In case you haven't heard.........Nyles William McGrath has made his arrival! He is actually 2 weeks old today. He was born on Sunday, August 12, 2012 at 6:12 am. He weighed 6 lbs 9 oz and was 20.5 inches long and was 3 weeks early. We were so HAPPY to welcome him into the world!
Cute little Nyles, so happy to be here!
I want to give all the details of his birth, so this may be a little long and detailed (sorry, I want to remember everything later). Let me start where I last left off. So the week before Nyles was born I had been rather uncomfortable, imagine that. My feet had been swelling up every day and it was really hard to sit or stand for long periods of time, so work was getting pretty hard to carry on. I always take the stairs at work, being on the 3rd floor it's not that far and it's good exercise, but that week I had decided I was going to take the elevator because it was so uncomfortable.
Besides being really uncomfortable I had several instances about "water breaking." First the guy who sit in front of me at work, his wife who was a month a head of me, her water broke the week before her due date. He was gone the week before to help take care of her and their baby, so this past week I got to talk to him about their experience. It's been fun because it's both our first babies and we were both expecting boys. Then on Tuesday the 7th we went and visited a sister who moved into the branch and she told me that her first baby came after her water broke when she was only 36 1/2 weeks, which is exactly how far along I was the day we were visiting her. That night I had a dream about my water breaking. The next morning we went for my weekly Dr appointment and asked my Dr how how likely it was for the water to break and he said it was pretty rare and not to worry about it. So.....after hearing that from my Dr and after he checked me and I hadn't changed from the week before, I had decided I had better get used to this REALLY "uncomfortable" state for the next 3 weeks and just deal with it. I figured he was just going to wait until his due date or later.
So that day Ryan, Carrie's husband was going through the temple so we wanted to be there for him. We had it all planned out. Steve would pick me up at work in order to save some time not having to take the train, he'd bring our temple bags, my skirt, and a quick bite to eat. Well when he came to pick me up he had forgotten our temple bags and there was an accident on I-15 blocking the south bound lanes all the way until our exit. So we decided to go down 7th east instead, which was a little quicker, but still we didn't move too quickly. By the time we got home and grabbed our bags, it was getting late. We got to the temple just before the session was to start, and considering how quickly I was able to move at this point we figured we would just do initiatories instead. There was not many people doing initiatories so we were able to go through pretty quickly. We finished well before the session was done, so we went to Maverick to get a frozen yogurt (mainly because I was uncomfortable and didn't want to sit much longer). We then came back and went back to the waiting area in the temple and waiting for a little while for them to come out. Though we didn't make it to the temple session, we were still glad to make it to the temple regardless. It's always nice to feel the Spirit at the temple.
At the Jordan River Temple
Friday after work Steve decided to go up to the cabin with his dad in order to be there early the next morning to help w/ Cast for Kids. Steve has helped his dad do this for three years now and we figured since I hadn't moved along much (dilated/effaced) this past week, they my as well get a good night's sleep up there so they don't have to get up as early if they left from here. While he was gone I felt I needed to get some Relief Society things done, so I worked on getting things organized and assignments made, especially for visiting teaching. I was able to take it easy and got a lot of things done and ready "just in case" Nyles decided to come early.
Saturday I slept in a good while then got up and did some more things around the house. I cleaned our place, did dishes and washed and folded laundry. I even got more things put away in Nyles' room. Steve got home by the afternoon. On his way home Steve stopped at his parent's house, so I asked him to grab the bassinet my sister Rose gave us, just so we'd have it here and be more "ready." Carrie also showed up about the same time. She had a little while until Ryan would get off work and wanted to make a photobook, so I showed her a few things that I know about them. Steve was tired, so he took a little nap while we did this. After he got up Carrie headed out to go meet Ryan, and we headed out to go to a few stores. I wanted to see if we could find a few more things to decorate Nyles' nursery.
We didn't find anything at the first store for his nursery so we went to the 2nd store, Burlington Coat Factory/Baby Depot. We found some valences that would work perfect then had just found some cute wall decals when all of a sudden I felt this warm "gush" go down my leg. I looked at Steve and said, "Ought oh." Steve then said, "What?" I said, "I think my water just broke." Steve looked at me liked no way, then asked if I was sure. I said, "Oh yes." He then said we should find a restroom but I told him that I couldn't move because it was still coming out. We stood there for a few moments trying to figure out what to do, the whole time I was laughing really hard, which didn't make matters any better (it of course made more come out). After containing myself, I told Steve that we should just leave since there was nothing we could do. Since we had found the decals we wanted I told Steve to go check out and I'd go to the car and wait for him. The water had gone all down my pants so I asked Steve to roll up my legs to maybe get less attention. Of course we were in the very back of the store, so I followed behind Steve trying to avoid eye contact w/ anyone. I made it out to the car and grabbed the store ads I had brought and sat on them, hoping to not get any more in the car. Steve came out a few minutes later and we headed home.
On the way our gas light came on, but since I wasn't in any pain I told and had heard it takes a few hours for contractions to kick in, I told Steve to just stop and fill up instead of getting the Jeep when we got home. I also called my 1st counselor to let her know that I would not be able to make it to PEC in the morning at 6:45 am so if she could please cover for me I'd appreciate it. When we got home, at about 8pm, I casually put a few more things in my bag for the hospital. Luckily I had started it earlier that week. Steve was definitely a little more panicky than I was. I had him shoot a quick picture before I changed (I was still laughing while taking the picture). On the way to the hospital, I told Steve that I was really hungry, so we went to Arby's and got a sandwich for me.
He's on his way..... ;)
When we got to the hospital, it was about 9 pm. Since we had been there a few weeks before, we knew exactly where to go this time. We told the staff what had happened then they immediately got us into a room. After changing into a hospital gown, they did a quick swipe of the fluid which turned blue and meant that my water had in fact broken. They they told us that we were definitely going to have a baby and because my water had broken I could have an epidural at any time. They also checked me and I was 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced. Steve then called/text everyone and let them know the good news!
A couple hours later I was definitely feeling the pain, so we got an epidural. I dilated fairly quickly during the labor process. I went from a 3 to a 4 to a 5 to a 9 then 10. I was pretty comfortable and even though I was really tired I couldn't sleep. The last hour I got pretty uncomfortable in that I felt like my bum was numb and it didn't feel comfortable at all. Luckily I started pushing shortly thereafter at around 4:45am. Things were going well for a while then they noticed that his heart rate kept dropping every time I pushed, so they put me on oxygen to see if it would help. Unfortunately it didn't help much, so they asked me to not push through the contractions and see if that helped; it didn't help either though. The nurses were thinking that he was facing head up instead of head down like they prefer, which causes more stress on the baby I guess. They then called in my Dr, Dr Twede, to see what he said to do.
When Dr. Twede got there he confirmed that Nyles was facing head up, so he said he was going to try the suction cup and see if he could turn him. While he was in the process of turning him I had a contraction so he told me to push at the same time. As he turned him and pulled him, I pushed and we got his head out pretty quickly. As they got his head out Dr. Twede noticed that his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice (the main source of our problem). The rest of Nyles' body came out pretty quickly and they laid him on my stomach. As they did this I felt a huge amount of relief and love come over me and cried for a while. I was soooo worried about him being ok and also the possibility that we'd have to go into a c-section. I also couldn't believe that he was finally here! Steve then cut his umbilical cord and then they took him over to clean him up. I tore a little in the process so I got a few stitches in the meantime. They then brought him over to me to hold, skin to skin. After a while they let us move to the recovery room. Since it was Sunday we had a lot of visitors, which was nice, though we didn't get any sleep. As I said before, he was born at 6:12 a.m. on Sunday August 12th and weighed 6 lbs 9 oz and was 20.5 inches long. Here are some more pics.
Cute little foot
So little and precious
Our first family photo (ya I was REALLY tired)
Trying to open his little eye
Proud dad w/ baby Nyles
Our cute baby
We stayed in the hospital until Tuesday, and got home at about 11am. We had really good nurses which helped us w/ the proper techniques to nurse and also made sure I was recovering. To try and get some sleep we put Nyles in the nursery and they'd bring him to us to feed every 2-3 hours. We also attended a nursing class just across the hallway, which was really helpful. Our last night there they even brought us both in dinner; it was awesome! They also gave me a bathrobe to take home. We appreciated all the visits, calls and gifts. Thank you everyone! Here are some more pics.
Our lovely dinner, w/ cheesecake for dessert!
Steve giving Nyles his first bath in the hospital (his head was still cone head-like)
Grandpa Dave holding him and playing on his I-pad, Grandma Joann just freezing ;)
Cousins Isaac and Cameron, w/ Aunt Kim holding him
Great Grandma LuDean
Rob, not quit sure what to think of Nyles yet
Nyles w/ his cousin Conor who is 2 weeks older than him. They were supposed to be 6 weeks a part, but Conor was 1 week late and Nyles was 3 weeks early. Conor is 2 weeks old here and weighed 10 lbs.
Baby Nyles in his carseat. We made it home!
We feel sooooo blessed to have Nyles in our lives right now. He is such a sweetheart. We feel so incredibly blessed to be his parents. Though it's tiring right now, we know it's sooo worth it! Thanks again for all the love and support we've had for Nyles.