachel

"This is for me?"

Yes, I am one of those gift wrappers using box inside box method

He loved the watch!

Another surprise for the dad!

(Sorry the picture is sideways) TJ LOVED the sound bar!

All in all, it was a GREAT Christmas!

P.S. Sorry for Marley looking uninterested in all the pictures, she was chewing on bacon the entire time, holding it in her cheeks. Haha!