Easton's birth story

I want to record Easton's birth story before I totally forget it.  It didn't happen at all like I had imagined it would and it still amazes me that everything turned out as well as it did.  Just a warning...this might be TMI for some...okay, I warned you. :)

Wednesday May 2nd I had my last Dr's appt.  I was still measuring a week ahead (like I had been since about week 30) but I was still only dilated to a 1 and 60% effaced (3 weeks of this...)  My doctor set up an induction for May 8th at 6 AM.  I left the appt. happy to know that I only had 6 more days being pregnant!

Friday May 4th I woke up in the early morning hours to use the bathroom and thought I lost my mucous plug.  I wasn't exactly sure but figured that's all it could be.  Declan and I went for our daily walk with my friend Krista and her girls and went about my day like usual.

Saturday May 5th I woke up again in the early morning hours and had fluid leaking again - I figured it was still my plug.  I had read somewhere that it can come out for a few days so I wasn't thinking that it could be anything else.  We went to the farmer's market that morning and then came home and put Declan down for a nap.  Later, we were getting ready to go the park and I had more fluid come out - this time it was more than the other times and it occurred to me that my water may had broken?  I was apprehensive though since I had always heard of this big gush of water that comes and just doesn't stop.  I had a few pains that evening but nothing out of the ordinary.

Sunday May 6th AGAIN the leaking continued in the early morning hours.  When I woke up for real that morning I started looking up things online about water breaking but only a little coming out.  Apparently, it's really common so I called the Dr. on call and he said to watch for it this morning and if it continued to go to the hospital.  So of course I wait for it to happen all morning and it doesn't...until noon!  I had been having irregular contractions that morning also.  I called Krista and asked her if she could take Declan to church so we could go to the hospital to get it checked out.  So around 1:15 Declan headed to church with our friends and Zach and I drove to the hospital.  Both of us thought we would be coming home in a few hours.....

When we got to the hospital they hooked me up to monitor any contractions I was having - which I happened to be having every 4 minutes.  The nurse checked me and I was still only dilated to a 1.  When she said this Zach and I just looked at each other and said, well at least we know we'll be having a baby by Tuesday at least!  The nurse then did a cotton swab test to check to see if my water had broken.  She sent it to the lab and told us we should find out soon.

About a half hour later a different nurse came in and started pulling out all these pillows for me and told me to lay on my side and that they were going to make me comfortable since I was going to be admitted to the hospital.  I said, "what do you mean?"  She then told us that the test results came back and that my water had broken!  Zach and I were shocked and excited to know that it was really happening!

I got out of bed and Zach and I walked around the hospital for awhile to see if we could get this moving a little faster.  Dr. Kaminsky came in to check my progress around 6 and I was at a 2 and was starting to have some stronger contractions.  He said he didn't want to start me on pitocin quite yet and that he though nature should run it's course.  I am so glad he didn't try and rush it.  He did advise me to get the epidural soon though so I could sleep - best idea ever.

Around 8 or 9, I can't really remember, I got the epidural and tried watching a movie with Zach but sleep won.  I was sleeping pretty peacefully when around 10 PM my nurse came rushing into my room, moving around the monitors and then throwing an oxygen mask at me and telling me to take deep breaths.  We had no idea what was going on.  Another nurse came in and they were just staring at the monitors trying to figure out why the baby's heartbeat and my blood pressure was dropping.  Dr. Kaminsky came in and they decided to do some internal monitoring.  After 15 long minutes things calmed down and they then told us that the baby's heartbeat got into the low 40's suddenly.  They watched for awhile to make sure his heartbeat was regulated and then they checked me again.  Now I was at a 3.  Dr. Kaminsky said he still didn't want to hook me up to pitocin and told me to get some more rest.

It's not easy sleeping in a hospital especially when the blood pressure machine is continually beeping because it thinks I'm dead...haha.  I have low blood pressure normally but it just gets lower when I'm in labor.  Same thing happened with Declan.  The next few hours were kind of a blur...around 4 AM the nurse checked me and said I was at a 7.  She told me if I started to feel any pressure to be sure to let her know.  I didn't feel anything and went back to sleep.  I could tell the nurse and Zach were getting anxious to get this baby out.  I, however, was perfectly happy to sleep more!

Around 5:45 AM the nurse checked me again and told me that we were going to start doing some practice pushes.  I pushed twice and she said, "whoa, okay stop!"  His head's right there, I need to call the Dr.  I couldn't believe it.  I pushed for 2 hours with Declan!  When she came back in the room she said, "he's in the shower, he'll be here in a half hour."  It still makes me laugh to think I just sat there waiting for Dr. Kaminsky.  He got to my room at 6:20 and scrubbed in.  I pushed 4 more times and he was OUT at 6:31 AM.

They placed him on me and I really thought to myself, "there's no way he's as big as Declan was."  The nurse cleaned him off and put him on the scale.  I was the only one in the room who couldn't see the scale but I heard one nurse say to the other nurse, "did you zero that out before you put him on that?!"  She said, "yes, I did, he really is that big."  That's when they told me that he weighed in at 9 lbs. 14 oz!  A whole pound and 2 ounces bigger than Declan.  I hope this isn't a trend because I don't want my next baby to be 11 pounds!  He measured in at 21.5 inches (half an inch longer than Declan.)

Overall, this labor experience was much better.  Which is nice since Declan's really wasn't that bad.  This time around though, I had control of my epidural so I wasn't so numb that I couldn't feel the contractions while pushing.  I felt plenty this time around but it was a good thing.  I think it also helped that I wasn't on pitocin - thank you Dr. Kaminsky!  He was really amazing.  I was definitely tired afterwards but I wasn't exhausted like I was after having Declan.  Anyway, here he is....

Easton Bennett Oswald

9 lbs. 14 oz

21.5 inches

Easton gave Declan some dinosaurs, which he loves!!

We had to stay at the hospital an extra day because Easton was slightly jaundice so they wanted to monitor him.  Luckily, he never needed the light treatment.  We loved our stay at St. Mary's though - the nurses and everyone were amazing.  They even took Easton to the nurses station at night so I could get some sleep and would bring him back to me when he wanted to eat.  It was great!

This is us right before going home.

"the really BIG play place!"

We took Declan to Chuck E Cheese in Kennewick for the first time in April.  We told him we were going to a play place (that's what he calls the children's museum in Walla Walla).  When we got there he kept saying, "the really big play place!!"  He had so much fun playing all the games.  We had a coupon for a 100 tokens but his favorite thing of course was the free play area.  It took us almost 4 hours to use all those tokens!  We left with some play doh, a play spider, a fake nerf gun, and some candy.  He was exhausted by the end and totally crashed in the car on the way home!

Gotta love the great faces he's starting to pull when I get out the camera!

Easter

The weekend before Easter we went to an Easter egg hunt at the Community College here.  They had it split up in age categories and Declan got a ton of eggs!  He loved opening them to find chocolate. :)

  

The next weekend we went to another Easter egg hunt at Pioneer Park.  He definitely knew what was going on and we left with more chocolate eggs.

Here's a picture of Declan in his handsome Easter outfit.  He absolutely loves getting and wearing new clothes.  Is this normal for a 2 year old boy?  I don't really care if it is, I think it's awesome.  He loves it when he gets new clothes and we comment on how handsome he looks!

I love these two boys!  Every night before bed, Declan gives Zach the biggest hug and usually begs him to sleep in his bed with him.  Declan is definitely a daddy's boy!  I can't wait to add another handsome little guy to our family!

Snow and Puddles!

We finally had a semi good snow day in March!  This is the only time this year that Declan was able to wear all his snow gear.  He was so excited to play in the snow and throw snowballs.  He also made his first snow angel.  

We were outside for a few hours and by the end all the snow was gone and we had these huge puddles in the parking lot.  He had so much fun splashing around in the puddles.

When we came in he was soaking wet!  I stripped him down and he decided to run around in circles pretending to be an Indian in his diaper. :)

Idaho

After we got back from Oregon, my parents stayed for a few days and then Declan and I drove back to Idaho with them.  Declan loves being at his grandparent's houses.  He asks to go all the time and I always feel so bad when I have to tell him that they live too far away.  

Declan loves to watch Jungle Book in my parent's bed.

Declan kept asking me if he could sleep in the "Bella" bed but I was too nervous about him falling out so he slept in my old bed.

While we were in Rexburg we got to see my friend, Ashlie, and finally meet her little girl, Everlie.  Declan loved Everlie!  It was so fun to spend a few hours with them.  I miss hanging out with Ashlie and we don't get to see each other nearly enough.  We're due 2 days apart (both with boys) so we had to take a picture together.

 haha, this one of Declan makes me laugh!

 trying to get a picture of Declan with my parents but none of them are ready for it. :)

We also spent some time in Idaho Falls with Zach's family.  Zach drove down Friday night after work, had an interview on Saturday in Idaho Falls and then we all drove back to Walla Walla on Sunday.  Really quick trip for Zach!  The interview there went well and he was actually offered that job but the only benefit of it was that it is located by family.  Unfortunately, the more we looked into the job and spoke with former doctors that had worked there we found out it was definitely not a good place to be!  Anyway, here are Declan and Paige together.  This was the first time they had seen each other since Christmas and they were so cute jumping in the crib together and squealing!

7th Anniversary

Zach and I celebrated our 7th Anniversary on February 19th by going on a mini vacation/job interview to Bend, Oregon.  My parents drove up to Walla Walla the day before we left and stayed with Declan.  It was so fun to get away for a little while!  On our way to Bend, Zach surprised me with a new camera!  We have a nice SLR camera but it's a little too bulky to take everywhere so he got a nice little point a shoot and I love it!  Here's the first picture ever taken with the new camera.  Zach will love this. :)

Anyway, we left on Friday afternoon around 4 and got to our hotel in Redmond around 8:30.  The drive from Walla Walla to Redmond is quite boring.  There were only a few little towns that we drove through and luckily we had a full tank of gas since by the time we were driving through everything was closed.  It was a little weird.  The next day we drove around Redmond in the morning for a little bit to see it in day light.  Zach then had a working interview where he performed eye exams on the staff and their family members for a few hours.  After that was done him and I were able to go to lunch and then we both went to the office and met up with Dr. Sheldon who was interviewing Zach.  Dr. Sheldon drove us around to all the different offices (he has 4 in the area) and showed us around all the different towns around Redmond.  It was really nice of him and we really enjoyed the areas he showed us.  After a few hours of driving around we went back to the hotel and rested up a bit before going to dinner in Bend with Dr. Sheldon and his wife.  The restaurant they took us to was amazing and it was fun to see parts of Bend.  

The next day was Sunday, we got up early and headed to church with Dr. Sheldon and his family.  We wanted to check out a ward in the area.  Afterwards we drove back to Bend and spent the day walking around the Old Mill District.  It was great to see Bend in daylight.  It is such a gorgeous city!  This is the only picture we got of the two of us during our trip. (I swear my face gains 10 lbs itself when I'm pregnant...)

We had so much fun on our mini vacation!  We left feeling really good about the interview and thinking that if Zach was offered the position we would probably say yes!  Zach kept in really good contact with Dr. Sheldon during the next month.  In the middle of March Dr. Sheldon called and offered the position to Zach!  He gave him all the details of the job over the phone and asked him to think about it and let him know as soon as we could.  Well, we had been talking about it for a month so we talked about it for about 10 minutes and Zach called him back and accepted the job!  haha.  It's so crazy to know where we will be and have a real job.  I'm SO proud of Zach.  He has worked so very hard the last 5 years plus the 4 of undergrad to get where he is going now.  So, Zach will be the newest optometrist at Central Oregon Eyecare.  We'll be moving to Redmond on June 30th.  The next 2 months are going to be a little stressful but I'm sure we'll survive!  

What did Declan do while we were gone?  Beat up on Papa Pat...

He had fun with my mom also but the only pictures I have of them together, my mom is in her pajamas and I don't think she would like me posting those! :)