It's still hard to believe sometimes that we now have 2 kids! I wanted to write down Zoey's birth story before all the details left my mind. So here we go...
My due date was June 26th. With Jenson, I was induced at 40 weeks 5 days, so my midwife was pretty confident that baby girl would come late as well. My mom was flying out to Kansas from Utah on June 27th so I knew I had to at least make it till then. The week before my due date, I lost some of my mucus plug (a first for me!) I was then all worried I would go into labor early so I tried to take it pretty easy to make sure nothing else happened before my mom got into town.
The week she was due was also midterms for Matt so we planned an induction date for the end of the week, if she hadn't come on her own by then. Sure enough, just like her brother, she decided she preferred to stay right where she was, so induction it was (also at 40 weeks 5 days!). Our plan was to go in Thursday night, June 29th to get the process started and then have her June 30th (also my mom's birthday!) That way Matt could have until the following Wednesday to be home with us because it was the 4th of July weekend! Not to mention, how cool would it be to share a birthday with your grandma??!!
Matt and I grabbed our bags and headed to the hospital on Thursday June 29th around 7:00 pm. My mom stayed home with Jenson and got him into bed while Matt and I got all checked in at the hospital.
At 7:30 p.m. I got my IV (dang those things are painful!) But luckily my nurse hit a good vein first thing, and it was a really good one because blood was gushing out of my arm! I was also started on some antibiotics through my IV because I had tested positive for Group B Strep. They started me on Cytotech around 8:15 p.m. to help soften my cervix. It's like a small pill they cut into 4 pieces and have to insert one every 4 hours. The first time was crazy painful but once it was inserted I couldn't even feel it! She told me I was dilated to a 1 and about 50% effaced (the same as the last 2 weeks that I was checked in the Dr.'s office), it started to look like it was going to be another long labor! After I was all checked in and ready for bed, Matt left to go spend the night at home with Jenson (and so he could study for and take his midterm in the morning) and my mom came to hang out with me in the hospital.
With the Cytotech, you have to stay laying down for 2 hours after it's inserted so I finally got to get up and go to the bathroom around 10:15 p.m. I could also eat anything at that point but only up until midnight. That's when my lovely diet of popsicles and ice chips would start. My mom made me a PB&J sandwich and we snacked on hospital jello and string cheese while watching some TV. I got my second dose of Cytotech at 12:50 a.m. and then an Ambian around 1:05 a.m. to help me sleep. It must have worked pretty well because I woke up to my nurse wanting to check me and give me more Cytotech around 4:40 a.m. I was still only at a 1 and about 75% effaced. Since it didn't seem to do anything, they never gave me the 4th dose of Cytotech. A funny thing to note-- there was a crazy thunder/lightning storm overnight and the hospital was struck by lightning which ended up knocking out all the power in the whole building, so when she woke me up to check me, we only had the light from the computer screen that was plugged into the generator! The power came back on a few hours later, but it just made for a cool story!
That morning (June 30th) Matt took Jenson to our neighbors house before heading to school for his 8:30 a.m. midterm. After his test, we had another friend pick him up and he got to spend the whole day and night with them! My nurse started me on Pitocin around 9:10 a.m., but it was doing nothing so they upped my dose at 9:35 a.m. At 10:20 a.m. I got up to use bathroom and couldn't keep it in, it was seriously dripping down my legs! But when I went to the bathroom there wasn't any pee, and yet when I walked back to my bed I was leaking again. It was then that I realized it was probably that my water was breaking. When my nurse came back in I told her I thought my water was leaking. She was going to do a little test to see if that was what it was, but when she went to check, I was no longer leaking and sure enough my water broke (all over my bed!) It's such a weird feeling and I was so excited to be progressing, I was pretty sure I would be having a baby within a few hours! Contractions really started to pick up, and even though I was only dilated to a 2, I was in so much pain I called for a epidural around 12:30 p.m. I don't know if the anesthesiologist was new to the whole epidural thing or if I just have a weird spine because this was the second time (also with Jenson's birth) that I had to get 2 epidurals (one higher up on my back that didn't work and then a lower one). I was only numb from about my belly button down, and mostly only on my right side. The pain was still dulled on the left which took the edge off enough to not be in crazy pain, but still enough to feel what was going on.
Baby girl was head down, face up so they gave me the peanut ball (around 1:10 p.m.) to sandwich in between my legs and help open up my pelvis, hopefully getting her to flip face down, and thankfully it worked! Baby girl has always been way low in my pelvis since day one. My placenta was also in the front of my uterus making it hard for the monitors to pick up my contractions. They placed an internal contraction monitor around 1:30 p.m. and told me I was dilated to a tight 4. Not much progress but at least there was some! I was checked again around 3:30 p.m. and still only dilated to a 4. Baby girl's heart rate kept dropping so they stopped the Pitocin and put me on oxygen around 4:00 p.m. to help get her heart rate up. Thankfully after 20 minutes or so on oxygen, her heart rate came back up and they started the Pitocin again after everything looked good with her.
My midwife came in to see how I was doing and around 6:00 p.m. I had been getting really nauseous and ended up throwing up so they gave me some Zofran (the first time in my entire pregnancy to take it, unlike with Jenson's pregnancy when I took it every day!) Sadly it didn't really work that well and I threw up again. I was then checked again around 6:30 p.m. and was dilated to an 8!! We had been joking around with my nurse asking if it was possible to digress in dilation because I felt like I was getting nowhere. I was getting pretty discouraged but that's when she said "You have a strange body, you're dilated to an 8!" I thought for sure she was going to say I was only at 4 still. Before she checked me, Matt said he bet that the baby would be born in the next 4 hours, so after hearing I was at an 8, I started to believe him!
Nurses started coming into my room to set up all the stuff for the delivery, it was finally happening! My midwife, Lindsey, came in around 7:10 p.m. to check in on me again. She mentioned she had another mom that was giving birth to her 3rd baby and she thought she would go before me so she just wanted to check my progress. When she checked me she said she could feel her whole head and that I was at a 10 and she was coming now! She started to get all prepared and had me do a test push just to see if she was really ready. Sure enough she was coming! At 7:30 p.m. she had me start pushing with the contractions. One and a half contractions later, at 7:35 p.m. she was born! 6 lbs. 11 oz. 19 inches long, and perfect in every way! Our little Zoey Faye was finally here!
This birth was nothing like Jenson's. I tore so bad with him and had to have multiple suture kits to sew me up, with Zoey I didn't even tear at all! And the recovery has been a night and day difference! I still can't believe how fast it all happened, once she decided she was ready to come. Matt got to cut the umbilical cord and then they placed her on my chest for some skin to skin. After years of praying, our miracle baby was finally here!
The meaning behind her name...
Zoey was never on any of our lists for girl names, but when we found out it was a girl it just felt right. I remember mentioning it to Matt and he liked it too, from that day on we never talked about another name. Zoey also means Life, which I love. The way we found out she was a girl was because of the genetic testing that we had done at 16 weeks. The test indicated she was a girl but also came back 95% positive for Turner's Syndrome. I remember countless prayers, a Priesthood blessing, and a whole lot of faith that everything would be okay with her. I asked Matt what he felt about the middle name Faith, but it wasn't his favorite. Faith in Spanish is 'Fe' (pronounced Fay). We both loved the idea of using the Spanish name since Matt's great grandpa's name was Fay and his grandpa's middle name was also Fay, so we just added an "E" to the end to make it a little more feminine. She has such a strong name with strong meaning, and that is just perfect for our little miracle firecracker!
Our wish came true and Zoey gets to share a birthday with her Grandma Craven! When we set the induction date I went and bought some birthday candles for my mom and Zoey, as the day went on and I was still in labor I was getting worried that we wouldn't get to surprise my mom with her cake! Luckily Zoey wanted to share her birthday with her grandma as much as I did! Thanks mom for spending your birthday in the hospital with me rubbing my feet, taking pictures, and keeping me company! Zoey is so lucky to have such an amazing grandma to share a birthday with!
My due date was June 26th. With Jenson, I was induced at 40 weeks 5 days, so my midwife was pretty confident that baby girl would come late as well. My mom was flying out to Kansas from Utah on June 27th so I knew I had to at least make it till then. The week before my due date, I lost some of my mucus plug (a first for me!) I was then all worried I would go into labor early so I tried to take it pretty easy to make sure nothing else happened before my mom got into town.
Matt and I grabbed our bags and headed to the hospital on Thursday June 29th around 7:00 pm. My mom stayed home with Jenson and got him into bed while Matt and I got all checked in at the hospital.
At 7:30 p.m. I got my IV (dang those things are painful!) But luckily my nurse hit a good vein first thing, and it was a really good one because blood was gushing out of my arm! I was also started on some antibiotics through my IV because I had tested positive for Group B Strep. They started me on Cytotech around 8:15 p.m. to help soften my cervix. It's like a small pill they cut into 4 pieces and have to insert one every 4 hours. The first time was crazy painful but once it was inserted I couldn't even feel it! She told me I was dilated to a 1 and about 50% effaced (the same as the last 2 weeks that I was checked in the Dr.'s office), it started to look like it was going to be another long labor! After I was all checked in and ready for bed, Matt left to go spend the night at home with Jenson (and so he could study for and take his midterm in the morning) and my mom came to hang out with me in the hospital.
With the Cytotech, you have to stay laying down for 2 hours after it's inserted so I finally got to get up and go to the bathroom around 10:15 p.m. I could also eat anything at that point but only up until midnight. That's when my lovely diet of popsicles and ice chips would start. My mom made me a PB&J sandwich and we snacked on hospital jello and string cheese while watching some TV. I got my second dose of Cytotech at 12:50 a.m. and then an Ambian around 1:05 a.m. to help me sleep. It must have worked pretty well because I woke up to my nurse wanting to check me and give me more Cytotech around 4:40 a.m. I was still only at a 1 and about 75% effaced. Since it didn't seem to do anything, they never gave me the 4th dose of Cytotech. A funny thing to note-- there was a crazy thunder/lightning storm overnight and the hospital was struck by lightning which ended up knocking out all the power in the whole building, so when she woke me up to check me, we only had the light from the computer screen that was plugged into the generator! The power came back on a few hours later, but it just made for a cool story!
That morning (June 30th) Matt took Jenson to our neighbors house before heading to school for his 8:30 a.m. midterm. After his test, we had another friend pick him up and he got to spend the whole day and night with them! My nurse started me on Pitocin around 9:10 a.m., but it was doing nothing so they upped my dose at 9:35 a.m. At 10:20 a.m. I got up to use bathroom and couldn't keep it in, it was seriously dripping down my legs! But when I went to the bathroom there wasn't any pee, and yet when I walked back to my bed I was leaking again. It was then that I realized it was probably that my water was breaking. When my nurse came back in I told her I thought my water was leaking. She was going to do a little test to see if that was what it was, but when she went to check, I was no longer leaking and sure enough my water broke (all over my bed!) It's such a weird feeling and I was so excited to be progressing, I was pretty sure I would be having a baby within a few hours! Contractions really started to pick up, and even though I was only dilated to a 2, I was in so much pain I called for a epidural around 12:30 p.m. I don't know if the anesthesiologist was new to the whole epidural thing or if I just have a weird spine because this was the second time (also with Jenson's birth) that I had to get 2 epidurals (one higher up on my back that didn't work and then a lower one). I was only numb from about my belly button down, and mostly only on my right side. The pain was still dulled on the left which took the edge off enough to not be in crazy pain, but still enough to feel what was going on.
Baby girl was head down, face up so they gave me the peanut ball (around 1:10 p.m.) to sandwich in between my legs and help open up my pelvis, hopefully getting her to flip face down, and thankfully it worked! Baby girl has always been way low in my pelvis since day one. My placenta was also in the front of my uterus making it hard for the monitors to pick up my contractions. They placed an internal contraction monitor around 1:30 p.m. and told me I was dilated to a tight 4. Not much progress but at least there was some! I was checked again around 3:30 p.m. and still only dilated to a 4. Baby girl's heart rate kept dropping so they stopped the Pitocin and put me on oxygen around 4:00 p.m. to help get her heart rate up. Thankfully after 20 minutes or so on oxygen, her heart rate came back up and they started the Pitocin again after everything looked good with her.
My midwife came in to see how I was doing and around 6:00 p.m. I had been getting really nauseous and ended up throwing up so they gave me some Zofran (the first time in my entire pregnancy to take it, unlike with Jenson's pregnancy when I took it every day!) Sadly it didn't really work that well and I threw up again. I was then checked again around 6:30 p.m. and was dilated to an 8!! We had been joking around with my nurse asking if it was possible to digress in dilation because I felt like I was getting nowhere. I was getting pretty discouraged but that's when she said "You have a strange body, you're dilated to an 8!" I thought for sure she was going to say I was only at 4 still. Before she checked me, Matt said he bet that the baby would be born in the next 4 hours, so after hearing I was at an 8, I started to believe him!
Nurses started coming into my room to set up all the stuff for the delivery, it was finally happening! My midwife, Lindsey, came in around 7:10 p.m. to check in on me again. She mentioned she had another mom that was giving birth to her 3rd baby and she thought she would go before me so she just wanted to check my progress. When she checked me she said she could feel her whole head and that I was at a 10 and she was coming now! She started to get all prepared and had me do a test push just to see if she was really ready. Sure enough she was coming! At 7:30 p.m. she had me start pushing with the contractions. One and a half contractions later, at 7:35 p.m. she was born! 6 lbs. 11 oz. 19 inches long, and perfect in every way! Our little Zoey Faye was finally here!
This birth was nothing like Jenson's. I tore so bad with him and had to have multiple suture kits to sew me up, with Zoey I didn't even tear at all! And the recovery has been a night and day difference! I still can't believe how fast it all happened, once she decided she was ready to come. Matt got to cut the umbilical cord and then they placed her on my chest for some skin to skin. After years of praying, our miracle baby was finally here!
The meaning behind her name...
Zoey was never on any of our lists for girl names, but when we found out it was a girl it just felt right. I remember mentioning it to Matt and he liked it too, from that day on we never talked about another name. Zoey also means Life, which I love. The way we found out she was a girl was because of the genetic testing that we had done at 16 weeks. The test indicated she was a girl but also came back 95% positive for Turner's Syndrome. I remember countless prayers, a Priesthood blessing, and a whole lot of faith that everything would be okay with her. I asked Matt what he felt about the middle name Faith, but it wasn't his favorite. Faith in Spanish is 'Fe' (pronounced Fay). We both loved the idea of using the Spanish name since Matt's great grandpa's name was Fay and his grandpa's middle name was also Fay, so we just added an "E" to the end to make it a little more feminine. She has such a strong name with strong meaning, and that is just perfect for our little miracle firecracker!
Our wish came true and Zoey gets to share a birthday with her Grandma Craven! When we set the induction date I went and bought some birthday candles for my mom and Zoey, as the day went on and I was still in labor I was getting worried that we wouldn't get to surprise my mom with her cake! Luckily Zoey wanted to share her birthday with her grandma as much as I did! Thanks mom for spending your birthday in the hospital with me rubbing my feet, taking pictures, and keeping me company! Zoey is so lucky to have such an amazing grandma to share a birthday with!
HUGE thank you to my good friend Liz for taking pictures (and to my mom and Matt!!)
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