Samuel Jonas Jensen

I can't believe its been so long since my last blog. I'm such a slacker. This takes more time than I remember, but it actually is quite relieving. Its nice to type it all down once and everyone can get informed. Maybe I can get this all typed if my kids can stay entertained for 5 minutes. Biggest news first, I'm sure everyone knows. We had our baby Saturday morning at 12:38. Everybody is healthy and doing great! I am about to tell my labor story. If you don't want to read it, then skip ahead. I dont think I'll put anything gross in there. lol

I had decided to labor naturally with this baby a couple of months ago. Things didn't go as I had planned. However, things worked out for the best and I would do it the same way under the circumstances. I decided, early Friday to go ahead and get induced by having the doctor rupture my water. He then gave me pitocin 4 hours later. I was very persistent prior to this that I was not going to have pitocin unless absolutely necessary. I was under the impression that I wouldn't have to have pitocin unless I had been ruptured for 18 hours. I knew there was risk of infection after that time and so I was ok to have pitocin if I hadn't gone into labor. I couldn't believe what the doctor said when I asked him why he wouldn't wait longer for the 4 hours after I had been ruptured to give me pitocin since I decided to not get an epidural. He said very bluntly "because I dont want to be here past midnight". I'm sorry, but you chose this profession doctor. Women go into labor through all hours of the night. I guess I should have figured as much from an OB. At this time I had no choice and I had already decided to go with it. Labor was going good until I got to a 4. lol. I felt like such a wimp, but the ruptured membrane makes labor more painful. They gave me pitocin shortly after I dilated to a 4. Pitocin is of the devil. My contractions went from being every 5-10 minutes to being every 3 minutes and the pain doubled. I think I'm going into too much detail, so I'll summarize more. It felt like an eternity and I thought I was going to die until I got to an 8. The nurse turned the pitocin off which I thought would reduce the pain, but I was getting into transition (the worst part in my opinion) and I didn't know what pain was until now. The pushing didn't last long. I think I pushed 5 times and what a relief it was to push the baby out. I remember Robbin talking to me about the "ring of fire" when the baby was crowning. That is a perfect explanation of what it feels like, along with feeling like I was being ripped apart. As soon as the cord was cut I got to hold Sammy skin to skin. I was big on the skin to skin with the baby from hearing all the benifits of it. I couldn't believe he was finally in my arms. He was so perfect! He stopped crying as soon as he heard my voice. That is my favorite part of delivering a baby. He started looking around for me. Curtis and I looked at eachother and started crying. I got to hold him for a few minutes then the respiratory specialist took him to check him out. I then got to hold him skin to skin for a while longer. Recovery went well and quick. Sammy never cried in the hospital unless he was being poked. He's such a good baby, we're so blessed to have him. He's a very good addition to our family. I think he'll be the peacemaker among Artie and Kayla. I remember he gave his first smile to Brianna shortly after being born. She was such a big part of this and we couldn't have done it without her that I'm so glad she got to share that special moment with Sam. I think I got the second smile and Faith got the third smile. =) Both Curtis and Brianna were amazing! Brianna really helped keep me as calm as possible and relieve the pain as much as possible. She really was great with Curtis. She helped him and told him what to do to help me and be a support for me. That was so fantastic to have Curtis there with me and not freaking out. He was calm and very loving. He was so worried that I was going to say "I hate you. This is all your fault" at some point. I was pretty nice. I dont think I said anything rude. I remember saying that I wanted to die, which would have been the only thing that would have been able to stop the pain. I'm glad my wish didn't come true. lol.

I want to thank everyone for supporting me and being there for me through this time. Thanks to all the loving family that came and saw us at the hospital and for the gifts and love you brought. Thank you so much to Bonnie mom and Kristina for taking care of the kids so Curtis could be there the whole time with me. And a very very special thankyou to Brianna. I really could not have done this without you. You are so amazing to stay here waiting patiently for the baby to come when your husband was at home. Thank you so much for all the help you gave to me and Curtis before, during and after Sam was born. I will never forget the love you have for me to do what you did for me. You are very special and will make an awesome Doula! Thanks to Mark too for letting your wife stay down here to be a part of Sam's birth.

Whew! I'm glad thats done. I think thats the longest blog I'll ever write. Time for pictures... =)

Love you all!