Oliver Davis Young Jr

Oliver and I had been joking all week that baby was going to come on Valentines Day, because we had plans that we didn't want to miss out on.  Oliver was planning on going heli-skiing all day and then we were going to go to dinner that night at a new restaurant that we had been wanting to try.  We had been hiking all week and knew that it was getting close, but I though I was going to make it to the 15th for sure.

The night before Valentine's Day I was making dinner and all of a sudden things seemed really difficult.  I decided not to clean up and just sit on the couch all night.  I wasn't in pain or uncomfortable it just seemed like a lot of work to do anything.  Teddy seemed to know something was up too, because when I went to bed he jumped up and wouldn't take his head off of my stomach.  He stayed there for about 30 minutes before going to bed.

On 2/14/13, my water broke at 2:35am.  It woke me up and I went to the bathroom and tried to figure out if it was real or not.  We had been to the hospital the previous Monday, because we thought it may have broken, but it didn't, it wasn't amniotic fluid.  I didn't want to go to the hospital again if it wasn't real and I didn't want to wake Oliver up if I didn't have to (he needed rest for his big day of skiing).  I decided to take a shower and see if contractions would start.  I took a shower and sat and thought about what just happened and decided that it had to have been my water.  I got out and woke Oliver up.  

We drove to McKay Dee and arrived just after 3am.  The nurses put me in a labor and delivery room and began to run the tests to find out if my water had in fact broken.  The first test came back negative.  I was super bummed and bothered that we had driven all that way, but at the same time I didn't believe them...I knew my water had broken.  Then they did another test that they sent to the lab; it was positive, my water had broken.  

At 5am they hooked me up to the IV and gave me Cytotec (to help me dialate), because although my water had broken, I wasn't going into labor.  I had a nurse named Patricia and she was fantastic.  The Cytotec was very slow moving.  Oliver and I spent most of the morning napping and reading.  I sat on an exercise ball for a majority of the morning trying to open up my hips.  At about 11am things started to move.  I had dialated enough to get Pitocin and I was finally feeling contractions.  I had intense contractions for about 2 hours and at 1pm they gave me Pitocin and an Epidural.  The Epidural was heaven.  It completely relaxed me and took away most of the pain.

While waiting for baby to come Oliver surprised me with an amethyst necklace from Tiffany & Co.  Baby's birthstone.  It was incredibly thoughtful and sweet.

The nursing staff at McKay Dee was top-notch.  I had a few different nurses helping me at all times.  They used a position/movement technique to get me to dialate quicker.  Every 20 minutes I would change positions into one of their different tai-chi-ish positions.  Eventhough it was slow going, I'm a believer. 

Sher dropped into the hospital shortly after I got my epidural, and Beth and Mike came at about 3:30pm.  I progressed at about 1cm/hour.  Although it was a long process, it was completely calm and relaxing.  I didn't ever feel like it was exhausting.  We all hung out all night long in the room.  Spencer Sr came at about 6pm, but was completely exhausted from heli-skiing all day and we forced him to go home around 8pm.

At 10pm I had finally reached 10 cm and they had me start pushing at 10:20pm.  I pushed for 16 minutes and at 10:36pm Oliver Davis Young Jr was born.  

When they handed him to me I felt an overwhelming feeling of love.  I started crying immediately.  We did skin to skin and nursed for about 20 minutes, then Oliver got to hold him, and then they took him to get a bath.

At the end of my delivery I spiked a fever and they were worried that Davis may have got an infection or Sepsis.  Because of this he was put in the transitional nursery to be monitored.  This meant that he had to stay in there and that he only got to come to my room for feedings.  He didn't have an infection, but he had to stay because of federal regulations on Sepsis.  So our hospital stay wasn't exactly normal.

On top of the Sepsis watch we had to do a lot of tests on Davis, because in the womb we found out that he was possibly missing one of his kidneys.  It turns out that he was indeed missing his right kidney and because of this they tested every little thing.  The pediatrician also detected something strange in his heart.  

The next day the pediatrician came in to tell us about all of the tests with his kidney and all of the intense testing that would need to be done in the coming weeks and then told us that she thought something was wrong with his heart and had ordered an echo-cardiogram.  When I heard this I completely fell apart.  It was all too much for me.  I started crying and when I started crying, Oliver started crying.  It was a mess.  My mom and dad came up to the hospital and Oliver gave Davis a blessing and then my dad gave me the sweetest blessing ever.  It totally put me at peace and gave me the strength to go on.

Later that night we got the results back from the echo-cardiogram and it turns out that Davis has a PFO or hole in his heart.  I was so relieved when I heard this and found out that it wasn't something more serious.  All of the Youngs have PFOs, so it didn't stress me out.

We had to stay an extra night at the hospital because of the Sepsis watch, but we finally got to leave Sunday morning.  We were so happy to leave the hospital and everything has been better since coming home.

This little guy has made us a family and made our house a home.  We feel so lucky to have him and I feel lucky that I get to stay home everyday and take care of him.  

It has been fun to watch Oliver turn into a father.  He is such a natural.  He is better at changing a diaper, calming him, and troubleshooting than I am.  I feel so lucky to have both of these boys in my life.