Tyler Douglass Jamison

(All the pictures should be B&W but some uploaded sepia! Sorry!)

Pregnancy, the longest yet fastest nine months of my life.

 Here is the birth story of our sweet new addition Tyler Douglass Jamison! 

At our 38 week appointment I expressed to Dr. Winward that I had been having extreme pain in my hips, major heart burn, and pretty much no sleep. She decided that she would try stripping my membranes in hope of starting the labor process. She also thought that it would be best to have me induced that Friday March 28th at 39 weeks if I didn't start on my own, I really didn't want to be induced so I was praying things would start. I had read a lot about having your membranes stripped and the results were so varied it was hard to tell if it would work. We left the appointment Tuesday and the rest of that day I felt pretty terrible and crampy but no contractions. That evening I went on a walk and did have about three of what I thought might have been contractions. That night I got very little sleep and the next morning I felt pretty terrible but still no real contractions. I had decided that the membrane stripping didn't work and that we would have to stick it out until Friday. At about noon my sister decided to try some massaging of reflexology points to see if that would help any and hey I can't say no to a good foot rub! I took a rest in the late afternoon and when I got up I had a very short but strong contraction! I had pretty much forgotten what a contraction felt like but as soon as that one came I was flooded with memories of my first pregnancy. Now what surprised me so much was how quickly things changed! My first contraction was at 6:30 and they immediately just started coming one after the other about every 3 minutes pretty consistently but they weren't lasting a full minute. I wasn't sure if I should head to the hospital but after about 40 minutes of the contractions I figured it couldn't hurt to just go and see what they would say. I got a hold of Matt so he could leave work and meet us at the hospital and then Heidi, my Mom, Claire and I headed off!

 We arrived around 7:30 and they got me all hooked up and checked me. I was dilated to a 4 and 80 percent effaced, you have to be a 5 for them to automatically keep you so our nurse (Erin) said we would wait and hour and then check again to see how things had progressed. My contractions seemed to slow down quite a bit so I was worried that I wouldn't change. Claire heard a baby crying and kept saying "baby" and wanted to go see it! It was so cute. She sat on the bed with me for a while and check out all the gadgets on my belly. It was such a bitter sweet thing. We were so excited to meet our little boy but also sad to be leaving this stage of life with our only child. When it came time for Claire to leave I just wanted to cry and hold on to her forever, I knew how much her and our lives were about to change and apart of me felt so terribly guilty. But the other part of me felt so blessed that we are able to bring another child to the earth and into our family. Such a blessing! The monitor was registering the contractions and it was showing that Tyler's heart rate was decreasing during the contractions but picking back up right after. Close to when the hour was up Dr. Winward happened to see my name on the board so she came to check on me. She told the nurse before they even checked me that because of the baby's dip in heart rate they would be keeping me and that we would be having the baby! I must say I was so happy she was there and that she made the decision to have us stay!

They got our room ready and we were in at about 9:00, they checked me and I was a 5 and 90%. My Mom & Mad, Debi and Matt were there at that point. Matt spent the first few hours trying to get all of his homework done . It felt weird not to have him be as involved but once he finished he was right by my side and ready to let me squeeze all the life out of his hand (once again!) The next 30 minutes they were getting things set up for my epidural and my contractions were pretty painful at that point so I was excited to get that in. When the Anesthesiologist came in all of my family grabbed their stuff and headed out, at Claire's birth no one else was allowed to be in the room and we thought that was standard the nurses and Dr. looked confused that everyone was leaving especially when Matt walked out. Nurse Erin said, "So does your husband get queasy?" I said "No" all confused like and she said, "Then why isn't he staying in here!?" I said, "Oh, I didn't know he could!" So they ran back out and got him which I am so glad it was comforting to have him there and to hold on to him! This one hurt so much less than my first one and within 20 or so minutes I was pain free! Before everyone came back in I ask Matt to give me a blessing. It was a very comforting blessing and I am so grateful that I have a worthy priesthood holder to call upon when needed. After that Matt left with Sam to go grab at bite to seat and at 10:30 I was checked again and was a 6 and 90. They decided they wanted to try and speed things up so they sent the Dr. on call to come and break my water. After she did she stayed and talked with us about camera lenses for about 15 minutes I started to feel extremely dizzy and very nauseous. As I was trying to tell them that, everything started going blurry and the monitor was beeping like crazy. They were able to get me laid down and rolled on my side right before I was about to black out. They put on an oxygen mask and had me continue to lie down. My blood pressure had apparently dropped pretty low which in turn caused the baby's to do the same. They moved me on to my left side and that seemed to help quite a bit. I started to cry because it scared me and I was afraid for the baby but everyone kept reassuring me that everything was fine.

We continued to play the waiting game and at 11:30 I was a 8 and 90%. We all figured we wouldn't be having the baby on the 26th but that it would be in the wee hours of the 27th apparently our kids our night owls and like to make their arrival in the middle of the night! At 12:30 I was a 9 and 100%. We asked our nurse what time she thought the baby would come and she guessed 1:23! At about 12:40 my epidural did something funky and I started to have terrible pain right where the epidural was placed and across my back every time a contraction would come. The anesthesiologist didn't come check it and just attributed it to my previous back issues. We tried moving positions and putting heat on but nothing helped and I was pretty uncomfortable but more than that I thought it was going to be like my last labor and that when it came to pushing time it wouldn't work and I would feel everything and that scared me so bad! Matt said a quick prayer to ease my fears. 

At 1:00 I was a 10 and 100% the pain in my back was still bad so Erin decided to have me try and push at a contraction to see if that would lessen my pain or at least take my mind off of it. I didn't feel the urge to push but we tried it with the next contraction and it did feel better to do that. After that first push Erin thought it would take me a while of pushing but at the next contraction we pushed again and both Matt and her said. "oh my! there's his head!" He was right there and ready to come but Dr. Winward hadn't arrived so they told me not to push but just wait......(not fun) Dr. Winward arrived at about 1:25 and I pushed through 3 contractions and the baby came at 1:33! I thought my head was going to explode but the epidural actually worked so I didn't feel the baby coming through like I did with Claire just a ton of pressure which was SO much better! Once his head came through he told me to stop pushing which I did but he just came right out! I had no tearing and instant relief once he came! His cord was apparently wrapped around his neck which is what was causing the dip in this heart rate. They laid him on my chest on all purple and gooy, he had a good healthy cry but stopped once they l laid him on me. He reached his little hand up and I put my finger in his hand and he clasped on, it was such a sweet moment! Matt got to cut the cord and then they took him to clean and do the apgar test. He weighed 7.11 and was 20 1/2 inches long! They brought him back so we could do skin to skin and nurse. We struggled a little to get things figured out but once he latched on it was all up hill from there! My Mom and Debi left and Matt and I spent about an hour in the delivery room before they moved us up to our postpartum room. Needless to say we were pretty tired at that point but I had so much adrenalin that I didn't sleep at all! There are a few moments in your life that stand out so much from the rest and are ones that you will never ever forget. Time may dim them just a little but the feelings of love, peace, joy, and complete gratitude will never fade! March 27th was one of those moments. Our hearts doubled in capacity and love. We have once again been blessed beyond measure with a healthy little angel! We fell in love at first sight and we now get to spend the rest of our lives raising and loving this sweet little boy. We love you Tyler!