The Day Adam Went Back to Work

I can even begin to say amazing it was to have Adam home! He was absolutely amazing, helping out with everything while he was here! I was kind of a nerd when I got home and still tried to do everything. After having a c-section I couldn't do anything! It was weeks before I wasn't always in pain. I couldn't lift anything and could barley walk. So when I came home from the hospital this time I felt invincible! I could walk, pick up my baby (and 3 year old) I felt like I could honestly do it all still. So the first day or say I was still trying to do everything and Adam would get so mad at me, ha. He would say "this is what I am here for, let me help you and do these things." It took a day or two before it did kind of catch up to me and I was feeling pretty sore. No complaints still though because it had nothing on a c-section recovery. But I decided to absolutely let him take care of me and pamper me. So on his break he did everything for Brynlee, cooked all meals, did dishes, cleaned, shopping, and anything else I needed. To say I was heartbroken he was going back to work was an understatement. I was SO nervous to get back to real life, and make it through a day by myself. When he was leaving to work I bawled like a baby and held onto him for dear life and didn't want to let go. He was still so sweet, he said if you need ANYTHING just call, and if you need me to come home I can. He said to make sure to take care of Brynlee first so she didn't feel neglected even if it meant Raegan had to cry a little. That definitely worked. It was a much better transition than I thought. That's the great thing about newborns, they sleep ALL day! So it makes it pretty easy to take care of two kids. And Brynlee was a rockstar! She helped with what she could and we tried to stay busy with fun things to do like painting, reading, going to the park, playing in her playroom...I even let her play with my makeup. I think her favorite thing though is cuddling with her sister. She is just so sweet with her! She asks all the time to hold her, and I love it!

The Time Reagan Got Newborn Pictures...Twice

Adam has a coworker, Breeze, who has taken our family pictures twice and offered to take Raegans newborn pictures. So we took the first set of pictures when she was 8 days old. My good friend Kayla offered to take pictures too..in my opinion you can never have enough. So I took her up on it too. The second set of pictures was when she was 11 days old. I love how all of them turned out! We got some amazing ones with her and Brynlee as well.

The Time Adam Got 2 Weeks Paternity

We love Fidelity! They are seriously a great company to work for. We've been so fortunate with Adam's job and what a blessing it's been for our family. One more perk is that they get 2 full paid weeks of paternity. One of the greatest blessings post delivery...besides Reagan of course. Like I've said before, I have been extremely anxious for the transition from one to two kids. So we decided Adam would be in charge of Brynlee and entertain her so she doesn't feel left out, and I would do everything for Reagan. Including trying to get as much sleep as I can until he goes back to work. It think it was win win for everyone. Brynlee absolutely loves her Daddy so spending two full weeks with him was exactly what she needed. They went to a couple movies together, went to Jump Street (indoor trampoline place), ice cream, swimming almost every day and bowling. In the meantime, Raegan and I stayed home, cuddled, slept ate and flooded her with kisses. Perfection! Poor Brynlee got attacked by mosquitos one day at the pool, right on the corner of her eye. It got so swollen her eye was almost swollen shut. We ended up taking her to the Urgent Care to make sure she wasn't allergic and was ok. Which she was, it just took a little while for the swelling to go down. I sure love this little family of mine!

The First Week With Reagan

I LOVE LOVE LOVE newborn babies!! Everything about them! Their smell, softness, cuddles, everything is so perfect about them, literally a gift straight from heaven. I hold my babies every second I can. With Reagan, especially after I had to leave her at the hospital, I could/would not put her down when we got home. We would stay up super late at night just so I could hold her a little longer. I even enjoy waking up to feed her at night just so I can hold her a little more. Adam will get a 10 minute fix and then he's good, so with Brynlee it worked out perfect because I got to whole her 97% of the time. With Raegan, I had to share with her older sister that wants to hold her almost as much as I do. Ha. Brynlee just loves her little sister! She loves to hold and cuddle with her whenever I'm willing to share. :) She is such a sweet baby! We are loving every. single. second with her!

The Birth Story of Raegan Lee Gooch

My due date was August 13th. I went in for my appointment a week before on the 6th, Adam came with me so he could meet Dr. Nelson. On our way up we were pretty excited and kind of giddy to see if I had progressed. The two weeks before I was at an 80% effaced and dilated to a 2, so I thought for sure I had progressed. Dr. Nelson was running about an hour behind and Adam had to get back to work so we were getting a little anxious (and annoyed) when he finally came in and asked "So how are you doing?" and I said "sooo ready to have this baby!" So he said, "Ok, do you want to come in tomorrow morning and we'll get you started?" Then all of the sudden I was thinking what?! I don't know if I'm really ready now!  Since I was set on doing a vbac we were always told that it wasn't safe to get induced but he went through everything with us and we both felt good about it.

Once again I had a delivery that I could go home and prepare for. Which was good because we were extreme procrastinators with this baby. We had just set up the crib the week before, I pulled out all of Brynlee's baby clothes a couple days before and we got the car seat the day before. So we were really pushing it. Anyways, that night we were able to get the house cleaned and ready, pack our bags and get things set up with Adam's parents for watching Brynlee. We made sure to take in the last night with just us and Brynlee. We were both pretty anxious that night...I didn't get any sleep! I stayed up until about 1 am packing and doing last minute things, and then my mind was racing all night. All along I knew I wanted to try for a vbac. I also knew that there would be risks involved...but there would be either way I delivered. So a lot of the night I was praying and hoping I was making the right choice and that the baby and I would be be healthy and alright throughout the delivery. And just pure excitement to meet our baby girl!

We were supposed to meet Adam's parents and check in at the hospital at 7:30 the next morning, like always we were running late and didn't leave the house until about 7:15, then there was a bad wreck on the freeway that closed 3 lanes in the middle of rush hour. So we ended up getting there an hour late. We got all checked in and settled in my room. The delivery room was a nice and huge room. The hospital I had Brynlee in was brand new and everything was so nice. So I was excited to be in a nice delivery room. To induce me they used a balloon catheter, that when it was in me they filled it with water to the size of me being 4 cm dilated, and then let it do it's thing for 6 hours. So when I got settled in my room, Adam headed back to work for a couple hours to get things done since he would be gone for a couple weeks.

Since I never had contractions with Brynlee, I just always assumed I would be one of the lucky ones like my Aunt Cheri that didn't have to experience them...I was very wrong.  One of my friends had this balloon catheter and made it seem like the worse most painful thing. So when they got it put in they came in every 15 minutes to fill it up until it was full, I was thinking it was cake. It didn't hurt at all. When it was full it was a little uncomfortable. Three hours later was when I started getting contractions, so I called Adam to let him know it was time to come back to the hospital. He got back in perfect timing, the contractions were coming on a little stronger when he got there and it was nice to hold his hand through them or have him rub my back. After the six hours were over, I was dilated to a 4 at about 4:00 pm. Dr Nelson said to keep it in 2 more hours. By this point it was really uncomfortable and put quite a bit of pressure on me. I was getting a lot of pain my lower back with the contractions, so I had Adam rubbing my back and I started crying because it was hurting so bad. Just then one of the resident Dr's came in with about 4 other residents and when they asked me how I was doing I lost it, I started sobbing uncontrollably and seriously could not stop. I was so embarrassed. They had told me that I could get the epidural if I was in a lot of pain. I knew I wanted to wait as long as I could because I had heard that the epidural would slow down progression and I didn't want that to be the reason for a c-section. So after they left I was finally able to calm down.

Side note **It was pretty funny, I was in control of the temperature in our room. And I was so hot the whole day and night, so it was set at like 63 and I was still a little warm, our nurses Kim and Rachel when they came in would be in two sweaters and Adam had a couple blankets on because they were so cold. **

At about 5:30 my contractions were about 5-8 minutes apart and not super consistent. So we decided to go on a walk before I got checked again. Oh my goodness, we just did about a lap and a half around the little office area and that got my contractions going, they were coming consistently 2-3 minutes apart. They checked me again at 6:00 pm and I was dilated to a 6. At this point I was not doing so hot. I started crying through the contractions, my back was killing me and I was ready for the epidural. It took a looong almost hour before the anesthesiologist made it to my room. The epidural was one of the single most amazing thing's I've gotten in my life.  It started working pretty quickly and by 8:00 pm I was completely exhausted, didn't feel a thing and fell asleep for about 4 hours.  The nurse came in and checked me at about midnight and I was at a 9, and I had been for a little while so they gave me a tiny bit of pitocin. At 1:00 am I was at a 10 and was ready to start pushing, at this point I could start feeling a little more, I definitely could feel the sensation to push when a needed. It was just the nurse helping me for the first 10 minutes and then Dr. Nelson came in. I can say that I'm sure I have never looked so horrible, pushing so hard I'm sure I had the ugliest face and my veins were probably popping out and I was kind of screaming...I'm sure it wasn't a pretty sight. But it was sure one of the greatest experiences. I pushed for about 20 minutes total. It was such a relaxed environment. Adam stayed up by my head holding my hand and giving me water when I needed it (pretty much between every push) and when they got Raegan's head and shoulders out they gave her to me to pull her out and put her on my chest. It was incredible! Adam got to cut the embelical cord, which he did not want to do...but Dr. Nelson just handed it right over to him (I don't think it was as bad as he thought it would be). And I just held Raegan on me until they took her over to check her and clean her off. It was honestly even better than what I was hoping for! Even through all of the ugly and kind of painful pushing, being able to hold my baby right when she was born was just amazing! It was SO much better than a c-section! And I was so so happy I was able to have a successful v-bac.  I loved it so much I even told Adam right after I was ready to do it again. :) Raegan was a beautiful baby!! She was born at Friday August 8th at 1:34 am and was 7 lbs 13 oz and 21" long...and perfect!

We got the the post delivery room at about 4:00 am and were EXHAUSTED! When we got up there they had a wing that was closed and so they put us in a shared room, no one else was in there at the time but we were not excited about it! I felt so bad because all they had for Adam was a tiny uncomfortable chair. They wouldn't let him sleep in the other bed just in case someone else had to come in, which they were 95% sure no one would. So we ended up just sharing my bed, and some of the night all three of us were in there. But it was nice to be cuddled up to two of my loves. We made sure to ask everyone if a single room opened up if we could have it...so the next day we were thankfully moved to one.  I might be weird, but I love being at the hospital after a baby. I LOVED all of our nurses...especially labor and delivery. They are all so so nice and do everything for me...so I enjoy it while I'm there. And with this being our second it was so nice to spend that 1 on 1 time with Raegan, and Adam. It took us half us the next day until we finally picked her name. The majority of the pregnancy she was going to be Alexa, and then 2 weeks before we added Raegan into the mix...and that it what we thought was perfect for her.  That first night though we did have a little scare, we were both trying to sleep and Adam could hear Raegan making a weird little noise and checked on her and she was choking, it was really scary because she wasn't really breathing and her lips were already blue, luckily a nurse was just walking in and helped her out. But I was really nervous after that. She did it one more time, but we were always keeping an eye on her.

Saturday we were told that her beliruben was a lot higher than it should be. She had pretty bad Jaundice.  But everyone we were working with made it seem like it wasn't a huge deal and that it would go down on her own. It did go down a little a Saturday and then Sunday it actually went up higher than it had been on Saturday. Once again the nurse was saying it wasn't a huge deal and seemed to be kind of pushing us to go, because that was the day we could go home, and actually we had to leave by that night. We decided we wanted to take care of it while we were there, so she was under the lights in our room all day Sunday. It was actually pretty sad because she had to wear protective eyewear, so by the end of the day her eyes were really irritated, puffy and red.  At first they had her set up in her little hospital bassinet, and she would just scream...broke my heart! So after a while I just put her next to me on my bed, and she was able to sleep through a lot of the day. Adam ended up going to his parents to help with Brynlee since there wasn't anything he could do at the hospital. The nurse that was there was so sweet and would keep checking on me and would come in and keep me company for a little while. For dinner she took Raegan out to check her beliruben count again and held her while I had. I had a little panic attack break down, and started crying while I ate getting anxiety over being a mom of two kids and how I would be able to do everything and make both kids happy, and I was nervous I was already getting post pardom depression (I know I'm weird) so I said I little prayer to calm me and help me so I can be a good mom to my girls, and I got a very overwhelming peaceful feelings that things would work out.

Adam and his parents brought Brynlee to the hospital to meet her little sister. We wanted her to come earlier so bad, but knew that she would have a super hard time leaving us and Raegan knowing we couldn't go with her, so decided it would be best for her to meet Raegan right before we were going home so we could all go home together. Once again I had a lot of anxiety over how Brynlee would do...and she was amazing! It was such a sweet moment! Brynlee was so cute and sweet, she was asking a hundred questions about everything. She was a little bashful at first and then just wanted to hold her. She was very concerned about the little eye wear when we had to put it back on and if it was hurting her, and just wanted to hold her.  About an hour later we found out Raegan's count had gone up even higher and were told she would have to stay at the hospital and be taken to the nursery to be put under the lights there. I started bawling! I was so sad, and kind of embarassed because Jim and LeeAnn were there and the nurses, but I couldn't stop. I was so sad to have to leave my new baby behind. Before we left Adam and Jim gave her a blessing, and then Adam, Brynlee and I dropped her off at the nursery. I was a mess...and I bawled all the way home. It was so sad to see the car seat in the car and not have our little baby in it, I was so excited for the drive home and to see Brynlee just stare at her the whole way. We were very happy to have Brynlee back though, she was so sweet that night and helped fill that little hole.

Surprisingly we actually slept really well that night, we were both so exhausted. We called first thing in the morning, and were told we could come in and sit with her. So we got ready and headed to the hospital. We were SO excited to see her! I ended up staying with her and holding her for about 4 hours while Adam took Brynlee to the aquarium, and luckily her tests came back and she was good enough to come home. I can't begin to say how happy I was that night. To have our whole family home together. I held on to Raegan all night, I couldn't stop starring at her. We were so so blessed with such a great delivery, healthy beautiful baby, and to all be home as a family.