~A week ago yesterday

So I thought I'd tell the story of little Jett's arrival.
**WARNING** This is kind of long!

Around 2:30 a.m. last Tuesday morning I started to have strong contractions. The previous day, Monday, I had contractions, but they weren't consistent and honestly, I didn't think anything of them. Anyway, back to Tuesday. I timed the contractions for 4 hours and they were anywhere from 6-12 minutes apart. I woke Adam up about 6 a.m. to help me do some cleaning. I really wanted some advice on whether I should go to the hospital to get checked but Adam didn't know what to do either. This was a whole new thing for us. I've never gone into labor on my own and with two previous c-sections I wasn't sure about the whole thing. So...I called my mom. In the meantime Adam went to work. My mom and I decided that maybe I should wait another hour to see if they might get closer together. After waiting the hour, it kind of seemed like they were slowing down so I decided to go to Wal-Mart to get a new book that was just released. I was mostly trying to keep my mind busy. At Wal-Mart I started having contractions again and they were closer together and a lot stronger. I loaded the boys into the car and headed to the hospital.

I decided not to call Adam at this point because I thought they might send me home and I didn't want him to have to leave work. We got to the hospital room and I got the boys settled watching some cartoons in the room. The nurse had got them some apple juice and crackers. They were happy campers, and I might add, being little angels!!

At this point I got hooked up to the monitors and the nurse checked me. I was having contractions every 2-3 minutes lasting anywhere from 45-60 seconds. Yes, I was in labor but only dilated to a 3. The nurse called my dr. and he agreed that I needed to have the c-section soon. We couldn't wait til Friday. After some other phone calls, we found out that the anesthesiologist couldn't get to me for a few hours (apparently Fairbanks has only 1 anesthesiologist). That meant that I would have to endure the pain for about 3 hours. I called Adam and gave him the update. Within 20 minutes he was at the hospital. I was so happy to see him.

The next challenge was that my mom wasn't arriving until the next day, Wednesday, so that meant we had no one to watch the boys. I tried to call a few people from the ward, but no one was answering their phones. Adam and I decided that he would stay with the boys in my hospital room while I was in surgery and then we'd all meet back together after everything was over. I felt very calm at this point and had the feeling that everything would workout. One last attempt to get someone to watch the boys and Sister Clifford answered and gladly said she would keep the boys. Thank you Sister Clifford!!!

Adam went to drop off the boys and I was left with the nurse to work through my contractions. At one point I couldn't sit in the bed any longer. I unhooked myself from the monitors and started to walk around the room. During one really strong contraction I felt the need to squat and push. As I went to squat the nurse walked in and saw me and realized that things were progressing. I had to get back into bed and concentrate on staying calm. That was hard...kudos to all you people who do that without pain medication.

Adam cut it close, making it back to the hospital 15 minutes before my surgery. Everything went well during the surgery. The cord was wrapped around Jett's neck and he had a cone head from being in the birth canal, but other than that...things were pretty good.

A day after Jett was born, we found that his respiratory count was too high. The dr.'s were concerned so we had to stay in the hospital longer than expected. After tests and lots of monitoring they let us go home with strick instructions to track Jett's breathing and temperature. We're still seeing the dr. every few days. If he's not better a month from his birth, then they will start extensive testing on his heart. I feel like he just needs some time to adjust. It might seem like a small thing that he's just breathing too fast, but as a mother, you want to have a perfect healthy baby and to me it's not small. I'm so thankful for the many prayers and fasting that have been on behalf of our little babe.

We love Jett!!