He is here! Noah Francis Caswell born 12/18/16 at 6:18pm

Our son is here! Noah Francis Caswell born 12/18/16 at 6:18pm! We are so in love!

The weekend of the 17th our plan was to get our last minute to do items done, we knew this could possibly be our last weekend without baby, so we had some major goals! Saturday was spent grocery shopping, getting cat food and dog food, and wrapping all of our christmas presents.  On sunday I was going to get my hair done, and we were gonna do laundry and get the house cleaned up.  Well, so we thought.  Saturday at 11pm, I was laying in bed getting ready to go to sleep when my water broke. It felt like a pop and then a gush, thankfully I didn't get it everywhere and made it to the bathroom haha! I yelled to Tavid that my water broke, and he asked if I was sure, I was pretty sure, the was a huge gush of fluid! Thankfully, it was clear fluid, if there would have been a color to it, then he had marconium (poop) in the amniotic fluid, and that can cause concerns for baby, we were glad the fluid was clear.  We started to get everything ready to head to the hospital.  Of course, it was one of the coldest nights of the year. I called my cousin Tarra to let her know we were heading to the hospital, she was going to be with us during labor and delivery, I also called the Birth Center to let them know my water broke and we were on our way.  We had decided we didn't want to notify anyone else that we were in labor until he actually made his appearance. We didn't want people to have to sit around and wait, but rather come to the hospital to meet him and enjoy time with him instead.

We arrived at the hospital around midnight. We checked into the Emergency Room and waited to be escorted up to the Birth Center.  Since my contractions hadn't started yet, I choose to walk to the birth center vs being put into a wheel chair. I figure any walking at this point is only to my benefit to progress my labor further! When we got up to the birth center we were greated by a nurse who sent us into a triage room. Before they would officially admit me, they needed to check to make sure my water had broken. They also check your stats, when they checked my blood pressure it came out a bit high, I felt at the time it was due to the automatic machine, and asked if they had a manual. They went out to see if they could find one, in the mean time when they did my cervical check to test to make sure my water broke, she warned me that sometimes more fluid comes out and then they don't have to do the test to confirm my water broke as that is a sign it did. Sure enough, more fluid came out, and she said I was dilated to 4cm! We were officially being admitted! They did my blood pressure again, and it still came out high. They weren't able to find a manual, so the doctor on call ordered tests to see if there was any protein in my urine. High blood pressure and protein, is a sign of pre-eclampsia. They pulled my chart over from Mayo also.  They were trying to get a hold of our doctor, but we assumed she was gone for the weekend, since she had told us at our appointment earlier in the week she had Hockey for her boys this weekend. But we weren't sure, as we had gotten a snow storm, so there was a chance they didn't go.  In the meantime, the on call doctor would care for us. His name was Dr. Barr and he was really nice, we got lucky!  They were getting a labor room ready for us, in the meantime they put an IV in. Thankfully, I had a good nurse who got it in on the first try, and was able to stay out of my hand.  Now that I know my veins are small, and I warn them about that ahead of time, it limits the amount of sticks they have to do, I also begged her to try to stay out of my hand. If I don't have to see it, I do much better.

We moved over to our labor room where I had to take the urine test to see if there was protein present. Tavid brought out stuff in, at this time Tarra was there, so it was now a hurry up and wait situation. Here is our last picture of just the two of us!

I was hoping to be able to walk the halls and help my labor progress and help with contractions. At this point my contractions were tolerable and I felt walking would help me work through them. I went into labor wanting to try my hardest to not have an epidural, and I knew walking would help with that!  Before they would let me walk, they wanted to see what my urine test came back as, my blood pressure was still high. If I did have pre-eclampsia then I would not be able to walk, as I would need to be on magnesium sulfate. I was really hoping for good news, but unfortunately there was protein, so I was stuck in bed. :( bummer! However, the plus side is Dr. Barr felt the pre-eccmplamsia had just started, and that the only way to fix is it was delivery, which was already happening. So I got hooked up to the magnesium and we waited. My contractions were still tolerable, but they did warn me that the magnesium can stall out contractions and if that happens then they would start me on pitocin. Noah was moving a lot, and they couldn't monitor him as well as they wanted with the band on my belly, so they decided to put the probe on his head so they could monitor him better. At the point, it is about 3am, we all decided to try to rest the best we could. They had been checking me periodically to see how I was progressing, but unfortunately, I was at 5cm, but seemed to have stalled out there, so that meant pitocin.

Once they hooked me up to that, my contractions came one after the other, and became extremely intense. I had no break. I tried some pain meds through my IV, but it didn't take the edge off enough, so I decided to do an epidural. since it was about 5am, they had to call in the anesthesiologist, and it could take about an hour. By this point the pain was horrible! Poor Tavid, I could tell he wasn't sure what to do to help me with the pain. I did what I could to help ease my pain, but that anesthesiologist couldn't get there fast enough! By 6am though, I had the epidural and felt I could finally get some sleep. At this point they had heard form our Doctor, and she was out of town and wouldn't be back until 8pm tonight. They figured I would be delivered by then, so the on call Doctor would do the delivery, but our Doctor would stop in monday to check on us. We spent the day just watching tv, chatting and trying to make the time pass.

By 2:00pm, we were ready to push! I couldn't believe it, we were getting closer to meeting our son! Tavid had originally told me, he was just going to stay up by my head and that was it, which is why we asked Tarra to be there to help just incase Tavid couldn't handle it.  However, in the moment of pushing he jumped right in to help encourage me to push and push hard.  He was a great coach!! I pushed and pushed but his head wasn't descending enough, at 4pm Dr. Barr said he would give me 30 more min to try to get him to descend, otherwise we needed to call in a csection team.  I really didn't want a csection, so I pushed with all my might to try to get his head to descend further. However, by 4:30 we just hadn't made the progress the Dr. wanted.  He said he was going to call in the csection team, however he gave me the option to keep pushing and if I could get him out in that time, great, but if not then the team was there to deliver him csection. He also said, we could stop pushing all together and wait for the csection. Tavid and I talked about it and decided to just rest and not continue to push, at that point we had been in labor for 19 hours, pushing for 2 and a half. We were both exhausted and ready to meet our son.  So we waited while they prepped everything, they came in to prep me and get me ready to move to the OR room.  They showed Tavid which room we would been for recovery so he could move our stuff there, and go down to the truck to get the rest of our stuff.

Here are Tavid and Tarra getting ready to come into the OR room.  For someone who doesn't like hospitals, Tavid did AMAZING! So proud of him!

At 6:18pm our sweet boy Noah Francis Caswell was born, and with a full head of hair! He was 7lbs 10ounces and 21 inches long! He had his umbilical cord wrapped around his body, which is what was causing him to not descend any further in the birth canal.

 Daddy cutting the umbilical cord!

 Our first family photo!

Daddy, Tarra and Noah. Tarra is Noah's Godmother, so it was really special to have here there for his delivery! 

As much as I didn't want to have a csection, in the end it came down to myself and Noah being healthy. I was so grateful we got the doctor we did, cause he knew how important it was for me try to have him vaginally, and he let me try to do that as long as possible. 

Another family picture in our room.

When we go back to our room, we called to let our families know Noah was here! Tavids mom and Step Dad and my Aunt Patty came up to visit that night.

We stayed in the hospital for 3 days and had lots of visitors! Here's some pictures from our time in the hospital! We got to go home on Wednesday December 21st, just in time to settle in before Christmas!

 Great Grandpa and Grandma Francis - the inspiration for Noah's middle name

 Three Generations

 Auntie Kayla

 Grandpa and Grandma Caswell

 Family of 3!

Our Photographer came and took pictures at the hospital, here's a few of our favorites!

 Going home as a new family of 3!

We were so fortunate to have had such an amazing care team that take care of myself and Noah. Thank you Owatonna Hospital!

You can see more pictures of Noah on my (Amber's) Facebook page! 

38 Weeks - 8 days until our due date!

(note: this picture is taken at the hospital because I went into labor before I took my 38 week picture, see our next post about the birth of our son!)

How I am Feeling:
I am ready to be done, but no amount of begging convinced my doctor haha! He is being stubborn and is not making any movement towards the outside world. At this point, we just wait for him to decide he is ready. Which I hope is soon!


Sleep:
Still the same as last week, some days are better then others. I have been struggling to breath, and unfortunately my inhalers aren't helping much, so that doesn't help on the sleep front either.

Cravings:
Nothing new

Best Moment of the Week:
We had our 38 week appointment, and sadly there was no change from our last appointment. Like I mentioned above, he is being stubborn (He definitely has my Williams gene in him! haha). We are really hoping he will want to make his appearance soon, or we at least see some change at our appointment on monday!  Our doctor is gone this weekend though at Hockey with her sons, so he can't come this weekend! We really want her to deliver him, so we are hoping he stays put. Plus we are going to get a huge snowstorm today into saturday, so we are perfectly content with him hanging out this weekend.

I did get my breast pump ordered this week! Originally, I was going to just go with the Medela and get it once we were in the hospital. But after talking with friends who have used both the Medela and the Spectra, and ended up preferring the Spectra, I decided to go with the Spectra.  It is a hospital grade pump, and also suppose to be one of the best for women who have had breast reductions. I got discouraged when I called my insurance, cause they couldn't tell me a brand that was covered, just that a "standard" pump was covered and that I had to call around to see what their "standard" was. Thankfully, I was talking to a friend about her Spectra and she suggested working with Milk Moms (https://milkmoms.com/). So I called, and she confirmed my insurance would cover a spectra, and she would get it in the mail the next day! So glad I kept researching and asked! I love that it will be delivered to our house too, with the storm coming the last thing we wanted to do was try to go find a breast pump that wasn't medela! I am hoping the Spectra is as great to me as it has been to others I know!

37 Weeks

How I am feeling:
Nothing has changed much on this front. Still uncomfortable, and each day I hope will be the day I go into labor. The cold has hit hard here in Minnesota, and none of my winter coats fit, so I am just having to suffer through with the coat that fits and layer up as best as I can. I am hopeful the end is coming soon! We are eager to meet our son and I am eager to be done being pregnant.


Sleep:
Still the same as last week. My hips are killing me, I can't sleep on each side for long, and I can't sleep on my back. I end up tossing and turning, and finally last night I got up and watched tv in the living room for a few hours.


Cravings:
Nothing new

Best Moment of the Week:
We have been finishing up as much as we can on our to do list before Baby boy gets here.  On Saturday my cousin Nick and Tarra came over to help us install our car seat bases, so if we happen to go into labor we at least can bring him home! We also, had breakfast with Katie, Jason and Wyatt.  It will be one of our last outings as a group before our tables grows my not 1 but two babies! We also took our belly pictures, so we can show the boys when they get older! :)

We also went up to the cities for Augsburg College's Advent Vespers concert.  One of my favorite times of years! It was such a beautiful concert, I miss singing in it, but I am glad I can still go and enjoy it! It also nice to see old friends from my college days!

On Sunday we spent the day getting Christmas stuff set up, we still have to finish decorating our upstairs tree, and get our downstairs stuff set up, but we at least got it all out and ready to finish up this coming weekend.  We also finished packing our bags for the hospital. So if he decides hes ready, we are ready too!

We had our 37 week appointment on Monday, everything looks good, still not dilated but she said my cervix is 80% thinned out.  Which could mean we are close or it could mean nothing haha.  He will come when he is ready! (But Mom and Dad would really love for it to be soon ;) haha)

36 weeks

How I am Feeling:
Still uncomfortable, I am ready to be done.  He is kicking me in the ribs and making it hard to breath. Not even my inhalers and helping me, I am getting miserable.

Sleep:
Still non existent, I tried sleeping on the couch one night this week and I made it until about midnight before I moved back to our room. I couldn't get comfortable or get into a deep enough sleep. Might try the recliner this next week, but I think I am just meant to not sleep right now.

Cravings:
Nothing new

Best Moment of the Week:
There are quite a few great moments from this week! We finished up baby boys room.  We still need to hang his name (which will be done once he is born), shorten the length on his curtains and we are going to do a collage of canvas' over his blanket ladder of newborn/fresh 48 photos.

We love how it turned out! We also put the gate up to keep the dogs and cats out.

However, it did not take Brody long to conquer it haha For the most part he is only trying to get in there when we are in there, but he has been found laying on the rug in there a few nights this past week. What a little stinker!

We had our 36 week appointment on Monday.  His heartbeat was good, she checked to see if I was dilated, which I wasn't however she can feel his head so he is in position! Hoping we start to make some progress this week! I can tell he is out of room because I can feel him push up into my ribs and it is horribly uncomfortable.

We also had a breastfeeding class up at the hospital on Tuesday. It was suppose to be last week, but our instructor had a sick kid, so it got moved to this week. It was helpful information for both of us.

We have also been working on getting our hospital bags packed and finishing up the last on our to do list. Since I could end up in labor at any moment, we are trying to be as prepared as possible!

Here's a cute picture of Oliver and Doc, they have been soaking up as much sleep as they can get haha I think they know our lives are going to change quickly!

Also, I put this out on facebook today, but figure I should put it here also for those that are just following through our blog. :)

I feel like I shouldn't have to put this out there, but if I don't, and this happens we will be quite upset. So better to put it out there now vs regretting not later.

We are getting closer to when Baby Caswell will be making his appearance. We are asking that you please not announce the birth of our child on social media before we do or without our permission to do so, this includes "congratulations!" posts and announcing I am in labor.

We want the joy of sharing with everyone when he is born and his name, so please wait for us to say and post anything on social media. We also want to tell our families first, and will need some time to do that. We plan to take some time after he born to ourselves to enjoy our son and be a family of 3, but we promise we will announce as soon as we are ready, we wont forget about you all!