It turns out that Jolee has super sensitive skin like her Daddy. She easily gets rashes. One of the brands of diapers that we tried gave her a very bad rash, so we tried desitin (didn't work). Her poor little rash just didn't seem to be getting any better. We have been changing her diaper every hour to 2 hours to ensure that she stays clean and dry, but even this didn't help. We tried letting her be naked to air out her bum, didn't help. So we called and spoke with her doctor. They told us to try and antifungal and a steroid cream, this not only didn't help, but made her rash from a little one to a big nasty terrible make the baby cry and cry bad rash, so we instantly stopped using it. We figure she is sensitive to the creams. So we took her in to her doctor and now we are using a mixture of Maalox and Vaseline on her bum. Suprisingly, it is working great and her bum is finally starting to look better. I am so glad we have something that work for our little girl.
Oh and when we took her in, she was weighed and is now 10lbs. She no longer fits in newborn diapers and is in size 1. She is growing too fast.
On the diaper front, we are still planning on using cloth diapers (go figure, I actually prefer them), but with the heavy usage of vaseline, we are having to use disposables. The vaseline would kill the cloth diapers. So once her tush is healed, it is back to cloth.
Saturday, June 20
Being a Mom
Being a Mom is one of the best things ever. I so enjoy every bit of it. Even the late night feedings and diaper changes. Jolee and I have just been relaxing and getting to know each other these last few weeks (she is going to be 3 weeks tomorrow, yikes!). She is such a happy baby. She loves to smile at me when I talk to her. Big gummy smiles. She has learned to enjoy riding in her sling and goes everywhere with me. She gets too many ohhhs and awwws whenever we go out. The biggest challenge is keeping strangers from putting their hands on her (the problem of being simply adorable). This week we made our first trip outside of the home without Randy. We went to Randy's school to visit him during his lunch break. It was so wonderful to get to see him. Usually he is gone from 7am to 9:30pm on school days, so we end up missing him all day. It was definitely worth the extra effort to see him. His classmates are super sweet and gave Jolee a bunch of girlie clothes (most of her clothing is neutral, but I bought a bunch of bows that help everyone know she is a girl). Jolee and I spend a lot of time snuggling and cuddling. I am completely captivated by my little girl. I thought I would enjoy being a mommy, but I never knew it would make me this happy. Hurray for Jolee!
Monday, June 15
Bed Rest
Because I was feeling great, I decided that it was okay to be out and about 4 days after giving birth. This was a big mistake, the following day I started bleeding again and I earned a few days of bed rest. We made a little nest of pillow and blankets on the futon and Jolee and I hung out for a few days.
I learned my lesson and I have been taking it super easy. Thank-you so much to Samantha, Lindy, Lisa, and Leann for babysitting me :) A super super thank-you to Randy for continually watching over me, helping me, changing diapers, burping the baby, doing all the chores, making me food, and keeping me entertained. I definitely have one of the best husbands in the world!
Oh and don't worry, I am all better now and feeling great once again, but I will continue to take it easy.
Jolee's Birth Story
Just to prepare you, this is going to be a very long post containing a few of the more gory details.
This story has a bit of back ground details, so be prepared. During nursing school, I had a labor and delivery rotation where I got to go to TMC and shadow L&D nurses and help deliver babies. You'd think that this would be a wonderful experience, full of joy and excitement, but it wasn't. To be perfectly honest, I was horrified by how laboring mothers were treated. It reminded me of a medieval torture room. In my eyes, the nurses and OBs would tie the women to their beds and force them to try to push uphill to get their baby out. The women had next to no say about how their delivery would go. Often, medical treatments were done that were not required just for the comfort of the medical staff, not of the mom or baby. After the baby was born, it was taken from its mother and sent to a room where it would be scrubbed down. The mothers were all very uncomfortable and pain was mentioned over and over again. This was definitely not the "hooray I am having a baby" experience that I had always dreamed of having when I had a baby. In fact, I was terrified at the idea of having a baby in the hospital.
Thankfully, part of my L&D rotation required that I go to the Birth Center to see an alternative way of doing things. Night and day difference in the treatment of the mothers. The most amazing difference was how the midwives acted. Shadowing the midwives helped me to see that having a baby could be that joyous experience that I always wanted. I also found out the the Birth Center does GYN care also, so I signed up to be a patient. I have been a patient at the birth center for going on 4 years and have had wonderful experiences. (Honestly, who can say that having an annual well women's visit is wonderful?) I knew that when Randy and I had a baby, I wanted to have him or her at the birth center.
This is how we ended up choosing the Birth Center as the location.
Another piece to Jolee's birth that was started by school was the use of a doula. One of the lectures for the L&D class was done by a doula. After hearing about what a doula is and what she does, I decided that a doula would be a perfect addition to our baby's birth, but now I had to find a doula. I was extremely blessed in that a wonderful lady in my old ward just happened to be a super doula. I had decided that when I got pregnant that I would ask her to be my doula and when we asked, she accepted. Anita also happens to be HypnoBabies trained and she introduced us to this form of birthing. We took our classes and did our homework and worked and worked on training me in self-hypnosis (I know some of you may be skeptical when thinking of hypnosis, but it works, believe me). The theory behind hypno babies is that the mother chooses not have pain but to have pressure and chooses to be relaxed for the baby's birth. I realized that I never knew how powerful the mind is in how I experience pain, etc. Through my training with hypno babies, I was prepared for Jolee's birth.
The weeks prior to her birth, I had had many many preppies (braxton-hicks), but none of them were regular and they didn't really cause me pain, occasional discomfort but not enough to stop me from working. The Tuesday night before I had Jolee, I had tons of preppies, in fact, I was a little nervous that I was going into the birthing time (labor). This was a bad thing because Anita was in Hawaii. I ended up working Wednesday (I was super cranky, my poor coworkers), and luckily, the preppies stopped halfway through the day. I ended up taking the following day off to rest because of how icky Wednesday was with all of the preppies. I slept all day Thursday and most of the day Friday and then went back to work on Saturday. Saturday was uneventful at work and I hardly had any preppies. So I left working, completely expecting to be going back to work on Monday. I got home, showered, ate dinner, and then went to bed. I actually wrote in my journal that night "I feel like it is getting closer and closer to time for baby." I never knew how right I was.
Sunday at 1230am I got up for my usual midnight bathroom break (poor tiny squished bladder). As I am washing my hands, I feel the need to go again (very weird) and water gushed out of me. I was wondering if my water had broken or not. So in my half asleep state, I decided it hadn't and I went back to bed. The moment I laid down, I felt the need to go again and had water gush from me again. This time, I really thought about it and realized that it had to be my water breaking. So, I climb into bed and shake Randy to wake him up. As soon as I get him semi alert, i tell him that I think my water broke. He was pretty confused. I asked him "what do we do know?" He looked at me and said "I don't know." We sat there for about a minute and then he told me to call Anita. So I call Anita, then I call my midwife. The midwife on call, just happened to be our favorite midwife, Cece. We absolutely love her. So Cece told us to met her at the birth center. I took a quick shower while Randy packed the car. When I got out and dressed, Randy was doing some last minute car loading, by this time I was having some pretty strong pressure waves (contractions). I told Randy that we had to leave right now, no more packing, time to go. We got to the birth center around 2:30am. I was already 4 cm dilated and 100% effaced. The pressure waves were now 3-4 minutes apart and were really strong. I couldn't get myself under my hypnosis because of how quickly everything started, I didn't get to get under control before I got rammed into active labor. I was started to panic because of how intense the pain was and I was shaking like crazy. Randy was doing everything he could think of to help me use my hypnosis, but to no avail. At this time, super Anita arrive and came to our rescue. She hopped up on the bed with me and quickly help both Randy and I to calm down and I was able to get back in charge/control and I was able to use my hypnosis. The relief was amazing. After some time (no clue how long), I started to get back labor and I decided that I wanted to try laboring in the shower while sitting on a birthing ball. Our nurse was concerned I might slip and suggested that I use the birthing stool instead. I tried it and it was hurting my poor bum, so I chucked it out of the shower and Anita ran and got the birthing ball for me. I used Randy to support me and I went completely under using my hypnosis and I was super calm and labor was actually (okay don't hate me) easy. My back labor started again, so I used a technique from the book "Back Labor No More" call the belly lift technique and my back labor stopped instantly which helped me to be so much more comfortable and sped my labor. In no time, I started to feel like I needed to push. My nurse got the tub ready and check me. I was full dilated but had a small lip (a tiny part of the cervix that just doesn't want to dilate). So I headed to the birthing tub to start pushing. The water felt so nice, in fact, I think I fell asleep between some of the pushes. Around 4:50am, I started pushing. Anita climbed behind me and sat on the edge of the tub and supported me while I pushed away. After pushing for a while and not getting much progress, we tried a few different positions. And I ended up on my hands and knees. This position was the key and I was able to push much more easily. With the baby's head out, her face came out of the water and she started to breath and then her face went back under (not good). With Cece and the nurse's quick care, they quickly held the baby out of the water and emptied the tub so that the baby's head would stay out of the water and I quickly pushed her the rest of the way out. Randy was able to catch her and as he handed her to me, he said "you were right" and something about that the baby was a girl, our little Jolee. I was such an amazing, powerful, and emotional experience. As I held her, I just cried and cried. Pushing her out was very hard work, but oh so worth it. After the umbilical cord stopped pulsating, Randy cut the cord and he took Jolee while Cece, Anita, and the nurse helped me to the bed where I delivered the placenta (a huge placenta at 1 lb 13 oz). At this point, I started to bleed and earned a shot of pitocin to help stop the bleeding. I stopped bleeding right away. Randy, Jolee and I laid in bed together and snuggled and bonded for over an hour before we asked for her to be weighed and measured. The three of use spent the day lounging at the Birth Center. It was joyous experience that I had always wanted. I was able to do exactly as I had planned, deliver my baby without the use of pain medications or epidural, at the birth center, all natural, and in the water. Randy was the best birth partner ever. He was constantly reminded me of his love for me and doing anything and everything that I asked of him. He also told me how proud he was of me and what an amazing job I was doing. His support was definitely perfect. I am so grateful for him! We are so blessed to have been able to have this opportunity and for our darling daughter!
This story has a bit of back ground details, so be prepared. During nursing school, I had a labor and delivery rotation where I got to go to TMC and shadow L&D nurses and help deliver babies. You'd think that this would be a wonderful experience, full of joy and excitement, but it wasn't. To be perfectly honest, I was horrified by how laboring mothers were treated. It reminded me of a medieval torture room. In my eyes, the nurses and OBs would tie the women to their beds and force them to try to push uphill to get their baby out. The women had next to no say about how their delivery would go. Often, medical treatments were done that were not required just for the comfort of the medical staff, not of the mom or baby. After the baby was born, it was taken from its mother and sent to a room where it would be scrubbed down. The mothers were all very uncomfortable and pain was mentioned over and over again. This was definitely not the "hooray I am having a baby" experience that I had always dreamed of having when I had a baby. In fact, I was terrified at the idea of having a baby in the hospital.
Thankfully, part of my L&D rotation required that I go to the Birth Center to see an alternative way of doing things. Night and day difference in the treatment of the mothers. The most amazing difference was how the midwives acted. Shadowing the midwives helped me to see that having a baby could be that joyous experience that I always wanted. I also found out the the Birth Center does GYN care also, so I signed up to be a patient. I have been a patient at the birth center for going on 4 years and have had wonderful experiences. (Honestly, who can say that having an annual well women's visit is wonderful?) I knew that when Randy and I had a baby, I wanted to have him or her at the birth center.
This is how we ended up choosing the Birth Center as the location.
Another piece to Jolee's birth that was started by school was the use of a doula. One of the lectures for the L&D class was done by a doula. After hearing about what a doula is and what she does, I decided that a doula would be a perfect addition to our baby's birth, but now I had to find a doula. I was extremely blessed in that a wonderful lady in my old ward just happened to be a super doula. I had decided that when I got pregnant that I would ask her to be my doula and when we asked, she accepted. Anita also happens to be HypnoBabies trained and she introduced us to this form of birthing. We took our classes and did our homework and worked and worked on training me in self-hypnosis (I know some of you may be skeptical when thinking of hypnosis, but it works, believe me). The theory behind hypno babies is that the mother chooses not have pain but to have pressure and chooses to be relaxed for the baby's birth. I realized that I never knew how powerful the mind is in how I experience pain, etc. Through my training with hypno babies, I was prepared for Jolee's birth.
The weeks prior to her birth, I had had many many preppies (braxton-hicks), but none of them were regular and they didn't really cause me pain, occasional discomfort but not enough to stop me from working. The Tuesday night before I had Jolee, I had tons of preppies, in fact, I was a little nervous that I was going into the birthing time (labor). This was a bad thing because Anita was in Hawaii. I ended up working Wednesday (I was super cranky, my poor coworkers), and luckily, the preppies stopped halfway through the day. I ended up taking the following day off to rest because of how icky Wednesday was with all of the preppies. I slept all day Thursday and most of the day Friday and then went back to work on Saturday. Saturday was uneventful at work and I hardly had any preppies. So I left working, completely expecting to be going back to work on Monday. I got home, showered, ate dinner, and then went to bed. I actually wrote in my journal that night "I feel like it is getting closer and closer to time for baby." I never knew how right I was.
Sunday at 1230am I got up for my usual midnight bathroom break (poor tiny squished bladder). As I am washing my hands, I feel the need to go again (very weird) and water gushed out of me. I was wondering if my water had broken or not. So in my half asleep state, I decided it hadn't and I went back to bed. The moment I laid down, I felt the need to go again and had water gush from me again. This time, I really thought about it and realized that it had to be my water breaking. So, I climb into bed and shake Randy to wake him up. As soon as I get him semi alert, i tell him that I think my water broke. He was pretty confused. I asked him "what do we do know?" He looked at me and said "I don't know." We sat there for about a minute and then he told me to call Anita. So I call Anita, then I call my midwife. The midwife on call, just happened to be our favorite midwife, Cece. We absolutely love her. So Cece told us to met her at the birth center. I took a quick shower while Randy packed the car. When I got out and dressed, Randy was doing some last minute car loading, by this time I was having some pretty strong pressure waves (contractions). I told Randy that we had to leave right now, no more packing, time to go. We got to the birth center around 2:30am. I was already 4 cm dilated and 100% effaced. The pressure waves were now 3-4 minutes apart and were really strong. I couldn't get myself under my hypnosis because of how quickly everything started, I didn't get to get under control before I got rammed into active labor. I was started to panic because of how intense the pain was and I was shaking like crazy. Randy was doing everything he could think of to help me use my hypnosis, but to no avail. At this time, super Anita arrive and came to our rescue. She hopped up on the bed with me and quickly help both Randy and I to calm down and I was able to get back in charge/control and I was able to use my hypnosis. The relief was amazing. After some time (no clue how long), I started to get back labor and I decided that I wanted to try laboring in the shower while sitting on a birthing ball. Our nurse was concerned I might slip and suggested that I use the birthing stool instead. I tried it and it was hurting my poor bum, so I chucked it out of the shower and Anita ran and got the birthing ball for me. I used Randy to support me and I went completely under using my hypnosis and I was super calm and labor was actually (okay don't hate me) easy. My back labor started again, so I used a technique from the book "Back Labor No More" call the belly lift technique and my back labor stopped instantly which helped me to be so much more comfortable and sped my labor. In no time, I started to feel like I needed to push. My nurse got the tub ready and check me. I was full dilated but had a small lip (a tiny part of the cervix that just doesn't want to dilate). So I headed to the birthing tub to start pushing. The water felt so nice, in fact, I think I fell asleep between some of the pushes. Around 4:50am, I started pushing. Anita climbed behind me and sat on the edge of the tub and supported me while I pushed away. After pushing for a while and not getting much progress, we tried a few different positions. And I ended up on my hands and knees. This position was the key and I was able to push much more easily. With the baby's head out, her face came out of the water and she started to breath and then her face went back under (not good). With Cece and the nurse's quick care, they quickly held the baby out of the water and emptied the tub so that the baby's head would stay out of the water and I quickly pushed her the rest of the way out. Randy was able to catch her and as he handed her to me, he said "you were right" and something about that the baby was a girl, our little Jolee. I was such an amazing, powerful, and emotional experience. As I held her, I just cried and cried. Pushing her out was very hard work, but oh so worth it. After the umbilical cord stopped pulsating, Randy cut the cord and he took Jolee while Cece, Anita, and the nurse helped me to the bed where I delivered the placenta (a huge placenta at 1 lb 13 oz). At this point, I started to bleed and earned a shot of pitocin to help stop the bleeding. I stopped bleeding right away. Randy, Jolee and I laid in bed together and snuggled and bonded for over an hour before we asked for her to be weighed and measured. The three of use spent the day lounging at the Birth Center. It was joyous experience that I had always wanted. I was able to do exactly as I had planned, deliver my baby without the use of pain medications or epidural, at the birth center, all natural, and in the water. Randy was the best birth partner ever. He was constantly reminded me of his love for me and doing anything and everything that I asked of him. He also told me how proud he was of me and what an amazing job I was doing. His support was definitely perfect. I am so grateful for him! We are so blessed to have been able to have this opportunity and for our darling daughter!
Sunday, June 14
When Jolee was born she was a little fussy for about two days. We could not lay her on her back, achange her diaper or clothes, or put her in her bed. We could tell that her breathing was labored and painful.Our Dula came over to check up on us and see how breast feeding was giong and suggested that we see a chiropractor. It turns out that we have some wonderful friends who happen to own a chiropractor office, we gave them a call and they came over that night and looked Jolee over. It turns out that her C1 vertabrea and a rib was out of place. Once he got those back into place, she was immediately a different baby. She is happy and quite mellow and a joy to have. Thanks to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and some wonderful friends.
FYI: this post and the previous post were both typed via chicken pecking. I happen to be holding Jolee at the time ;)
FYI: this post and the previous post were both typed via chicken pecking. I happen to be holding Jolee at the time ;)
here are somemore pictures for everyone to enjoy. They are all random pictures of her being absolutley adorable! It is not hard for her to do. She loves to lay on her side and will often wriggle around until she is on her side. We love our little wiggle worm!
Jolee will often smile at us with an occasional gummy grin joined with a tiny giggle.
Sarah, GrammE, and I went to Babies R us looking for girly dresses. We did not find any that we liked but this super cute head band caught my eye.
Jolee will often smile at us with an occasional gummy grin joined with a tiny giggle.
absolutely adorable in purple
Sarah, GrammE, and I went to Babies R us looking for girly dresses. We did not find any that we liked but this super cute head band caught my eye.
this the first dress that Jolee wore, thanks GrammE!
Wednesday, June 3
One Day Old
Here is our princess at 24 hours old with Daddy. I think he is in love!
Jolee with Mommy. Sorry that the video is sideways.
Just rocking happily
How much does she weigh?
Here is when we found out how much she weighs. Listen carefully and you can hear the nurse telling us how much the placenta weighed. The midwife and nurse were curious because it was so big.
{oops, last video and explanation were switched her she is being weighed. Lack of sleep can cause goofs:)}
Monday, June 1
Right verses Wrong
Thanks everyone for playing along and voting on what you thought the gender was going to be. But now it is time to tally the results and find out how many people were wrong. The results are in...
Boy
22 (59%)
Girl
15 (40%)
Now I do have to admit that these results have been rigged and jeopardised. We have received word that a certain someone, not me or Sarah, would place a vote for boy everytime that he would visit the blog. Thus, 22 people were not realy wrong. In all honesty Girls were probably in the lead the whole time. Good job, those that chose Girls.
Our little bundle of joy is a Girl.
Boy
22 (59%)
Girl
15 (40%)
Now I do have to admit that these results have been rigged and jeopardised. We have received word that a certain someone, not me or Sarah, would place a vote for boy everytime that he would visit the blog. Thus, 22 people were not realy wrong. In all honesty Girls were probably in the lead the whole time. Good job, those that chose Girls.
Our little bundle of joy is a Girl.
It's a Girl!!!
Our beautiful baby girl was born on Sunday May 31st at 5:52 am. The water broke at 12:30 and labor started at 1:00, which is when we knew for sure that the water had broken. We got to the Birth Center at 2:30. At about 5am Sarah started pushing. She pushed for an hour! Our little girl was born happy and healthy. She weighed 9.5 lbs and was 20.5 inches long. Her head was 35 cm in circumfrance and she had a body to match. We had a 100% natural child birth (water birth using hypno babies) and Sarah had no tearing. Momma and Baby are fine. Daddy is doing pretty good as well. Her name is Jolee Sarah Swann. We did not get any sleep for about 24 hours. We took a few short naps while at the Birth Center but did not get to drift blissfully into sleep. Jolee finally settled down and slept for three hours at about 12:30 this morning. It was a long day. Sarah tested positive for group b strep and thus had to have antibiotics before baby came during labor. The labor and delivery was so fast that she did not get to have her second round of antibiotics. Thus, we got to stay at the Birth Center for twelve hours. It was alright and we were pretty much left alone, one of the things that we LOVE about the Birth Center.
Our Little Jolee just seconds old
A few short hours old
Some time during the day
Princess Jolee dressed and ready to go home.
Our Little Jolee just seconds old
A few short hours old
Some time during the day
Princess Jolee dressed and ready to go home.
There will be more pictures and even some video in posts to come. The digital camera ended up going for a swim not once but twice, it does not turn on anymore. Luckily we had gotten a camcorder the Friday before and it has the option of doing stills or video. Hopefully we will be able to salvage the pictures from the digital camera.
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