Aiden's Birth Story

Hi, everyone! It’s been a while since we last posted anything, but I felt like a birth story was a worthy thing to share. If it’s not your cup of tea, don’t bother to read – I won’t be offended at all! But if you are all for hearing the details, read on!

Our story of little Aiden has been a work in progress for a little while now. At the end of 2018 we decided we were ready for another little one to join our family. It took a couple months but we weren’t stressed. I had spent time talking with my sister about it as we swapped experiences since they were trying, too. Then one day I was so excited because my sister called with good news! That kind of sparked the realization in me that my cycle was late… 4 days late. I mentioned it to my sister and she commended me for my patience in not taking a test. I giggled over it, but started to realize that maybe I should be taking one. Every other time I just had this gut feeling I was pregnant and knew immediately. I hadn’t really noticed anything this time, so I wasn’t convinced I would see a positive test. I guess I just figured maybe my cycle hadn’t normalized again yet and I was having an “off” month with timing. However, I decided to pull out an old dollar story test I had stashed away while Caleb was at Taekwondo class that night. Immediately the positive came up. I was a bit amazed and kept staring at it thinking the result would change or I was reading it wrong. Finally, I accepted that it was in fact, positive, and sent off a pic and a quick text to Caleb. On a side note… I seriously admire you ladies that do cute pregnancy reveals for your spouses! I spill the beans immediately and in the most un-creative ways possible. 

I typically have relatively easy pregnancies. I get sick, yes, but it’s nothing compared to my sister’s pregnancies so I just count my blessings and try not to complain. Maybe my body was more out of practice this time, because within the first 2 months I had issues cropping up. I broke out in a severe rash out of the blue. At an appointment with my psychiatrist she noticed it and got really nervous that it was a reaction to a medication I was on. She ordered me to stop the medication immediately and got me in for an emergency visit with a dermatologist. The dermatologist was stumped. She wasn’t sure what it was but after hearing I was pregnant, she said she couldn’t give me the normal treatment they would give in this situation. After conferring with other dermatologists, they said they were pretty sure it was polymorphic light eruption, an allergic reaction to the sunlight. They needed to take a biopsy to rule out the medication reaction. I couldn’t get any steroids or regular treatment for it so it just had to run its course, but they also discovered I developed psoriasis as well. My skin was just freaking out those first months of pregnancy! Ultimately the rash was a sunlight issue and no big deal at all.

My first appointment was on June 28th and was just the typical appointment. Heartrate was 168 and strong.



On July 18th we had our second appointment and I found out that things weren't going quite as smoothly as I'd thought. When the doc came in she said "I'd like to do another ultrasound to check on your bleed." "Oh...I don't have a bleed," I told her. She looked down and peered at the computer again and then said "actually, you do. A subchorionic bleed." And then she showed me the dark spot on the previous ultrasound. She had been out of town at my first appointment and no one is allowed to tell you about things like that unless they're the doctor, so that's why I hadn't been notified. I was kind of glad that I hadn't had to stress for weeks since I had no clue! Thankfully the new ultrasound showed that the bleed had resolved itself and baby was still doing excellent with a heartrate of 164.

I was a lot sicker this pregnancy than I was with my other boys, so we were leaning towards thinking it was a girl. With Evelynn I was puking every.single.day for about the first ¾ of the pregnancy. I wasn’t that bad, but I was definitely worse than the other boys. Needless to say, when we found out we were having a boy, I was stunned. It took a bit to sink in and full accept, but as soon as it did, we were thrilled! We had to wait patiently for our anatomy scan til almost 22 weeks, so when I hit the 20 week  mark, I did some pictures to document. 

At the ultrasound we didn't even need the tech to tell us it was a boy, it was obvious! He had the hiccups going on and had the cutest little nose! 

From then on, everything was going great until Christmas time hit. We had a lot of things going on around then and at my appointment on the 16^th my blood pressure was high. The doctor and I talked about the importance of trying to lower my stress levels but that’s easier said than done, right? Right after Christmas I was monitoring my blood pressure at home because my feet had been super swollen and I’d been having a headache and my blood pressure was through the roof! I called the office to see if they could get me in to just check and run a protein test to make sure there was no protein, but when the nurse heard the numbers, she said she felt more comfortable if I’d just go straight in to L&D for monitoring. I really didn’t want to, but we did. The longer we were there, the more my blood pressure came down. There was no protein in my urine so after a couple hours they sent us on home. We had been planning to start getting out baby stuff once January hit, so that experience kind of kickstarted our baby prepping. 



A couple days later we did maternity pictures!

At my next appointment on Jan 2nd, I’m almost 36 weeks pregnant and exhausted. I tend to have tons of braxten hicks at the end and I was feeling miserable and exhausted. My doc did a cervix check and said I was 1, 50% effaced, and at a -2 station. My doc knew I really was hoping to avoid an induction (for the 4th time) so she was really excited about this. She said she thought I’d be ready to do a membrane sweep at my next appointment and that baby would quickly and smoothly make his arrival that week. If you want full honesty, I’ll confess that I walked out of there trying not to laugh. She had noooo clue how stubborn my cervix and babies are! It was no surprise to me when a week and a half later she was saying “wow, huh…. I REALLY thought you were going to have made more progress by now!” I couldn’t keep the laughter in at that point and decided to give a refresher on how my previous 3 labors/births had gone. I had made little-to-no change so we decided to go ahead and do a sweep, but we weren’t holding our breath that it was going to kickstart anything. Then we went ahead and scheduled an induction date for Jan 30th so that we could have things on the schedule. 

Throughout the whole pregnancy I’d known that there would be a chance my mom wouldn’t be able to help out with the kids because my sister was due 2 days after me but has much more difficult recoveries and lives in Washington. From the start it was pretty much the plan that my mom would go there to help and we were just hoping and praying it would work out that we wouldn’t be having our babies at the same time. Well, the day after my 37-week appointment my sister found out that she would be having her baby at 39 weeks due to her health and her baby’s health. She wasn’t able to schedule til her next appointment, but it became pretty clear that if my baby was to arrive on the 30th, there was very little chance my mom would be around for it. I became even more miserable and extremely discouraged! I had tons of back pain, cramping, contractions, and Braxton hicks in the meantime, plus a lot of other signs things might be moving along in the days after the membrane sweep, but I didn’t really want to get my hopes up because two rounds of membrane sweeps were done with Evelynn and she STILL didn’t’ come out on her own and was just hanging in there while I was walking around miserable at a 4. I was expecting history to repeat itself and didn’t want to be crushed.

My next appointment wasn’t for 10 days so when the date rolled around, my sister had already been able to schedule her c-section. The date for her was the 28th, two days before our induction date. I’d resigned myself to having to figure out new plans for the kids, but was still holding out a bit of hope that maybe my doctor would take pity on me and have an opening for an induction sooner than we’d planned so that things could go the way I’d wanted. At my appointment (Thurs the 23rd), I was bitterly disappointed because there was no chance of being induced sooner. We did another cervix check and my bad mood was eased a bit to find out that I’d progressed to a 3. We decided to do another membrane sweep and make sure that it was a good one. Unfortunately, that also meant that it was extremely painful compared to my previous sweeps! My doc told me her last 5 sweeps had been successful within 48 hours so she was going to cross her fingers she wouldn’t see me at my next appointment on the 27th and that baby would make his arrival that weekend. 

After the sweep I.was.miserable! Inconsistent contractions were plaguing me, cramps, backaches… you name it. Evelynn had Tap class that night and Caleb drove us all instead of just me taking Evelynn because I was not feeling up for it at all. I admit my hopes were up that baby would come within that 48 hours the doc said the other mothers had, but that was not the case. 

I tried to stay pretty active the next day and was nesting like crazy. My sister and I met up and took our younger boys to a cousin lunch date at chick-fil-a and I was feeling super nauseous and crampy and still spotting from the membrane strip the day before. Once I had Liam off to preschool I went home and scrubbed bathrooms top to bottom and compiled a long, intensive list of things I “had” to get done. Like I said, the nesting bug was in full force! I was super hopeful that baby would make his arrival, but ultimately, another night went by with me not going into labor. 

Caleb had Drill the next morning so he was out the door shortly after 6 am. I woke up exhausted and emotional at 8 and started texting Caleb. I told me flat out that I was starting to give up hope that this kid would come out on his own. Discouragement was starting to set in. My parents called shortly after that point and asked if they could take the kids to the McCall Winter/Ice Festival with them that day so that if anything happened, I wouldn’t be scrambling for childcare. Part of me felt like such a lazy butt for saying “yes”, but the other half of me was so tired and emotional that I just didn’t care. I told them yes and then got up to find all the kids warm snow stuff to send with my parents on their little adventure. 

  

By 10 am they were off and I was left alone. It might have seemed like the perfect opportunity to nap in peace, but that nesting thing was still going on, so instead I did some cleaning and folding laundry and spent a good amount of time bouncing on an exercise ball. Around 10:30 my older sister txt me asking how things were going and told me to let her know if I needed anything or wanted to go on a walk or something… it was like she read my mind because I had been wanting to go for a walk but just couldn’t find the willpower to go alone! She came over a couple hours later and by 1 pm we were walking towards the Kuna greenbelt. That’s basically when the exciting parts of the story start.

We were slowly (I say slowly because I walk snail speed when I’m pregnant!) making our way across a crosswalk on the greenbelt when I suddenly felt a trickle. I told my sister “aww, crap! I think I just peed myself!” I remember hoping it wasn’t really obvious, so we just kept walking. We did one short loop and went up some rock stairs before heading back towards where we parked. I decided that I really needed to pee (Aiden had been low for several weeks but seemed to have dropped even lower and I was peeing every stinkin’ 10 minutes). We made our way towards the bathrooms that were by the parking lot only to discover that they were close due to vandalism. I was ticked! So we headed back to my house with every intention of walking the short greenbelt of my subdivision afterwards. 

When we got home I went to the bathroom to discover that when I had thought I peed my pants, it was more than just a little. So I had to do a quick outfit change. We decided to sit and just chitchat a bit before our walk… and then decided that maybe youtube had some kind of labor-inducing yoga to try. We spent a good hour or so making fun of the ridiculous things we watched and trying out some stretches/yoga poses. At that point I was getting a little tired out, but I really badly wanted to get my kids bedrooms put to rights and get their beds made… so my sister took mercy on me and helped. Afterwards I realized it was almost 3 pm and I’d kept her from her family for a couple hours, so I told her to go on home because nothing exciting was happening here. When she left, I locked the door and walked across my living room towards the bathroom, and it happened again…. The trickle. Did I seriously pee myself AGAIN, I wondered?!?!?!? I typed out a txt to my sister making fun of myself and another one to Caleb so he could laugh at me, and then it dawned on me…. Was it really pee?!?!? I mean, I had been peeing a lot lately, but I’ve never peed myself before…. I quickly edited the texts to add that it was weirding me out a bit so maybe I would just lay down and rest for a bit and see if it happened again, then hit send. 

Caleb came home around 4 and I hadn’t had the trickle again, so I decided I would chalk it up to me involuntarily peeing myself. But shortly after making that decision, I stood up and felt a trickle. I was starting to get a little anxious, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of nothing. I did NOT want a false alarm! I was tense and grumpy combined with the cramping and pains, so when my parents brought the kids back around 6:30, I wasn’t sure if I should say anything about what had happened. I decided to hold off and use the “wait and see” method. Because apparently it happening 3 times already wasn’t enough to convince me. After they left, we got the kids settled down from their long, exciting day and I slowly got to work putting them to bed. Then it happened again…. The trickle. At that point I was terrified and just wanted someone else to tell me what to do. I talked to Caleb who practically ordered me to call my mom or the doctor or SOMEONE so that we could decide whether to go in and be checked or just not worry about it. I told him I would…. And then waited another hour before actually doing it. I spent the time going back and forth on whether or not I should get my hopes up while I googled “can your water have a slow leak?” and “what does it feel like when your water breaks?” I was sitting down to pee every 5 minutes at that point and it didn’t really seem like pee… but I wasn’t really sure if it was my water, either. I was super confused, nervous, and wishing I could have a clear answer. 

Around 9 pm I finally got my nerves under control enough to call my mom. She pretty much told me the same thing Caleb had said which was, “better safe than sorry!” and that we should probably go in to be on the safe side. We decided that I would put a call in to L&D and see what they said, and then I would touch base with her on whether or not we would drop the kids off on our way into Nampa. It didn’t take long at all to get transferred to the right person who encouraged us to come on in. She said if it was nothing, we’d be in and out within an hour, but that she wasn’t really sure whether it was my water or not based on the story. The kids were practically asleep at that point, but we woke them up and told them we needed to go check on baby brother and they would get to sleep over at Grandma and Grandpa’s and started packing them some bags.

 It was after 9:30 when we got headed on our way. Caleb ran the kids in to my parents while I waited in the car. When we reached the hospital, we went in and got into the triage room. The nurses were super nice! My blood pressure was showing borderline high which they didn’t really like, but no proteins were showing in my urine so we just focused on doing an amnisure test. The monitor was picking up consistent contractions but they didn’t really feel like much more than braxten hicks to me, so I wasn’t concerned or paying any attention to it. I was uncomfortable but not in any more pain than I was earlier in the day. The first amisure test came back positive (they did it on my underwear) but then on me it came back negative, so again we were stuck in this awkward position of having no clue whether or not this was the real deal. The doc came in and said that we would do a speculum check and three steps from there… 1) if there was a gush with the speculum check, it was definitely my waters. 2) if the test on my cervix turned blue, it’s was definitely my waters. And 3) if neither or those happened, he would take a look under the microscope to determine whether or not it was my waters. 

Unfortunately for me… there was no easy answer with that, either. No gush. No blue. So, off he went to do a microscope check. By 11:30 pm he was back and the news was not what I’d hoped… he didn’t think it was my waters. I nearly broke down in tears! I’d just been peeing myself?!?!?!? How could that be?!?!?!? But alas, we were discharged and on our way home. We called my mom when we reached the car and filled her in, and the plan was for Caleb to go to drill the next morning and I would come go to church with them and get the kids the next morning. BUT….. Aiden had other plans for us. 

I was super nauseous on the way home and thought I was going to be sick. I figured it must be because it was midnight and I hadn’t eaten since before 7, so when we got home, I made myself a quick burrito from the freezer, drank some milk, had a small pity party, and then went to bed. 

At around 2:30 am I woke up to a painful contraction. I had been having inconsistent ones for weeks (although not as painful as the one that woke me) so I didn’t really think much of it, got up to pee, and then went back to bed. I dozed in and out between contractions but wasn’t really fully aware until around 3:30 when I felt the trickle…and then another one…and another one. My first reaction was “crap! I’m peeing the bed!!!!” So, I stood up, and felt the liquid go alllllll the way down my legs. I waddled myself to the bathroom to pee, then noticed a strange smell. I turned the light on and looked down to see that I’d lost my mucus plug and there was watery pink when I wiped. I suddenly realized I should make sure the bed was ok, and to my dismay, it was wet all the way down the side of it from when I’d stood up. I remember just standing there looking back and forth between the bathroom and the bed for probably 2 minutes straight. I was super tired and had less than 3 hours of sleep in me, so I wasn’t processing things quickly AT ALL. Caleb woke up at that point and asked me if I was ok and I finally said “….either I peed the bed…. Or I have a problem.” “Huh?” was his response. Typical, right? He sat up and took one look at the bed and asked if I was having contractions. I was, but I hadn’t been paying attention, so I decided to clean myself up and start timing them. Right off the bat they were 2.5 minutes apart lasting about 45 seconds. Caleb seemed to accept that it was “go time” right away, but I was hesitant. I did not want to go to the hospital again only to be sent home without my baby! I insisted that I track them for atleast 30 mins before deciding what to do to make sure they were consistent. Caleb kept reminding me that the nurses said 3-5 minutes apart and not being able to talk through them… he was seriously annoying me by trying to get me to talk to him during them! Couldn’t he see I was in pain?! That probably should have been my cue to listen to my husband, but I’m stubborn. We waited the full 30 mins…. And then some. Finally, after an additional 15 minutes, Caleb said we were leaving, and I complied. We had left all our hospital stuff in the car when we’d gotten home out of laziness so we didn’t have to do any packing on our way out of the house. We were planning to deliver at St. Luke’s Nampa so we had a 30 min drive ahead of us.

When we were almost to the freeway I realized I’d left my makeup at home and seriously considered turning around, but I’d continued to track my contractions and they were still consistent, getting longer, and I. was. In. pain! We kept going. The closer we got the hospital, the more my contractions started to space out. All I could think was “you have got to be kidding me!!!!! Driving all this way for nothing, kid?!?!? Seriously?!?!?!?” We decided to keep tracking for another 15 mins. Caleb was getting a little antsy at that point and really wanted to go in, but I was hurting and did NOT want to go in unless it was real. (Did I mention that already???? Yes? Oh. Oh, several times you said???) I remember looking down at my belly and saying outloud “ok, if this is the real deal, you gotta give me a reaaaaaalllll clear sign, kid!” and then immediately having a super intense and long contraction. I figured that was my answer. So, in we went shortly after 5 am.

 We had to stop several times on our way to L&D on the 3rd floor. The guy at the urgent care desk even told Caleb there were wheelchairs if we needed them. I guess one look at me was enough to tell that I was having contractions. When we reached the desk, it was the same lady on shift that had been there before. “You’re back, huh?” she said to us. “Baby seems to have taken pity on me,” I told her. Same nurses. Same doctor. I was breathing through contractions and feeling pretty dang miserable this time around though. I was hoping things would go super clearly, but alas…. No.

Amnisure test came back negative…. AGAIN! She asked me if I’d been checked recently and I said no, not since my appointment on Thursday. So, we decided to go ahead with a cervix check. IT. WAS. NOT.PLEASANT! Apparently, my cervix was extremely posterior and it hurt so bad when she was trying to get me checked! When we finished, she said I was still a 3. As I was sitting there, I felt another trickle start. I didn’t want to say anything because all I could think was that I had hit a low point and was literally peeing the bed again. One of the nurses went to get me water and while she was walking back in, I told Caleb “if they send us home again, I’m going to cry….” I could see the pity on her face, but it was going to come down to what the doctor said, so we waited.

Thankfully the doc came in moments later and said “so you think it’s your water, huh?” And I told him “Well, it’s either that or I’m peeing the bed.” He said we’d do the same process to check as before, and then started to take a look.  Immediately he said,“oh, that’s definitely ruptured membranes. We’ve got fluids! It’s time!” I remember feeling stunned, excited, and relieved all at once through the contractions, but being so tired and hurting so much that I didn’t really care. He then told us that we had two options from here: #1, put me in a bed and hook me up to Pitocin, or #2 put me in a bed and let me labor on my own. It was nooooo question for me which I wanted to do. I’d dreamed of laboring without Pitocin in the past but never been able to, so I practically shouted my answer at him! 

We took a short little walk down the hall and got me checked into my room. We were officially admitted! It was shortly after 6 am. I shot off a txt to my Mom sharing the news and a couple off to my sisters. My older sister and I had been joking all Saturday at how amazing it would be if my water broke during our walk! We all were in agreeance that my water probably HAD broken but because of my cervix being so posterior and Aiden’s head being so low, it probably had corked the flow enough that it was only happening a little at a time. We don’t really know why the amnisure tests weren’t coming back positive, but we were just glad it finally became obvious and we were able to be admitted. I didn't leak much at all past that point so either my amniotic fluid levels were super low, or I'd already lost the majority of it in the 12+ hours since that first trickle started. 

When Caleb and I had toured the maternity floor at the beginning of December, I had been really excited about the idea of trying out the tubs to labor in. The nurses said that as soon as I got my IV in we could give it a try. Immediately I was a little anxious about how that would go because I have a history of having reallllllly stubborn veins. The nurse looked around a bit and decided where she wanted to try, and I took a deep breath… and it went in! Hallelujah! I released my breath in relief…but then heard “dang! It blew!” All I could think was “great… I just knew that was going to happen.” So, she tried again. And it blew again. So, she had another nurse try. The long process of searching for just the right spot started again, and then she took the plunge and poked, only for it to blow like the other veins had. I was starting to feel pretty miserable at this point and just wanting the dang IV to be in. Finally, it was decided that they would call for anesthesia to come do the IV because they were feeling pretty bad about how many pokes I’d already had. One more nurse gave it a try while we waited, but that vein blew as well. At that point I was starting to get really nauseous. I told Caleb “I can’t sit here anymore; I need to get up!” I moved down to the end of the bed, but immediately started getting sick.

It's not uncommon for me to get sick during labor, but in the past it’s always been during transition. The nurses were super nice about it, but then one of them was anxiously staring at the monitors and loudly said “Ok, that was baby. I thought it was, but wanted to be sure. We’ve gotta move you NOW!” She instructed me to lay back and intently watched the monitors until baby’s heartrate came back up and had a steady rhythm. She said she didn’t think he was tolerating the puking because his heartrate had plummeted. Thankfully everything was fine after I got readjusted and stopped puking!

 After a little while more the anesthesiologist arrived. His first attempt at getting a good line in blew, but finally he was able to get a good vein in my hand and get the IV in. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn’t use my right-hand AT ALL because I couldn’t bend 3 of my fingers and bending my wrist put pressure on the IV. But at least the IV was in! 

The anesthesiologist was super nice and asked how I was doing before he left and how close I was to wanting my epidural… the nurses told him I’d really wanted to try out the tub, but I interrupted and told them “I don’t care about the tub anymore, I’d like that epidural asap!” He assured me he’d go drop some things off and be right back with what he needed. 

It was nearly 8:30 when he arrived back. He talked to me about the epidural process and my medical history and wanted to make it really clear to me that because of my IIH history I would have a higher risk of having a spinal migraine afterwards. I also have scoliosis so getting the epidural in was a bit more complicated of a process, but he was careful to make sure it would be effective and not have hot spots. I was nearly crying through contractions and had Caleb’s hand in a death grip by then so I really, really wanted that epidural in! 

About 15 minutes later the epidural was in and was starting to take effect. I took that as an opportunity to shoot off some more texts to family with our news! The nurse said that after water breaks, they don’t like to do too many cervix checks so she would come back in an hour and see where we were at. 

She came back before 9:30 and the check went MUCH more smoothly than it had before. I was a “stretchy 6” and making really good time for not being on Pitocin. In the past I’ve gone really quickly once I hit a 6, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect this time around. We decided that it was a good time for Caleb to go find himself some food at the cafeteria while I wasn’t in pain, so he left and I did some resting between text messages. 

By 10 he was back and I was starting to feel really unwell again. I wasn’t feeling contractions, but I was super nauseous and ended up getting sick again. The plan was for me to get as much resting in as possible and that when I started to feel that pressure down low, I would call for the nurse to come check. I was starting to feel a bit more discomfort and pain with contractions, but I knew it wasn’t time yet. I spent the next hour uncomfortable and super tired, but unable to get any rest in.

About 11 I told Caleb “Ok, you can hit the nurse button now. I feel the pressure. Then get over here!” I wanted his hand. I was feeling the contractions again and the pressure and was in a lot of pain. The nurse came in promptly to do the check and said I had just a tiny lip left and she would notify the doctor (who also had a midwife training with him) and start getting things ready. 

I remember asking Caleb “what is TAKING them so long?!?!?!?!?” because I was seriously hurting and wanting to be done. It felt like they were taking forever to get in to my room! The nurse checked me again and said I was complete, then put in another call to let them know I was 100% ready. 

Eventually they showed up and got gowned. They asked me how many pushed it took with my other kids, and we seriously jinxed ourselves because with Liam it was only 3 pushes. When they heard that, they were like “ok, it’s go time!” I guess my body was out of practice because it was not 3 pushes… it was more. It felt like A LOT more to me, but the nurse said it was only 7 rounds of pushing. We were making good progress and he was almost here when mid-push I heard the doc say “cord!” and then they shouted at me to stop pushing. It freaked me out and took me a second to react because I’d never had that happen before. It only lasted a second or so though until they yelled for me to push again and at 11:47 AM he was here! 

They laid him on me and I took one look and started to get super anxious. He was really blue and not making any sounds. The nurse grabbed him and scooted him closer to me and started suctioning out a bunch of amniotic fluid. Then she started rubbing him a ton and saying “I just don’t like his color.” I could tell Caleb was as nervous as I was because he kept telling him to making some noises. Aiden was moving around and spitting a bit, but would only occasionally make little kitten meowing noises. The nurse said she was going to hook him up and monitor his oxygen. She attached it to his little tiny hand and then said “70…..80……ok, it’s going up! That’s what we want to see!” We all kept trying to get him to give us a good scream, but he just wasn’t having it. But we were relieved that his oxygen levels were looking ok. I kept telling myself they would have snatched him from me if things got dangerous, but I was still uneasy about his color.  The first thing I said to Aiden was “Hi little guy, we’ve been waiting for you!” He seemed totally at ease about the birth process and in no rush at all to make a fuss. Little by little he started to pink up so Caleb and I grabbed some quick pictures to send off to family. 

  

At St. Luke’s they like to wait at least an hour before taking vitals and all the measurements, so we had a wonderful hour of golden time. Caleb and I took turns holding him while the nurses and docs bustled around getting me stitched up and taking care of everything else that needed done. Aiden pooped all over between birth and getting weighed! When we finally got his stats, he was 8.09 oz. (we rounded up for his birth certificate to 8 lbs. 1 oz), 20 ½ inches long, and a 13.5 head circumference. He was such a quiet, mellow little guy! It took a couple days for him to fully wake up enough to get the hang of breastfeeding, but overall he is healthy, strong, and such a sweetheart! We are so happy he’s here! His siblings all adore him and I’m loving watching Caleb rock daddy-hood again! 

  

We were aiming for a 24 hour discharge and were so happy how prompt the hospital was! We were out of there by 1 pm and on our way home. 

Before discharge we had some pictures done of Aiden at the hospital that we thought turned out adorable!

Aiden Keith Barthlome - Jan 26, 2020

11:47 am

The first week as a family of 6 went by in a flash! My wonderful sister-in-law came and took THE BEST pictures for us! 

 We absolutely adore this kid! He makes life so much brighter and I hardly remember what it was like before 3 weeks ago.