My Life as it Should Be

Kyle's Birth Story (Tony's Version)

I got the call from Julie around 4pm to meet her at Fred Meyer's so that I can help her grocery shop.  She told me that she was concerned because she was leaking a little.  I figured this might be "it" because she was having multiple contractions every day for the last few days.

The timing was, in my opinion, tough on me because I was working on an important, high stress project that needed all of my attention and focus.  Not to mention, the guys were counting on me to be there.  Regardless, if the baby was born this night, there was no way I'd go in to work, except to do a turnover.

We left Fred Meyer's in separate cars.  Julie left without traffic resistance, while I got stuck.  Now I was worried that something would happen to her on the drive home and I, stuck in traffic, could not catch up to her.  Fortunately, when I pulled into our street, her car was already in the garage.

We got home at around 5pm.  Julie told the kids to get ready as soon as they can and was very serious about it.  Now I knew it was time.  She indicated to me that her water broke.  I had "the talk" with Brandon and Alex.  They seemed to understand and mature in an instant.  I quickly grabbed the sleeping bags, pajamas, and a change of clothes for each of the kids.  We left some food out, but at this point, who cares.  Our neighbors, the Harrisons, were great and accepted the kids in with no problems.

We got to the hospital at around 6:30pm.  Julie's expressions indicated to me that we got there a little early, and if it weren't for the fact that her water broke, we'd still be laboring at home.  The nurse told us that shift change was starting while she was setting up the external baby heart rate monitor.  The nurse on the next shift would check to see how far along Julie was.  Julie started to get settled in the room.

Now it was 7:30pm.  The nurse finally showed up.  She checked and found that Julie was about 4cm dilated.  She also mentioned that Julie's water sack was not broken.  Anyways, I thought we'll be laboring for at least another 3 hours before Julie gets checked again.  Who knows when Julie will start pushing at this point!  Julie was clearly not happy about this news.  Her contractions were frequent and getting stronger by the minute.  The nurse disconnected the monitors so that she can get up.  Julie went to the bathroom for a few minutes.  After she got out, she walked around the room a little while.

About 15 minutes later, Julie told me I needed to get the nurse.  When the nurse checked, her report was, "We need to get the doctor in ASAP."  I guess this meant that Julie was fully dilated.  Within seconds, there were half a dozen nurses in the delivery room, trying to get Julie ready for delivery.  One nurse was trying to put on the heplock so that they can set up Julie's IV.  She was not having much success with that because the contractions were too frequent.  Another nurse was saying, "Don't push until the doctor arrives."  Okay, good luck with that!  My experience with Julie is that when she's giving birth, she'll do it her way, with or without the doctor!

The one thing that I find very interesting about Julie is her resolve.  She delivered each of our kids all natural.  No medication.  Each time, however, she told me that she can't do this and that she wants some sort of pain medication.  Each time she mentions this, it's too late.  And when she finally accepts this, she finds a way to dig deep within her and push through the pain.

I really don't know how long or how hard Julie was pushing, but the doctor finally arrives at around 8:25pm.  The surprised look on his face was priceless.  He must have known that Julie was ready to push, but I guess he didn't realize while on his way to the hospital that he'd be catching the baby within a few minutes of putting his rubber gloves on.  It's a good thing he arrived.  With the nurses hesitant to man the catcher's position, I was within a minute of telling Julie that I'm going to catch the baby.  OK, so I don't know what I'm doing, but at least there are half a dozen nurses there to coach me if that time came.

Kyle came out at 8:38pm.  Another little guy.  Another early baby.  After I cut the umbilical cord, I watched as the nurse cleaned him up and checked him out.  The vitals on him were good in my opinion.  He was alert, crying, and responsive.  Julie was doing pretty well herself.

 

Kyle's Birth Story

With all my pregnancies I have had what are called Braxton Hicks contractions.  When I was pregnant with Alex and this time as well, I felt these "practice contractions" starting at around four months.  With my first two labors we knew when the contractions started to change, becoming more regular and a little more uncomfortable.  Brandon and Alex were also very accommodating to our schedule by coming on a holiday (President's Day) and on a Saturday.  Both these labors started at night and woke me up, alerting me to the changes.  With this pregnancy our main concern with the labor was what we were going to do with the older kids... what if they were in school or asleep at night?  Several of our friends offered to help so we knew they would have a place to go, it was just the timing that was unknown and a bit stressful to think about.  

OK, so onto December 29th.  We had been having lots of trouble with my car not starting.  The kids would leave a door open, or a light on in the car, and the next morning the battery would be dead.  The week before I went and bought a new battery and Tony replaced it... great, worked fine after that!  Well, on December 27th again my car wouldn't start.  It was just that the connections between the battery and car were not tight enough but it was very frustrating because I was on my way to an OB appointment.  Tony tightened them down that evening, and I must not have gone anywhere on Tuesday because when we got in the car Wednesday morning, on the way to drop Alex off at a playdate, again the car would not start!  I was so irritated at this point I blurted out, "Their house is close enough, we'll just ride our bikes over!"  The kids thought this was a grand idea and started to get ready.  I called Tony, not expecting to get ahold of him, but he was at his desk and answered.  He suggested that I may need to input the security code to the radio and this worked.  So now the car was fine but the kids still wanted to ride bikes!  This ended up not being such a great idea.  It was a short ride, but not really if you are nine months pregnant!  When we got to the house for Alex's playdate I noticed I was "leaking" probably amniotic fluid.  This was at approximately 11:15 am.  Brandon and I still had to ride our bikes home... very slowly!  The leaking continued throughout the day, after each contraction.  I took Brandon to IHOP for brunch while Alex was at her playdate, and then in the afternoon we went to a doctor appointment for Alex's shoulders.  I still needed to get to the grocery store so I called Tony and he was on his way home from work and met us at the Fred Meyers in Richland.  I was very distracted and walking pretty slowly around the store and I asked everyone "do you want to have a baby today?"  I was half joking, but I whispered to Tony about the "leaking" so that he knew it could be a real possibility.

At home as the kids started eating and Tony was putting the groceries away, I had to use the restroom and there was a gush of amniotic fluid.  I said "Tony DeGuia" to get Tony's attention and told him through the door that we probably needed to get ready to go to the hospital.  I called our neighbor Kori who had offered to watch the kids overnight.  Although obviously quite early, this was actually fairly good timing because we were still on winter break and there would be no rushing off to school in the morning.  I called Labor and Delivery at the hospital and explained what was happening and they said I should come in.  I still wasn't positive it was time, only because this labor had not followed the same pattern as the other two.  However, it is quite an unpleasant feeling to be leaking that much fluid so I wanted to get in quickly.

Fast forward to the hospital.  I got changed and the nurse checked me - only 4 cm. dilated.  I was kind of disappointed to not be very far along, and even asked the nurse if I really should have come in.  I was dreading hours and hours of labor before it was time to push, so we started calling family to let them know we were in the hospital.  Well, after a trip to the bathroom the contractions started getting noticeably worse and closer together.  I was really doubting my ability to do this without any pain medication and thought maybe laying down would feel better.  It didn't but Tony rubbed my lower back very hard during the contractions which did help.  I was on my side holding onto the bed rail shaking it when I said to the nurse "I think I am farther along than you think I am!"  She checked me again and left the room without saying anything.  And then LOTS of people came into the room getting things ready for the delivery.  I had gone from a 4 to a 10 and ready to push in about 30 minutes... but there was no doctor there yet!  I was told "officially" I was not allowed to push yet but had to push a little to alleviate the intense pain.  Finally the doctor arrived, and I was put in "the position" to push properly.  In this position the pushing was much more effective.  However, after the second round of contractions the doctor told me he really needed the baby out very soon because his heart-rate was dropping between contractions.  So Kyle was born on the next contraction at 8:38pm.  Everything after that was really quite blissful for me... just as long as those horribly painful contractions didn't EVER come back! LOL!  Little Kyle weighed in at 5 pounds 4.5 ounces and measured 18 inches long.  After the delivery the nurse came over to me and asked "Does that answer your question of whether you should have come in or not?"  Yes, I suppose it did!

The Possibility of You!

I wanted to post a scrapbook page I made over a year and a half ago... interesting to read the journaling now that little Kyle is actually here!  I made this for a challenge at the Designer Digitals site - create a page with no photos. The topic of another baby joining our family had just come up again the evening before I started working on the challenge, and was a perfect topic. Here is the page (click for product credits) and journaling:

Journaling (as if I am talking to our not-yet-conceived baby) - Last night was the first night you became a real possibility! Without going into details of what exactly Daddy and I were doing, I will simply say I was very surprised at the change in Daddy's answer to the question "Do you want another baby?"  We have been discussing this particular topic for about six months now and Daddy has always been a strong 80 percent NO!  I have held my ground at 50/50 with the main reason for not having a baby being my age.  However, with several babies being born to moms in our playgroup this past year, I have been having very strong maternal urges!  Of course having you come into our lives would mean new everything, since we have already sold or given away all our baby gear. And the gap between you and Alex will be six years - it would be like having an only child when you get older.  But I am in love with the idea of having you all to myself during the day when Brandon and Alex are in school.  With the experience from raising two already, no "brand-new-parent" worries, and no toddler running around to distract us, I envision lots of fun, and of course lots of pictures!  One of the main things that fascinates both Daddy and me is what you, another DeGuia baby, will look like... I guess we will just have to wait and see!

So it is fun to look at this page, now knowing the result of this little conversation.  It did take us longer than I thought, and the gap between Kyle and Alex is almost seven years instead of six, but fears of my age being a factor were unfounded and it is amazing to have him in our lives!

Back to Blogging!

Well obviously it has been too long since I have written a blog post. And this is something I truly would like to get into the habit of doing on a regular basis. There are so many things that happen during day-to-day life that I know will be forgotten if I don't get them down on "paper!"  The main reason for being away so long has been due to my pregnancy.  Now this is a fairly weak excuse because I really had nothing to complain about during my nine months... mild morning sickness (actually a mild all-day icky feeling) in months two and three, heartburn here and there, uncomfortable and itchy skin, not being able to sleep on my tummy (my favorite position), and general grumpiness at not being able to do everything I was used to doing!  Nothing to write home about but the morning sickness did prevent me from sitting at the computer too long, as I would get more nauseous, so after that break I just never got back into posting here.  I did get a bunch of scrapbooking done and enjoyed time to myself once the kids were back in school.  I have spent a lot of time researching all the baby products we have had to re-buy, and then setting up the nursery and attempting to de-clutter the house a bit.

So I thought I would post some collages of favorite pictures from the year to recap what we have been up to.

1. Alex with her creation from a cupcake maker kit she bought with birthday money.  She turned six in February!

2. Brandon and Alex before school in March.  The thing to note here is that Brandon is wearing the smaller sweatshirt and Alex the larger one.  Brandon was very particular for a while that his clothes not be too big for him and Alex got the "leftover" sweatshirt but didn't seem to mind at all. 

3. Brandon turns 8!  Here he is before his birthday dinner with a present from us.  He chose Costco pizza and ice cream!

4. A park outing over Spring Break.  Alex is on the cable swing at a local park - one of the first parks we visited when we moved here and Alex has loved this swing ever since!

5. Tony and Alex at Willie and Nancy's wedding in Union City, CA.  This was a quick trip but lots of fun catching up with relatives on Tony's side of the family!

6. A new trampoline for spring.  This was the first day we had it set up and all "three kids" had a good time jumping around.

7. A nice smile from Brandon, which we usually don't see because he normally will smile with his mouth closed.  He was laughing at an experiment we were conducting with vinegar and baking soda which causes a bubbly reaction!

8. Brandon on Easter Sunday. I asked him to hold up his favorite egg.

These pictures were taken in Carlsbad in June.  We flew into Las Vegas, stayed a night with Tony's parents and then rented a car to drive to Southern California.  Although our main purpose for stopping in this area was to visit Legoland, we made time for the beach!  Even with the temps only in the 60's, the kids had a great time!

Why "My Life as it Should Be"

I have wanted to start a blog for a while.  But not just a personal blog that only my family or friends will view...