Welcome to the World Baby Deagan!

After 40 long weeks, our baby boy is finally here!

We are so happy and so excited, and so completely in love with him!

Introducing Deagan Jacob!

(I've had a few people ask, it's pronounced "Dee-gan")

Born June 3rd, 2013 at 1:03pm

9lbs, 18 1/2 inches

No wonder I was so uncomfortable these last few weeks, I was carrying around a linebacker!

The whole day was a whirlwind, it flew by so fast that my head is still spinning. On Sunday, I was told I was 5th in line for inductions, which left me anxious and worried that I wouldn't even get in. I hardly slept at all that night. I was anxious, frustrated, and worried. Plus, I was dying of heat. I think I only got about 2 solid hours of sleep. But I woke up at 6am and waited for the hospital to call me. At 7, I walked out of my room and at 7:05 I walked back in and saw that I had a voicemail from the hospital asking me to call them back. So I did and the nurse said "My name is so-and-so, how soon can you be here for an induction?"

(My last pregnancy photo. Taken right before I left for the hospital. 40 weeks, and 2 days)

I was in shock! I was NOT expecting to be called in that early. Apparently, they originally weren't going to be able to get me in that morning, but a few girls called in and cancelled their inductions, so I moved up the list! (Just a side note: they performed 10 inductions the same day! That's not including scheduled C-sections and those who came in from going naturally into labor! It was a busy, busy day for the nurses!)

 (his poor nose and a little bit around his mouth was bruised)

I told her to give me 45 minutes to an hour to give me and Bryant time to get ready, and get Savannah up and ready, and drop her off at my parents house. I was so nervous, that I tried to eat a rice crispy treat in the car so I wouldn't have an empty stomach, and I think I could only get 3 bites down. So we dropped Savy off and rushed to the hospital.

(Bryant got to catch a quick nap while I was in labor. Not fair...)

We checked in, and the nurse got me all situated in the delivery room around 8:00am. Around 9, she got me hooked up to some fluids, some antibiotics, and the pitocin to get my contractions going. She asked me if I wanted the epidural then, or if I wanted to wait. I told her I would wait until the contractions got good and going.

Once my contractions started, the nurse came in to turn the pitocin down, because I was contracting really fast (I did that with Savannah too, I just react to pitocin really well I guess.) And I asked her when she would recommend that I get the epidural. She told me that she had already put me on the list because it was filling up and she didn't want me to be at the end of it and really uncomfortable. She asked how long my first labor was, and I told her it was about 7 hours. I asked her if inducing made your labor longer (like SO MANY people tried to scare me into thinking...) and she said "oh no, if this is your 2nd baby, cut your first labor time in half and that is how long you will take this time." I didn't believe her because that would mean I would have a 3 1/2 hour labor, which just seemed way too fast to me.

Just then, the doctor came in and broke my water, and he said that should really get my contractions started, which would help me dilate.

I was grateful she put me on the list for the epidural because not 10 minutes later, the contractions started to hurt and in walked the epidural guy. It was perfect timing! So we got that started and I started to go numb and I felt comfortable and sleepy, (and itchy! I had lots of people tell me pitocin made them itch, and it really does!). The nurse checked me and I was almost at a 4. So Bryant laid down on the couch and snoozed and I settled in and watched an episode of "Arrested Development" and relaxed, thinking I had several hours ahead of me. The nurse left and told me to page her if I needed anything, and that she would check on me from time to time.

Well, within an hour I started to feel really low, intense pains during each contraction. Like, I couldn't talk through them, except for when I told Bryant to shut up when he was asking me a million questions and I couldn't answer them because I was hurting (I'm mean when I'm in pain...) I was worried that the epidural wasn't working anymore, so I paged the nurse and said my contractions were really painful and if there was any way we could check the epidural. She came in and asked if it felt like I needed to push, and I told her it was low intense pain, but that it had to still be too early to push. She said "If it was just contractions, the epidural would help, but I think you're about to have this baby". So she checked me, and his head was literally RIGHT THERE. I mean, he had done all the work and I was at that last stage before he was born. So she rushed out to grab the doctor and the nurses, and they got everything all set up within seconds.

I think I pushed for about 7-8 minutes total! After the first push, the doctor said I could touch his head if I wanted, he was that close (I didn't, I don't know why, but that sounded gross.) Then the nurse started to giggle and told me that if his head was any indication to how big he would be, that he was going to be at least 8 1/2 pounds. Again, I didn't believe her. She also told me that she hoped I wasn't expecting hair, because he was pretty bald.

So after a few quick, intense pushes, Deagan came into the world! After only 4 hours of labor, only 1 hour of that with an epidural, and less than 10 minutes of pushing! All the nurses started giggling about how cute his rolls were, and how chubby he was. They immediately started taking bets to see how big he was. One nurse got it right, 9lbs even! I was completely shocked when they told me that! I knew he was big, and I knew he was measuring ahead of where Savannah was, and she was 7 and a half, so I thought he would be 8lbs at the MOST. Nope, this baby was a cannonball! One of the nurses said she rarely sees someone my size give birth to a baby that big, and that my hips must be nice and roomy (uh, gee, thanks?) . She also told me that If I ever planned to induce again, to go a week early, because most of your subsequent babies just get bigger each time (yikes!) He is pretty short though. They said 9lb babies average about 21-22 inches, and he was 18 1/2. Savannah was like that too though, chubby and short. Because he was LGA (large for gestational age) they had to check his blood sugar levels every so often. They were always perfect, so he had no issues. He's just a tank.

After they got him weighed and all that, they gave him to me again and he immediately started rooting. So they all left and I began nursing him. He ate for almost an hour! Apparently, 9lbs of fat rolls require a lot of calories to maintain! After an hour, the nurse came back in to check on us, and told me I could order lunch and just eat it there before they sent me down to the mother's room and took him off for a bath and testing. So we got another full hour of just snuggling and bonding with him.

We are so unbelievably excited and relieved to have him here, and I'm very grateful that I have had 2 easy labor and deliveries so far. Really, other than those last 10 minutes, the whole process was relatively pain free. Even my recovery is going well! With Savannah, it took me a couple of weeks to feel fully 100% again. With this recovery, my back is a little sore from where they had the epidural, and that's about it. Nothing a little tylenol can't fix.

It took us a full day to finally decide on a name. We've had Deagan on our minds for a while now, but we wanted to make sure it was perfect. That night, and all the next morning, we had written a list of our top 10 names, and we slowly crossed them all off one by one. None of them felt "right" except for Deagan Jacob, and I love it!

So far, he is a really mellow baby, just like his sister was. He only cries when he's hungry, which is a lot. He took to breastfeeding a lot faster than his sister. I was feeding him 5 minutes after his was born. With Savy, we didn't really get the hang of it for a long time.

He's got a little bit of jaundice like his sister did too. We go in tomorrow to test again, but I'm pretty confident it won't be as bad as Savannah's was, because he's eating a lot better and has more consistent diapers than she did. We are just keeping all the windows open to give him lots of natural sunlight today to help.

Savannah loves him! As soon as she saw him, she said "oh cute baby!" and is very good about being gentle with him. She loves to hold him, touch his cheeks, his hands, and his hair. (Even though he's pretty bald, he has more hair than Savannah did haha! And it's very, very dark.) She likes to be a helper too. I had just a small bottle for him at the hospital (he was eating so often, I was in a lot of pain, I needed a break for a couple of feedings) and she was very good at helping to feed him. Once he was done and sound asleep, she kept trying to shove it in his mouth. We will have to work on that. She also thinks his name should be Gus, and got in an argument with Bryant about it. It was hilarious!

I'm so grateful for nurses and doctors. My nurses this time were amazing! The main nurse helping me made me feel so comfortable and so much less anxious than I had been coming in. She must have known I was a little scared because she just sat in the room and chatted with me for the first hour, until they got a little more busy and she had to help in other rooms, and if you know me, I'm pretty chatty, but I get more chatty when I'm nervous, so it was comforting to have her there to distract me.

I'm very grateful to have had such a healthy pregnancy. Even though I was uncomfortable and complained a lot, in hindsight, both my pregnancies have been very manageable, easy, and problem free. Which is a rare thing. I can only hope and pray that my other pregnancies will be the same. (And yes, we fully plan on more kids. But we think we want to wait a little longer between this one and the next. At least until Savannah is in school, and I'm done with school.)

And I am very grateful to Bryant. He is a great labor coach and he takes a lot of pride in his kids. He is an amazing daddy and he makes me feel like superwoman, and he is proud of me and loves me unconditionally. He praises me for my role as wife and mother, which makes me feel extra special.

I love him, I love Savannah, and I love Deagan.
Being a mom is pretty darn awesome!

Welcome to the world baby Savannah!

Welcome to the world Savannah!


Savannah Jane Stokes
Born Friday, March 25th at 9:20pm
7lbs, 8oz and 18in long!


My dear sweet baby girl has finally arrived! She's quietly sleeping in my lap right now and Bryant is out playing golf with his dad, brother and uncle, so I figured that while I had a few moments to spare, I'd tell her birthday story!

So Friday morning, I woke up feeling really crummy and Bryant convinced me to go back to bed and stay there all day if I felt like it. I had had some contractions the night before and a few that morning, but I had been having them off and on for weeks now so I brushed it off. At 12:15 that afternoon I decided to get up and make myself some toast. After I plugged in the toaster, I turned around to grab the bread when suddenly, I felt like I wet my pants (TMI, I know...) and I thought maybe I had (one of the joys of being pregnant) so I went to the bathroom to change.(first family photo! Excuse my tired face...)

Well, It was a lot more than expected and it just kept coming. So I called out to Bryant and asked his opinion. We decided that we had better go to the hospital to make sure if it was my water breaking or not. So I quickly jumped in the shower, finished making that toast (they don't let you eat when you're in labor so I made sure to eat before we went, just in case) grabbed the hospital bags and headed to the hospital around 2:30pm

We were admitted into triage and the nurse grabbed the PH test strips. She said that it needed to turn blue in order to be positive but that if it didn't they would keep me there for an hour then try again. Well, on the first test strip, it was bluer than blue! She said that meant that my membranes had definitely ruptured and that we were going to have a baby!

So we called my parents and Bryant's parents, and were then moved into a labor and delivery room. Since I still wasn't contracting regularly, or very hard, they decided to start me on pitocin
to get things moving. Not even 10 minutes after they started the pitocin, I started getting really hard and painful contractions. They said I could ask for the epidural at any time, but the monitor didn't show that I was contracting at all.

When I heard that, I thought I must be the biggest wimp in the world. The nurse said the monitor would show great big waves when I had a contraction, but the blue line was straight, maybe with an occasional wiggle, and here I was trying my hardest not to rip Bryant's hand off! So I decided to tough it out and wait for the epidural. Well after 40 minutes and feeling like the contractions were one on top of the other, I asked if maybe there was something wrong with the monitor. She came over to re-adjust it and as she did, she felt my stomach and said "oh wow! you are contracting big time!" so she went and grabbed a new monitor and hooked me up to it, and sure enough, those giant blue waves were a'rollin!

Thats when I decided to ask for the epidural.
And can I just say; Best. Thing. Ever.

Boy, oh boy are epidurals worth every penny! And honestly, it wasn't even that bad when they put it in. I think the IV in my hand felt worse actually. There was a literal 5 second pinch of pain and then my stomach, bum and legs were in numb heaven!

I was progressing pretty fast at this point. I was at 4 cm when I went to triage, and 5 when they started me on the pitocin. They said I would go about 1cm every hour, but after the first hour I was up to 8! So they cut the pitocin and let my body take over from there.

Anyways, after a little while, I got the extremely strong urge to push. It's crazy to describe because I literally could not stop my body from pushing on it's own. At least that's what it felt like.

(One proud daddy! He is absolutely wrapped around her finger!)

So I told the nurse that I really needed to push. She said that if I stated now, I would be too exhausted by the time the baby was in position. But seriously, I couldn't help it. So I told her that I really needed to push and she suggested that we do a few "practice pushes" to see if that would help with the pressure. So we did 3 or 4 pushes and she checked me. She got a surprised look on her face and said "I'm going to go get the doctor, this baby is coming fast!"

The doctor came in and checked me and said "did they test you with a PH strip to make sure your water broke?" when I told him about what happened at home and then that test strip that couldn't get any bluer, he said that it didn't really make sense because my bag of waters was still in tact. So he broke it for me. He said that he thinks the mucus plug broke or something.

Anyways, that will be the mystery of the day...

Well, we were fully into the swing of things so they brought two more nurses in, ready to help when she was born. I really think labor and delivery nurses are the best! I felt like I had my own little cheerleading squad in there. I half expected to see pom-poms in their hands! They were all so great and made me feel like super-woman!

So I continued to push, Bryant grinning from ear-to-ear and coaching me on my left, three nurses cheering me on on the right, and the doctor telling me how close she was at the end of the bed. They asked if I wanted a mirror and honestly, I was worried I'd be grossed out but I said yes anyways, just to try it. Surprisingly, I was really glad I used the mirror. It's a great motivator when you can actually see how close you are. Plus, it's actually pretty cool to watch your own baby be born! I highly recommend it.

So after pushing for under an hour, Savannah arrived!!!

As soon as she was born they put her on my chest while they cleaned her off. She coughed a couple of times, but wasn't crying. After half a minute, they began rubbing her trying to get her to cry. She did, but not very long so they ran her over to the warming table to try to get her to cry there. The nurse grabbed the oxygen and said "I don't know if I need this, she's breathing just fine and she's pinking up great, but she just won't cry!" Eventually, she just put a little bit of air under her nose and she gave us a pretty good cry for a minute. When they were going over her APGAR score, the nurse didn't know what to give her for breathing, since she was breathing just fine, but they score it on how good their cry is.

But in the end, she got a 7 out of 10 which is a really good score!

So they gave her back to me and I got to sit and hold her on my chest for a good little while. She was so beautiful and very alert. She kept trying to pick up her head to look around! She was also pretty hungry because she kept sucking on her fingers. So they took her down to the nursery to give her a bath and check her vitals.

(She's already a thumb-sucker. Plus I like this photo because she's a little wall-eyed in it and I think it's funny...)

They moved me down to the mothers rooms and they brought her back to me.

It was the best day of my whole life.

We were able to bring her home Sunday afternoon and we have been taking it pretty easy. We are enjoying just spending time snuggling and letting people take care of us (score on the ward dinners!)

Unfortunately, she's a little jaundiced so we've had to go to the hospital every day to get her blood drawn (it breaks my heart to watch them stick her with a needle. Thankfully, she sleeps right through it.) And she has to wear a bilirubin blanket, which is just a plastic paddle that straps onto her back and shines a light 24 hours a day. And we've been having a bit of trouble with feedings, but we are slowly getting the hang of it.

I've been doing pretty good too. I'm a little sore from the stitches and my back is a little achy from where the epidural was, but overall I feel pretty awesome.

I honestly couldn't be any happier. Being a mother feels like the most natural thing in the world and the labor and delivery process was such an amazing experience. I was so blessed to have an easy delivery and the worlds most beautiful baby!