Baby Jake

Jake Richard Fisher was born on September 21st. He weighed 7 lbs 9 ozs and was 21 inches long. Things have been so crazy around here lately that is has taken me forever to finally post his birth story, but better late than never right? I had been having on and off contractions for a couple days before I actually went into labor, but finally at about 2am on the 21st they started getting regular. Cody was actually at work so I put off calling him as long as possible, but finally at 5 in the morning contractions were about 4-5 minutes apart so I decided I had better give him a call. He headed home as soon as he got the call and then I figured I better get my sister called so we could figure out what to do with Maddy. My wonderful sister said she would come pick her up and take her to her house so I patiently waited for both Cody and my sister to arrive. Before I knew it contractions were about 2-1/2 minutes apart when we arrived at the hospital and getting really hard. I thought for sure they were going to check me and tell me I was ready to start pushing. However, when they checked me I was only at 4. So, we got up and walked the halls for a while before they got me into my room. After getting settled in my room I was checked again and had dilated another cm. A little bit discouraged and realizing I could be in for a long labor I decided to go ahead and get an epidural. Immediately after getting my epidural I was checked again and was excited to find out that I was at a 6. My dr then decided to go ahead and break my water which is when things really started to speed up. I went from being dilated to a 6 to a 9 in about an hour. Cody and I were both getting pretty excited and I actually remember thinking how easy it had all been and that I could have 6 kids if it stayed this easy. :) (I know very cocky and stupid of me huh) My dr had an appointment she was finishing up with before coming over to deliver so we waited patiently for her to get there to start pushing. Finally after what seemed like forever she showed up and checked me again. To our astonishment I was still at a 9 and had been for quite some time. She explained to me that she thought a little tiny bit of pitocin would do the trick and help me get past that little bit. After another 45 minutes or so she came back in to check me again and I still had not fully dilated. That's when she decided to take matters into her own hands and she would try to just pull it back the rest of the way, which actually ended up working. Before we knew it I was pushing. I have to stop and say now that I love my dr and think that she was inspired in many different instances and led to do things by a higher power because before the baby got too far down the birth canal she decided to check and see which direction he was facing. It turns out one of the reasons my labor had been so painful was the Jake was facing posterior (his face was coming out the wrong way making it a lot harder for him to fit) After realizing this she decided to manually turn him, which worked. We then resumed pushing for what seemed like forever when stuff started to get scary. With each push Jake's heartbeat kept dropping. She was able to massage his head and bring his heart rate back up but after some time of stress on him and his heart rate not coming up as high each time she started to get worried. She explained that he was now too far down for a C section and that he would need to be born very soon and so she wanted to use a vaccum assistance. This is when I started getting worried and got extremely emotional. I had flashbacks of my nephew that was born with a vaccum and how hard it had been on his tiny head. Seeing how nervous I was she let me push a few more times when things got really scary. Jake's heartbeat shot up almost off the charts and she explained that they had to get him out right now. Everything after that was kind of a haze I remember looking over at Cody's face and realizing how nervous he was and knowing something was not right. My dr quickly made a decision that quite possibly could have saved my little guys life and she made some quick incisions and pulled him out with the vaccum. I had been so nervous about not being able to feel to push that I had let my epidural wear off, ouch! I was so relived to finally have him here that I quickly forgot though. He ended up having the cord wrapped very tightly around his neck, body, and arm. My dr had kept saying how she couldn't believe how weak my contractions were especially for being on PIT. I had to laugh after it was all said and done because one of the nurses got a look of shock on her face after I delivered and she realized that she had put the PIT on the stand and never turned it on. Oops! I guess I just have to assume everything happened how it was supposed to and maybe the PIT would have had a negative affect. I still get emotional when I think about how blessed we are that everything turned out ok. Poor little Jake looked pretty rough for the first couple days but he quickly recovered and is doing great. We love him so much already and are to happy to have him as a part of our family.

Sweet baby boy still at the hospital.

Maddy was not quite sure what to think of him at first. She has been really gentle and for the most part not really even interested him. She is very sure whenever she leaves the house to give him a goodbye kiss on the head though.
Before leaving the hospital we got the bad news that he had a pretty bad case of jaundice and we would have to take a billy bed come home with us. It was so hard to have him on here, especially because he was really colicky at first and just wanted to be held. We had some really long nights and days listening to him cry and feeling very helpless. To our surprise he actually had to be on the light for 3 days too because his levels kept jumping, it was really hard to watch.
Maddy broke into one of the packages that were sent home from the hospital with samples in it and found a nipple which she then tried using along with my hospital mug. :)
We are thinking poor Jake must have reflux because he is constantly trying to keep his food down. It was sad to watch how much pain he was in and not being able to do anything about it. As you can see it made for some really loud days and nights. :) I actually started him on some reflux formula that has helped a TON. He is like a different baby now a days and has started to feel much better.
A cute little outfit from my grandma. Maddy loves monkeys so this quickly became her favorite outfit.

Bouncing in his bouncer.

A big smile for the camera!

A very proud daddy with his son. Jake's hands and feet are huge, this makes daddy have high hopes for an NFL career.
Sleeping baby boy. I have had so much help and I am so grateful. My mom came and helped me my fist week and now my wonderful mother in law is out helping my second week. Thanks moms!!! I don't know how we are going to function once you leave.