Jackson James is here!

Riley would like to introduce you to her new favorite thing in the whole world- her baby brother Jackson James Bartlett.

He was born on Tuesday February 7th, 2012 at 8:12 pm.  He was 6 pounds, 4 ounces and about 19 inches long.  That's over a pound smaller than Riley was, and he was born basically at the same gestational age (37 weeks, 4 days).  He was so tiny that the little newborn hat the nurses put on him was HUGE.

His birth was nothing like his big sister's... except for the fact that it was fast!  I started having some cramping early Tuesday morning, but nothing even close to painful.  Around 9am I decided maybe Mark should come home from work, just in case, because I was afraid that my labor would progress quickly, so if this were in fact the real deal, I wanted him home.  He came home by 10:15am, and I felt pretty silly since I was in no pain, and things hadn't changed at all.

Around 11:45am I called our midwife, and she came over to check and see if I was making any progress.  She said I was 3 cm dilated, but that didn't necessarily mean I was in labor, especially since I was in no pain.  She said to call her if things progressed.  We went about our day, and around 1:45pm we hopped in the car and headed to the airport to pick up my mom.  We arrived around 2:30pm, and as we were walking through the airport, it was REALLY uncomfortable for me to walk.  I wasn't really having painful contractions, still mild cramping, but baby seemed to be right on my pubic bone.  As we waited for my mom, I started to have some more intense cramping, but nothing too noteworthy.  We got my mom, and headed to the grocery store, and by the time we left the grocery store (around 4:30pm) I was having some more serious cramping, but nothing that made me stop what I was doing.

We got home and I called our midwife at 5, and she came over and checked me again, and I was at 5cm.  Still not really in too much pain, but I wanted to go to the hospital ASAP to avoid the frantic rush of the car ride!  We got to the hospital at 6:15, and I felt a bit silly and wondering what to do!  At this point contractions were about 3 minutes apart, and were definitely manageable.  I decided I wanted to start filling the tub so I could labor in there, and while we waited my midwife checked my blood pressure, checked baby's stats, and all that good stuff.

Around 6:45 or 7pm I hopped in the tub, as my contractions were really starting to pick up.  They were pretty much 2 minutes apart, and took a lot of focus to get through them.  I started using the nitrous oxide, which really didn't seem to take the pain away, but really helped give me something to focus on (breathing in and out) rather than focus on the pain.  Around 8:00pm I felt like I needed to get out of the bath, and literally once my body was out of the bath and gravity was back in play, I felt so much worse, and like I needed to push.  I got over to the hospital bed, in lots of pain and wishing I'd gotten an epidural, and Sandy (my midwife) gave me the option of laying on an incline on my back to push, or kneeling.  I chose to kneel, as it felt most natural at the moment, and just a few pushes later, baby Jack was born!!  It was amazing knowing I was able to do it without an epidural, and he came out soooo fast.  And, even better?  No tears, no stitches!  With Riley I pushed for HOURS, with Jack, he was out in minutes!

Now apparently, one potential complication of a very fast birth is that the baby doesn't have time to squeeze all the fluid out of his lungs before he enters into the world.  So when he was born, he had a little trouble breathing.  He was breathing on his own, and he was fine, but he was grunting a little bit and breathing really rapidly, both of which are signs of slight distress.  They put him on some oxygen to see if it would help, they suctioned a bunch of mucous out of his lungs, and when those efforts didn't make it better, they decided to take him to the NICU to give him some extra help.  The put him on a CPAP, which basically secures an oxygen tube to his nose via this helmet thing on his head, and makes it less work for him to breathe.  They also put a feeding tube through his mouth to his stomach, although I'm not sure why since they never actually used it.

The protocol is for him to stay on the CPAP for four hours, and if he was not completely better by the end of that 4 hours, they do a chest x-ray and put him on IV antibiotics just in case he has some sort of infection.  His chest xray apparently had a few cloudy spots, which really just means fluid in the lungs, and he was started on an IV.  After about 24 hours he was breathing perfectly fine on his own, so he got to ditch the CPAP and all those other wires monitoring him.  The stomach tube came out, and we were able to feed him colostrum via syringe, and then try and breastfeed, which was actually very successful right from the start!  He's a champion feeder, so it's a good thing my milk came in fairly quickly!

So after about 28 hours in the NICU, he was able to come and room in with me for the rest of the time.  He had to keep his little IV in his arm, which was tough since he had a little splint on and kept hitting himself with it, but he was a trooper and hardly fussed about it.  He got his last course of antibiotics late Thursday night, and finally got to have his IV removed on Friday afternoon right before we got released to go home.

Our hospital stay and my recovery has been totally different than it was with Riley.  First?  I didn't have any tearing or stitches, so I felt pretty good the whole time.  A lot less pain, with one exception.  The after pains this time?  Unreal.  If you don't know, afterpains are just your uterus contracting back to its normal size.  After Jackson was born, my uterus was contracting like CRAZY and I literally felt like I was still in labor.  This went on pretty much all night, and then when I had to pump or nurse him, it would get really bad.  A lot worse than last time, which I guess is pretty normal.  But on the upside, this time I got a room all to myself the whole time I was there, which made a huge difference in getting sleep and feeling comfortable.

Also, unlike Riley, Jackson would actually sleep NOT being held.  Which meant I could wrap him up, put him in his bassinet by my bed, and get some sleep myself.  He also hated the room to be quiet, and did not startle very easily, so there was no concern with noise and him getting woken up.  He actually seemed to prefer it that way.

We decided to wait to introduce Riley to Jackson until he was out of the NICU and in our room, and it could not have gone better.  Despite her cautious look in this picture, she ADORES him.  I'll write more on that in a separate post.

So now we're adjusting to life with two little ones- so far so good!  Jackson has his days and nights a bit mixed up, but we'll get there. :)  I'm hoping to take his newborn pictures over the weekend, although all my newborn props haven't arrived yet, soooo we're going to have to make do with what we have here. :(  Lots more pictures and the best video you've ever seen coming up soon.