Opal is earthside. She is a sweetie. I adore her. I'm not the only one. We are all obsessed. The most common phrase in our home lately is: "she is the cutest!" Penelope wants to stay by Opal's side full time. I'll confess, as part of my recovery, I made it a full week without making cookies. Today I couldn't wait any longer though and had the baking itch.
Stats:
Birthday: Friday, September 11 (how memorable)
Time: 4:45pm
Weight: 10.03 pounds
Length: 21 inches
First bath
Heroes:
Many thanks to my parents who took over our busy schedule while Andrew and I were at the hospital. Not going to lie, I was thrilled to miss the kids dentist appointments. I was bummed I didn't see James score a goal at his soccer game.
dentist
Labor:
I wanted my body to go into labor on its own this time. I've had 2 inductions and my water broke with James, and I wanted to see what my body could do.
I woke up on Friday, September 11 around 4:20am with cramping. I didn't think too much of it because I'd experienced Braxton Hicks contractions before. By 7:15am, contractions were 4 minutes apart for 20 minutes and then they spread out again to about 10 minutes apart.
I had my 39 week appointment scheduled on Friday morning at 8:50am. By the time I went to my appointment, Andrew wondered if I should drive myself because I was having painful contractions at times. When Doc Burgett measured my cervix, I was already dilated to a 5.5/6. My blood pressure was also high: 142. The doc called the Riverton hospital to ensure there were enough beds and to warn them that I was coming. He told me to get there as soon as possible.
I arrived at the hospital at 10am. I really appreciate Jessica taking Penelope while my mom was playing at a funeral!
I was worried I wouldn't be able to get an epidural because things were progressing so quickly. I finally got my epidural at 11:50am. In the past, I've gotten an epidural much sooner. I felt those contractions. The epidural placement ended up being pretty painful. It took the anesthesiologist 3 tries to finally be able to get the epidural in my back! He was in my room for over 15 minutes. Apparently I "have scar tissue" and "this is what happens when you get older." He was chipping away at my back and couldn't get the needle in. I felt everything and have 3 inserts on my back where he attempted to place the epidural. Finally, he got the epidural in. Andrew said there was a decent amount of blood which hasn't happened before... What a thing. The good news is that the epidural worked once it was finally in me.
At 2:00pm, a doctor broke my water.
At 2:50pm, Dr. Burgett came by. I was not close to pushing. I had been dilated to a 7.5 for an hour or so and Dr. Burgett wanted things to progress faster so he ordered Pitocin.
At 2:55pm, I started Pitocin. Within 15 minutes, I was feeling a lot. I wondered if my epidural had worn off. My nurse kind of shrugged me off and left... In her words... "Pitocin can't work that quickly."
At 4pm, the nurse came back (after 45 minutes) and I basically had to beg her to check my cervix. "It has only been an hour since you started Pitocin..." She really seemed to doubt there were any changes.
She seemed shocked to learn I had NO cervix left and was dilated to a 10. Good thing I advocated for myself. I wish I had forced a cervix check after 15 minutes of Pitocin.
They called Doc Wilson to come deliver baby girl. Doc Burgett had worked late the prior night and was not on call. I thought it was kind of him to come by earlier to check on me though.
Doc Wilson arrived at 4:43pm and I met him for the first time. I immediately started pushing. I pushed TWICE. Easy peasy. Second push, she was out! Opal was born at 4:45.
The doc commented on how large she is. I have to admit I was emotional as I met Opal for the first time. Andrew and I couldn't stop looking at each other or her. Oh what a miracle a healthy baby is.
Due to her size, they had to check Opal's glucose levels throughout our stay at the hospital when she ate. This was stressful. During one of her glucose checks, her number was too low, so they had to rub some glucose inside of her cheeks as well as supplement/measure how much she ate with donated breast milk. Thankfully, the other times her glucose was fine. I was relieved when we were done with glucose checks. It was not fun to have to call a nurse every time I was ready to feed Opal to come prick her poor feet and test her.
Opal does not have the hair my other girls did. She reminds me of how James looked when he was a baby. She has lighter coloring and is beautiful.
After Opal made her appearance, things took a turn and Doc Wilson told me he couldn't wait for the placenta to be delivered and that he needed to pull it out now because I was bleeding so much. I lost 600cc's of blood. There was a lot of blood. I could see it on the floor. Because of the amount of blood loss, they started me on medicine.
Not long after the doc left the room, the nurse looked horrified. It turns out there was still some placenta left and she rushed to call Doc Wilson back. He returned to the room and had to do a "sweep" to make sure all of the placenta was out. No more came out. I had to start an antibiotic to prevent infection after the sweep.
Due to my high blood pressure, they also had me take medicine for that. I was told in the hospital that I had gestational hypertension... This is something I suspected the last 8ish weeks of my pregnancy.
I was super shaky after Opal arrived. I don't remember this happening after giving birth to my other kids, but maybe I just forgot that part? The nurse gave me some juice and told me that shakiness is normal due to the hormone changes. It didn't last very long.
Shoutout to the best partner, husband, and father a girl could dream of!
sisters
Side note: I went to stake women's conference the evening of Thursday, September 10. Several people were so surprised to hear I had the baby before Sunday! They had just seen me! Even the stake president pulled Andrew aside at church and said, "I just saw her Thursday!" Today is my actual due date. Hooray for being done with labor!
It was great timing to have Opal while the U.S Open tennis tournament was on TV. I watched tennis matches while in labor and talked to the nurse and doc about players. It was wonderful.
Name:
We love the name Opal and went with it. It is not common and is classic and vintage. It's also short. I dare you to ask Penelope to say "Opal." It's adorable. Ruth is a family name. My great grandma Langlois' (on my mom's side) first name was Ruth. Ruth also has meaning on the Ditto side. Grandpa Harvey's mom was named Ruth. Grannie's sister Carol also had the middle name Ruth. My sister sent me Opal earrings as a welcome gift and they are gorgeous. Feel free to compliment them next time you see me.
Love:
Overwhelmed by all the check ins, meals, gift drop offs, and more. People are sooo kind and I have a very lengthy list of what others have done. So much to be thankful for.
Scare:
Opal had a regular checkup with her pediatrician when she was 3 days old. When she got discharged from the hospital, we were told Opal's jaundice score was 4 points away from needing treatment. At her appointment on Monday, September 14, the doctor checked her bilirubin levels to see how her jaundice was doing. The doctor also checked her sodium levels because of her weight loss.
The results for the bloodwork take a few hours. The doc called me later that evening and said her jaundice levels didn't seem to be on the rise which is good. An hour and a half later, Dr. Witt seemed panicked when I picked up the phone. He had somehow missed her sodium bloodwork from earlier and her sodium levels were dangerously high... to the point of possibly causing seizures and brain damage. He told me to take Opal to Primary Children's hospital immediately.
This scared me and I started bawling. My mom joined me and we headed to the hospital. I am so grateful she was by my side. I left at 6:50pm and got home around 11:15. Turns out the lab results from earlier at Opal's doctor's appointment were wrong... Her sodium levels were in the normal range and we were sent home. Phew. Yes, it's always better to be safe than sorry, but I was annoyed. Seeing my baby go through more pokes and be so uncomfortable and screaming at the top of her lungs was miserable. I loved watching my mom comfort, interact with, and talk to Opal through this experience. Poor baby girl was stripped of all her clothes and put under a "heating lamp" that was broken. Breastfeeding her while she was attached to all these things is something I'll always remember. I will say that night when I was in Opal's room feeding her in the pitch black and getting little sleep, I didn't mind it one bit. I was just grateful she is okay.
Pregnancy:
I feel bad complaining because I know many others have terrible pregnancies. This pregnancy was my worst pregnancy. I am thrilled to be done being pregnant and have already packed up all my maternity clothes. My other pregnancies were mild.
This pregnancy, I dealt with things I've never experienced before.
- Carpal tunnel for instance. And no, it hasn't magically disappeared now that Opal is here. It has made nursing more difficult because my hands go tingly/numb. I wear braces at night which help.
- Spotty vision. This is a sign of pre-eclampsia and happened at least 4 times. Once, my eyes were blinking for a half hour and I couldn't see.
- Headaches. Daily headaches that were bad enough to wake me from sleep. This happened the last few weeks of pregnancy.
- Water retention. My feet were soooo swollen! I never understood why people enjoy foot massages until now. Andrew graciously gave me daily foot rubs which helped ease the pain. Basically only flip fops fit my feet at the end...Within a few days of delivering, I lost over 31 pounds due to water retention! I gained the most weight this pregnancy than any other pregnancy.
- Bad heartburn. I had heartburn every pregnancy so this didn't come as a surprise. By the end, it was pretty terrible. Most nights, I didn't eat after 5:30pm and even then would still feel ill.
- Extra appointments. Early on in the pregnancy, I was referred to a specialist. Fortunately things were ok. The last 2 months of pregnancy, I had weekly appointments. I had bloodwork done a few times to check my protein levels and also had weekly blood pressure checks.
Going home at 5:45pm on 9/12. The nurses could not believe how quickly we were ready to "abandon ship" once we got the newborn test results back. I had no desire to be in the hospital an instant longer.
Opal, you were worth the wait. We couldn't love you more. I forgot about all the adorable sounds babies make. The snorts, the cute hiccups, the full faced grins while dreaming, the snuggles. I'm soaking up every moment of it. Look at my 4 beautiful children! I can't wait to get family pictures taken later this month so you can see more of our sweet Opal.
