i wish i had a picture of jon as a baby, but here is me next to aria:
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| From Aria 0-3 months |
in some ways it feels like the last three and a half weeks have flown by, but in other ways it seems like Aria has been here FOREVER!
i'm slowly adjusting to mommy life. we get to know each other more and more every day. the first week or two were pretty hard.. just trying to figure things out. i don't have a whole lot to say today. i just wanted to make a post so you all could see how cute my baby is!
i started back to work a week ago and every day i am so excited to get home to see this face!
We arrived at the hospital at 7pm on Tuesday July 13. About an hour later they put in a prostaglandin suppository to help soften my cervix. I was also hooked up to contraction and heart rate monitors as well as a blood pressure cuff. I had to flat lay on my back for the next 2 hours to let the meds work. I had been contracting since 11pm the night before but they were inconsistent between 4 and 15 min apart and I wasn't dilated at all. I WAS about 50% effaced at my Dr apt though so i felt like my body was at least starting to get ready on it's own. Jon had to go to work that night from 9pm-6am so I was on my own all night. After my 2 hours on my back was up I was allowed to change positions and get up to use the restroom, but I still had to call a nurse to unhook the monitors if I needed to get up.
My contractions were crampy and uncomfortable and the hospital bed was small and hard. I started wishing I had just stayed home and labored in my own, comfy, king sized bed at home where I could heat up my rice bag and get up to pee whenever I wanted. (Apparently the nurses weren't allowed to heat my rice bag up for me...?) I did get a sleeping pill though, so that helped. I slept off and on between the blood pressure monitor randomly turning on, and the nurses coming in the check on me.
My water broke at 2am. I totally thought I peed my pants because I totally needed to pee, but didn't want to call the nurse to come help me. I DID end up calling her though and I let her know I either just lost control of my bladder, or else my water broke! Turns out it was the latter and I was mortified when it continued to leak all the way to the bathroom (all 5 steps from my bed). Once my water broke, I got yet another tube attached to me when the put in the IV.
We started pitocin at 7am the next morning. Jon went home after work to get a couple hours of sleep since nothing was really happening yet. They also started a drug called stadol which doesn't actually numb the pain, but it makes you loopy enough not to care anymore. Once that got into my system I was on cloud 9 and my uncomfortable hospital bed seemed like a luxury 5 star hotel mattress. It felt like i slept for hours, but I'm not sure if I actually slept at all. My contractions were definitely picking up but I was also able to relax through them and almost fall asleep. I couldn't keep my eyes open.
By 10am i was 2 cm dilated and my contractions were becoming too intense even for the stadol to help and I was ready for Jon to be there and for my epidural. The epidural got there before Jon, and by that point my contractions were super intense and I kept getting heat flashes and waves of nausea and throwing up. I was in so much pain and so out of it that I couldn't even function and had to rely completely on the nurses to help me get in position for the epi. I couldn't even focus enough to look at the anesthesiologist who was about to become my hero. I don't remember the epidural hurting as it was put in because I was in the middle of a contraction and nausea attack that were so much worse. I do, however, remember the nurse telling me this was the last contraction I was going to feel! And it was! I felt better almost immediately and was able to thank the anesthesiologist and apologize about a million times to the nurses for being so out of it. (I hate it when I feel helpless.) Jon arrived just as I became totally numb to all the pain. I'm kinda annoyed he wasn't there to see the painful contractions and me barfing my guts out all morning.
The day was pretty uneventful. I dozed off and on between more nurse checks and the blood pressure cuff turning on, until about 4:30pm when the effects of the stadol finally wore off and I could keep my eyes open and not just fall back asleep immediately. I continued to dilate, but at some point they turned off the pitocin for a while because Aria's heart rate was dropping too much during contractions. I had the shakes for quite a while and the heat flashes/vomiting attacks came back too.
My Dr arrived around 7pm. I was dilated to 6cm but because my water had been broken since 2am and I hadn't dilated much in the last few hours, Dr. Rita said we may have to talk about a c-section if I didn't dilate to an 8 in the next hour. They started increasing the pitocin again every 20 min and I watched Aria's heartrate on the monitors every time I contracted, willing it not to drop, so we could continue increasing the pitocin. Finally we got through the hour (more like hour and a half since we WERE dealing with a hospital here.) and I was at a NINE! Dr still wasn't convinced we weren't going to have a c-section because I have a ridge on my pelvis that babies "tend to get stuck on". She said we'd talk again about the cesarian if I didn't make it to a 10 in the next hour. I totally made it to a ten though. Jon asked how long it would be till she was actually born and was told anywhere from 30 min to 3 hours. Since this was my first baby and we had to deal with the issue of my pelvic ridge, we were expecting at least a couple of hours.
The nurse started having me push a bit. It was hard to push since I couldn't feel anything down there. But apparently I'm a good pusher and when the nurse started pointing out Aria's dark hair to Jon, I asked for a mirror so I could see too. It made pushing a little easier when I could see my progress. After about 30 min of pushing during contractions the nurse told me to stop and ran to get my Dr! 10 min later Aria was born. Jon even cut the cord which I totally didn't expect him to do. My Dr was super surprised that I was able to give birth vaginally. All I could tell her was that when I put my mind to something, I do it. And if someone tells me I can't do something, I'm DEFINITELY going to do it! I wasn't about to go through 20 hours of labor and then just be cut open anyway.
Aria Bente Hiort was born Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 10:38pm weighing 6lbs, 13oz and was 20 inches long.
Aria was born July 14, 2010 at 10:38pm. She weighed 6lbs 13oz, and was 20 inches long.
Here she is just minutes old.
such tiny fingers..
being weighed for the first time.
love at first sight.
well hello there!
I thought she was beautiful the day we met. Now she's a week old and getting cuter every day! <3 
even her goofy, winking, fussy face.
I love my little girl.
well due to popular demand i took another pregnancy photo. i think week 19 looks the same as 30... i've gained at least 20lbs since then though! 
she's getting stronger every day and sometimes makes me uncomfortable with how hard she's pushing out on her confining walls.
oh. and my belly button is threatening to become an outie. i'll keep ya updated on it's progress. i'm sure you're all very interested in my belly button. alas, these are the most exciting things going on in my life.
there's really not a whole lot goin on in other baby news. we're just waiting for the weeks to pass. i'm so ready for her.
here are a few baby things that are making me happy though:
i can't wait to have a really awesome book collection. we are just getting started and i love it!
newborn clothes washed and folded. bottles sanitized. check and check.
and of course, who doesn't love:
baby shoes!
i hope you all were enthralled with my update. gimme a few more weeks (about 10) and i'll have some much more exciting photos for ya!
We went in for our "BIG ultrasound" on Monday. I've been so impatient to find out the sex of this baby. I don't know how anyone waits till birth. I couldn't do it. I was getting anxious just waiting for the technician to get all the other measurements she needed to first. The tech also made me worry that we wouldn't be able to tell that day saying it was a little on the early side and baby was wiggling around a LOT. But finally she got a good shot and said it is:
"DEFINITELY a GIRL!!"
here a a couple pics from the ultra sound: She looks like an alien...
We are so excited to be having a girl! We haven't bought anything yet. We've been waiting to find out if we were having a girl or boy. So after the big news we HAD to go shopping:
My friend Katrina was visiting this past weekend and went to the ultrasound with us. She bought us these adorable outfits:
And last, but not least, a pic of my belly.
Almost halfway there. 19 wks!
i know i'm the worst blogger ever... maybe someday i'll be better.
lots has happened since the last time i wrote. well. about 4 major things anyway.
1st- both jon and i lost our jobs on the same day. i don't know if anyone else has been in the unemployed situation recently,but it's near impossible to find a job right now. we looked everywhere. but after almost of month of no income and bills piling up, our future looked more and more like we'd be living in our car soon if we didn't find jobs.
2nd- i've wanted to move out of utah for about 10 years now, so when Kristian, my sister Kira's husband said he could guarantee he could get me a job at UPS and we could stay at their house till we got back on our feet, we decided to take the plunge and move cross-country. We sold EVERYTHING we owned at a big yardsale and took with us only what fit in our car. (which ended up being mostly just my clothes, our movies, and our awesome gaming system collection. as well as our king size bed tied to the roof.)
3rd- unfortunately we discovered that we didn't love cincinnati quite as much as kira and kristian do. work was as hard to find as it was in utah (tho i did get that guaranteed job at UPS), and after we'd been there for 2 months we found out that we are pregnant! we knew we didn't want to raise a family there so--
4th- when jon got a job offer in kansas, we decided to move again. Things just started falling into place since we found out about the baby and decided on kansas. we got a ourselves a little apartment (and everything we needed to fill it, thanks to jon's generous friends). We already have a bunch of good friends here and tonz of support and advice.
"the kid" is due July 20th. we're both hoping for a girl, but we won't find out till halfway through feb.
any bets on if you'll see another update before then???
