Sponge Bath

Dillan got his first home sponge bath yesterday.  Brandon  is great about taking initiative when it comes to these kind of things. I'm always afraid I'm going to hurt his healing belly button or penis, where he was circumcised. Poor kid would be encrusted in pee and breast-milk for weeks if left solely in my care!  Just one more reason I'm thankful for my loving husband.

Pictures of Dillan's First Few Days

First Bath

New Baby

Balloons from my parents.  Bag of clothes from Liz.

Flowers from my parents

View from our room at -40F.

Tanner spots Dillan for the first time.

Surrounded by my boys.

Momma and Daddy with our new little boy.

Grandma and Grandpa are so glad that Dillan made his arrival while they were here in Alaska.

Tanner holds Dillan for the first time.

Dillan Robert Shope's Birth Story

My birth story starts on the 16th of January, around 4:30pm. Brandon, Tanner, my parents; Florence and Brent, Brandon's sister Bridgett, and I all headed out to Fox to eat dinner at the Silver Gulch Brewery.  On the way into Fairbanks, from North Pole, I started noticing a bit of pressure in my lower back/butt area.  Nothing too intense, just pressure.  While at the Silver Gulch I had Bridgett feel where baby was kicking out.  She asked me if my belly felt hard to me, I told her yes.  That's all the more we talked about it.  After getting home from dinner I got on my treadmill and walked for 30 minutes and then took a bath.  All during this time the lower back/butt pressure coming irregularly and still not very intense. 

Around 9:00pm I went to bed with Brandon and Tanner.  They both fell asleep rather quickly but I laid there and passed the time waiting for the coming and going of the "pressure".  Around 10:00pm I text Bridgett and told her I was pretty sure that I was having contractions, all in my back. They were now getting painful and I knew this was the real deal. Bridgett said that due to the fact that my belly felt so hard when she touched it earlier, she had to agree with me.  I got up and bounced on my exercise ball and walked around the house a bit.  I went and laid down with Tanner and Brandon and fell asleep for about 15 minutes then had to get up because of the pain in my back.

By 2:30am my contractions were averaging 10 minutes apart and lasting close to a minute. I went and woke Brandon and asked him if he could come rub my back for a bit.  We walked around the house together, I bounced more on my ball and I took a bath.  The contractions weren't progressing by 4:30am so I laid down on the couch for a bit because I was exhausted.  I was able to to sleep for a few minutes at a time, between contractions. I finally got up around 6:30am with the intentions of walking around to get contractions going.  I got up and the contractions rapidly picked up to 6-8 minutes apart.  I told Brandon it was time to go.  We gathered all of our stuff to bring to the hospital and paused by the kitchen table so that I could focus on another contraction.  Two minutes later another contraction was coming on.  The mad dash to the hospital began at this point. 

Brandon sped down Badger Road from North Pole towards Fort Wainwright.  He tried to pass cars in the fog and it was too stressful for me. I had to tell him to slow down a bit.  Once we got to post Brandon put his flashers on and passed everyone in front of us because we could not keep the speed limit due to the fact that I was having a hard time not baring down during my contractions.  Once arriving to Bassett Army Community Hospital we ran inside and there weren't any wheelchairs available in the foyer. I doubled over having another contraction.  There were people in the foyer staring at me.  A woman ran over and put her arm around me and called to someone at the front desk to call Labor and Delivery to let them know we were coming. With Brandon on the other side of me, we made our way to the elevator.  We were met at the top of the elevator with a wheelchair.  Brandon let the woman and the guy with the wheelchair take me to Labor and Delivery while he ran outside to park the Tahoe. 

Once in Labor and Delivery I was met by a bunch of staff who stared at me for what felt like eternity before an explosion of energy happened around me.  I was taken to the exam room.  I stood up out of the wheelchair and then bent over the bed to have another contraction.  I told the midwife and nurse next to me that I really felt like I needed to push. They asked if I could take my pants off, I said "NO!".  Brandon entered the room at this point. The midwife said to push if I felt the need, so I pushed through the contraction.  After the contraction I took my pants off and the midwife said "There's his head, he's got a lot of hair!" She asked if I could get into the bed, I said "NO!".  She said "OK, we'll do this standing up." I put my hands on the bed and pushed the baby out with the next contraction. Dillan was handed to me through my legs and I then crawled into the bed, all within 10 minutes of arriving to the Labor and Delivery ward.  He was born at 7:39am weighing in at 6 pounds 8 ounces and 20.5 inches long on January 17, 2012.

Pregnancy Update *1/11/12*

1/7/12 ~ I was lucky enough to be given $100, for Christmas, to use on myself. I decided to do something totally out of character and get something for myself that wasn't absolutely necessary...a pregnancy massage!  BLISS!!! I went to Pure Essentials Day Spa and had the owner, Yencid, do the massage. I seriously could not have chosen a better way to spend that money than the massage.  I walked out of the building feeling so relaxed.  Aaaahhhhh!!!  I wish I'd been doing prenatal massages the last 39 weeks!

1/9/12 ~ Finally got my bag packed for the hospital.

1/11/12 ~ Had a horrible night of non-sleeping.  I ended up having to go to my appointment alone. I chose not to have my cervix checked this time.  I felt really down last week when I was told there wasn't much progress and didn't really want to feel that way again.  I figured I'll just think "open" and go with the flow. The midwife told me that my baby is in a "good position" and a "good size; not too big and not too small". I'm good with that.  I've gained a total 27lbs to date.  All other measurements were good. 
Tomorrow is my due date.  I'm not sure if I feel tomorrow is my day or not.  I feel like I'll go before my next scheduled appointment, next Wednesday.  If I make it until next Wednesday without having my baby I'll have to do a stress test, have an ultrasound to see if I have plenty of fluids and to see how the placenta is doing.

Pregnancy Update *1/4/12*

I'm to the point that I get to be seen once a week at Bassett now.  Today I was informed that back in October, when I'd last had blood drawn, my iron levels were low and I'm borderline anemic.  I am now on iron supplements and will need to continue taking them until after I deliver and stop breast feeding.  This could explain a lot of my fatigue.  I had my cervix checked and it is "soft and mushy", no progression other than that.  She said the cervix has to be in that state to thin and dilate.  She said if I walk/do housework to only do it for 20 minutes and then sit down and take a break for 5 minutes or else it could have the opposite affect on my cervix that I want it to. 
I didn't gain any weight in the last week, my blood pressure and the baby's heart rate were good. 
After the appointment I went to go pick up the iron supplements and had to wait an extremely long time.  We were at Bassett for for over two hours.  I walked away from the hospital feeling very down.  The -27F temps didn't help to lift my spirits at all... I just have to keep reminding myself the end of this chapter is nearing.  My next appointment has been made for the morning of the 11th. 

Tanner's Birth Story *December 17, 2009*

I've decided to post Tanner's birth story since I know I'll be posting the new baby's in a week or two.  This is also a great place to have his story saved since I recently lost the story when my computer crashed.  Luckily my mom and dad had it saved on their home computer.

This was originally written and emailed December 20, 2009.

Tanner Michael Shope's Birth Story

On Tuesday the 15th, around 8pm I started losing my mucous plug and I felt my first contractions shortly afterwards.  It was so exciting and didn't seem real.  I decided to lay down and sleep a bit.  At 11pm I woke up with more contractions.  These contractions were in my back. I got up and took a bath.  After my bath I sat down on my exercise ball and bounced, rocked my hips and did circles on it... for HOURS. I rocked in my glider chair, and walked around the house.  When Brandon woke up around 4am  on the 16th I told him that I'd been having contractions all night. That they hadn't gotten regular or intense yet. He decided to stay home with me and called into work at 7am.  I kept myself moving throughout the day, had Brandon applying pressure on my lower back and by 2pm I felt that things had really picked up; I was having contractions every 3 to 5 minutes and they were getting intense. I told Brandon I was ready to go to the hospital, so we loaded up the car and headed in.  Sitting in the car my contractions started slowing down, by the time I got to the hospital and got hooked up to the monitors my contractions were 6-7 minutes apart and nowhere near as intense as they had been.  My pelvic exam revealed I was only dilated to 2cm, 50% effaced and a -1 station.  The nurse sent me home, told me that they couldn't admit me until I was 3-4cm dilated or my water had broken or I was leaking fluids that would soak through a pad in an hour.  Feeling a little down and embarrassed I went home, ate some soup and laid down for a bit.  After about an hour I couldn't take laying down.  I went back to bouncing on my exercise ball.  At 7:15pm Brandon and I went to walk around the grocery store and the mall area attached to it until 8pm.  After this we just hung out around the house.  Brandon went back to bed at 11pm and I went and sat on the toilette.  The toilette didn't put pressure on my tail bone and lower back, which was where I was still experiencing all of my contractions.  After a few hours of sitting on the toilette, bending over the bathroom counter and walking from the bathroom to the bedroom to have Brandon apply pressure on my back I started leaking fluid.  I told Brandon that I was leaking fluid and he called Labor and Delivery.  They told him the same thing they had told us earlier, to have me put  a pad on and see if I soaked through it in an hour.  As he was coming back to the bathroom to tell me this, I was having a contraction and fluids literally shot out of me!  At that point I said I'm done, I need to go to the hospital.  I got dressed and sat down to have Brandon help me put shoes on. He wanted me to have a few more contractions so that he could time them.  I was having them about 2 minutes apart.  We rushed to the car and headed into town. It was at this point I told Brandon he needed to hurry because I could feel baby's head descending.  I had my eyes closed and peeked at the speedometer to see that we had reached 100mph in our little Chevy Cobalt.  Brandon kept telling me to breath because as each contraction was coming I was bearing down to get through it.  Trying to get onto post Brandon slowed and told them I was in labor.  We made it to the hospital and I was attempting to climb the stairs to Labor and Delivery when a man who had followed us in grabbed a wheelchair and told me to get in and took me to L&D himself.  Brandon accompanied me to L&D and got me to the exam room then ran back out to move the car, which was still running and sitting in front of the hospital.  The nurse hooked the monitors up to me and checked my cervix.  I was dilated to 10cm.  Brandon arrived as the nurse ran to go wake the midwife.  They moved me to my delivery room and helped me get into my bed.  At this point the midwife arrived into the room and looked at me and asked if I was ready to have this baby!!! She opened my legs and said, “Well he has light brown hair” I pushed twice over 7 minutes and then had my baby in my arms!!!  The time was 2:53am on December the 17th.  He weighed 7lbs  13.4ozs and was 20” long.

Tanner's 2 year checkup

We finally got Tanner into his 2 year appointment.  I tried to get him in around his birthday but I guess the clinic was busy!

Stats
Weight: 26lb 12oz ~ 37%
Length: 34 1/2" ~ 54%
Head Circ: 48cm ~ 31%

He is doing really great with his problem solving, fine and gross motor skills.  He still  needs some work with his language, though the doctor didn't seem too concerned.  Tanner received  a flu shot today and also a PCV7 vaccine which helps prevent Pneumococcal disease.  Other than that the visit wasn't very exciting besides Tanner not wanting to get naked and clinging onto his clothes for dear life!