Joel Zike Robertson

Warning: This is the story of Joel's birth if you don't like details skip to the bottom where all the pics are! I'll star the paragraphs that have to many details.

Monday night my mom came into town and we went to dinner with Hanna and Eric, Sara and Collin, Leah and Kenzi. It was fun and got my mind off the fact that I was going to have a baby that night or the next morning. Sophia was a bit of a drama queen at dinner I think she knew something was going on. After dinner we dropped Sophia and my mom off at our apartment and Tyler and I headed to the hospital.

We got to the hospital at 8 pm Monday night and the nurse told us we were an hour early. I told her the nurse from Thursday said to get there at 8pm come back at 1am and again at 5am. She told me that we were supposed to come every 6 hours not 4. This would put me back at 3am and my induction at 9am rather than 5am. That still didn't sound pleasant to me. The nurse called my doctor and he decided that I only needed one dose of the cervadil. Which means I would only have to come back at 5am.

*The nurse told me putting the cervadil on would feel a lot like getting your membranes stripped. That didn't sound pleasant but to my surprise she was very gentle and it didn't hurt at all. The only down side was I was not allowed to stand up for an hour. So Tyler and I hung out at the hospital till almost 9:30pm then they sent us home. They told me the cervadil could cause me to go into labor but it is mostly just to help prep my cervix for labor.

Around 11pm I went to bed and could not sleep. Around 2am I started contracting. At 3am I woke up Tyler and told him we needed to head to the hospital. My contractions weren't super painful but they were every 3 min. and I wanted to make sure I got the antibiotics before the baby came. As we were getting ready to go I was super nauseous and that's when I knew for sure it was happening. We got to the hospital around 3:30am and the nurses got me hooked up and started on the antibiotics. They told me to get some rest, that didn't happen.

Around 6:30am my mother showed up at the hospital and they started the actual induction. They gave me the pitocin. The contractions were not bad. They left the pitocin for 2 hours then decided to break my water. I was dialated to a 3. I told the nurse I wanted my epidural right then. I did not want to do one contraction with my water broken without the epidural.

*The doctor told me my cervix had rotated to the side which apparently is  normal thing but he had to dig around for my sac of water and that was very unpleasant. Then he had to push on my abdomen really hard to get the fluid to come out. Even more unpleasant.

So the anesthesiologist was helping some other ladies so I had a good 6 hard labor contractions on my own. Then he came in and I thought sweet relief, WRONG. Since my blood pressure was high he made me get a blood test drawn to check my platelet count before he would do the epidural. This took a good 45 minutes, oh man not fun. I finally got my epidural and it gave me the crazy shakes. I am talking seizure like shakes. The weird part was I would shake really hard in between each contraction then during the contraction I was fine. Then my blood pressure dropped dramatically and I got crazy dizzy. They were about to give me some meds but it started coming back up on it's own and was fine the rest of the time. An hour later the nurse came in to check me because I was in a lot of pain, I was dialated to a 7. I could feel the contractions again. I tried pushing the pump but it wasn't working. Literally 30 seconds went by she decided to check me again because of how much pain I was in. I was dialated to a 10. Time to push.

** We discovered that my pump had come out of my back so all the medicine was just squirting on my pillow. Which means I felt every contraction while I pushed. Then he noticed that baby boy was face up which makes it a lot harder to push the baby out. So the doctor just reached up and and twirled him around. I pushed for literally 3-5minutes but it was so much harder than it was with my first. I felt like it was much harder for my body to push through the pain. Then he was out. The cord was wrapped around his neck twice and it was tied in a knot. The doctor said the knot most likely happened earlier on when he was small and that in rare occasions it can tighten and cut off nutrients. He also said it was a good thing I was induced early, with the cord wrapped around hi neck and him being so active, it was good to get him out.

They held him up for me to see and I was instantly in love! He was perfect and I couldn't have asked for anything more. My labor was 4 hours, so it is a good thing we went in early to get the antibiotics. He was 7 pounds 10 ounces and 20 inches long. He was 10 ounces bigger than Sophia and 1/2 an inch longer. We love him and he makes our little family complete!

He has already had his week check up and he has gained all the weight he lost back and is up an ounce. He also grew an inch and a half already. So that puts him at 7 pounds 11 ounces and 21.5 inches long. Sophia was the same way, she grew an inch a week after she was born! My kids are just tall.  He also had to have a  jaundice test during the week but it came back normal and he didn't need lights. He doesn't look the slightest bit yellow anymore either. At one week he is already sleeping a good 4-5 hour stretch at night which is awesome. He will eat about 1am then again between 6am and 7am then go back to bed till about 10ish. He loves to cuddle on my chest and really only cries when he is hungry or we are changing his bum. He is fabulous!

 

First day in the hospital.

Going home day.

First bath!

Sophia kissing Joel!

Hanging out with dad.

So this is a pic of Sophia when she was first born, and below is a pic of Joel. I think they definetly have a resemblance but Joel has features that are different than Sophia, he has dark hair and Sophia had blonde hair and I think he might have dark eyes instead of blue ones. We will have to wait and see. 

We moved the day after we got home from the hospital and school started for Tyler the day we had him. Plus this week Tyler is flying out to Tennessee for a interview for Optometry school. So we have been insanely busy but we are doing good and this little boy is doing great! Thanks to everyone for all their help this last week!! We could not have done it on our own! 

~A