The Past 8 months

Ok so I have been getting harrassed that I need to update my blog. So this is an overview of what has happened in the past 8 months.

Oh wow, where to start, where to start...we will go back to July. Well I was still very pregnant. This gives you an idea of where I was between August and September before I popped.

Nothing really happened during July or August, I would go to the doctor as usual, he would check me tell me everything looked good and would send me home. Well then I got going to my weekly appointments and the dr was checking my belly and I asked him how much he thought he weighed and he said "I can only guess within about a pound, and he seems like he is about 6.5-7 lbs now. I wouldn't be suprised if he was over 8 lbs." I was about to freak out, I still had like 3-4 weeks left! And in the last month, you gain 1 pound a week, I thought for sure I was going to explode. Well then, 2 weeks before I am due the doc says, "Well everything looks good, but don't plan on anything happening before the 25th of September." I almost punched him right then and there. I was so mad! Don't tell a pregnant women, who is ready to have a baby that she is going to have to wait another week longer. I was planning on having the baby in 2 weeks, and he is going to tell me that its going to be 3? Yeah I was mad. Well anyways, things were pretty slow with everything, I got my replacement trained at work, and so for a while I was pretty bored with nothing to do. I would go the docs every Wednesday, and 1 week before my first due date (Sept 18) the doc stripped my membranes (gross I know) but he was ready to send me into labor, I was dialated to a 1 or 2, and only about 40% ephased, plus the baby was basically sitting there just waiting for everything to happen, he was dropped as low as he could go, and I was starting to wobble, a lot! Well I told everyone at work, and they were taking bets to see when I would have the baby, and of course nothing happened. I mean nothing. So I went in the following Monday (Sept 15) to see if there was any change, nothing. So I went in on Wednesday (17) to get my membranes stripped again and I think that I was like 50% ephased and maybe a 2. All week I was like, this is crap, this baby needs to come out. But I wasn't going to push it with the doc, he told me that it would happen when it was supposed to. Well the 18th came and the 18th went, no baby. So that Friday at work, I only did a 1/2 day, I was so bored. All weekend, I just layed around, cleaned, and called out of work on Monday and Tuesday, and by this time, I was like, I have to get this baby out, so I started moving furniture around all over the place on Monday, nothing, the only thing that did for me was make my back a little sore and made me super tired. Well to shorten this a little, the doc scheduled for me to go into the hospital Tuesday night around 8 for them to start me. Really what they do is put a little pill by your cervix to soften it to bring on labor, and the first one didn't do anything. So they did another one 4 hours later, so about 3am, and that one started the contractions. They were coming about every minute and a half now, and they were defenitely strong. But I was fine, they gave me some fentinal to take the edge off, I could still feel the contractions but they never peaked. That continued on till about 7am, my nurse came in and asked me what I would like to do first, the epidural or the pitocin. Keep in mind I wanted to go natural, but not if they were going to induce me. Well it turned out that if I had waited a bit for the epidural, that I would have had to do forced contractions for an hour with no pain killers, so I did the epi first and that was easy, didn't really hurt like I thought it would. Then I couldn't feel a thing, it was nice. And then they started the pitocin. Then the contractions started coming on stronger, but it was all good because I was numb. I was hooked up to a monitor and it watched my contractions and the baby's movements. This is a picture of me and Chris after everything was hooked up and I couldn't feel a thing. It was great. The second one is of the monitor, the red line is the baby, and the blue one is my comtractions. At this point they were coming in 2's, one minute apart.

They broke my water at some point, but nothing every came out, nothing happened. The nurse kept coming in and checking me, when they got me all hooked up (about 7:30am on the 24th) I was only at like a 4 but i was 80% ephased, they came in around 10am and I was 90% ephased and about 8cm, so they told me they would come back around at 11 and check on me. At 11 I was 100% ephased and at 9cm. So she said that I would most likely start pushing at noon. Well they didn't come back till like 12:30 or something, and I was taking a nap so it was all good. They came back and told me I was fully dialated and ready to push. So we wait for the contractions to start, and I can feel the tightness of the contraction but not the pain. So you push 3 times during a contraction, and that is some freakin hard work. The only thing you are really doing is moving the baby up and under and passed your pelvic bone, so that the head is barely sticking out. Well I push, and I push, and I push, and then Chris is like, I can see his head! Everyone (my mom, and my sister and me) were all like what does it look like? Chris goes, "Kinda like an elbow." haha, I had visions of giving birth to an elbow, it was funny. So I keep pushing, and all of the sudden the nurse goes, oh he's moving! How cute! They could see his little head moving around, Chris said it was super cute. The pushing wasn't all that painful, but I was worried that I might poo or fart or something, so I wasn't pushing as hard as I could have I guess, so it took a while, but then I said whatever, if I poo, I poo, I won't be the first one thats every happened to. (I never did by the way!! haha) Well at about 3:15- 3:20pm, after tons of pushing, they tell me to stop and that the baby is where he needs to be, and that they have to call the doc. I was like WHAT?! Now you are calling the doc! He was about a 20 minute drive from the hospital, and I am just hangin out with a baby coming out of me! To pass the time I am trying to find out if someone can go get me something to eat when all of this is over, because I was starving. And they talked me into getting a mirror, which I loved, I was against it the whole time, and then I caved, and I am so glad I did. Well the doc gets there about 3:45 or so, and then says ok get ready, PUSH! So I push as hard as I can, and all of the sudden I feel all this burning, and relief, and the baby's head was out, well then he says push again right after all of that, I am like WHAT? So I push again, out pop the shoulders. I think its all over and the doc goes,ONE MORE PUSH, I was like, WHAT! AGAIN! So I push again, and out comes the rest of him! Carter Bradley Checketts joined the world on September 24, 2008 at 3:54pm weighing 7lbs 14oz and 20 inches and I got to see it all happen with the mirror! It was so great to see that little life come out and join the world. At this point, I was crying, my mom was crying, Chris was crying, I think the only person not crying was the doc. The first thing that comes out of the docs mouth is, "Look at the paws on that thing!" His hands were pretty big. This is a picture of him on the wiegh table, still all brand new, just minutes old. See his hands are big.

The rest of the month is kinda a blur, I was so tired, so exhausted, nursing every 2 hours, sleeping in increments of 2 hours, it was hard. But I did get a few pics. I think he looks like a little bull dog. He had just woken up so he still looks puffy. (These are at different ages too)
Oh and I cut my hair, it's not this short anymore, but its still short.

But then things started to take routine, he went from every 2 hours, to about every 3 and stayed there for a while.

October was fun, Carter had his baby blessing, and my mom took super cute pics of that.

For Halloween he was a little devil. I was something with spikey hair, devil horns, and a cape, and Chris was a ghoul. And Uncle Mike was a hippy. I am not sure if I was ready for the picture or not, but I dont look happy. Tiffanie came up to visit and see Carter, and she met Josh here at my house, where we all went to lunch at Fire House Pizzeria, where they both fell in love!! ha ha

November was Thanksgiving, and December was Christmas. Carter went to see Santa for the first time, it was good, he had no idea what was going on, so he just hung out.

January has been cold, he got his first cold, and lost his voice, which he didn't mind, he kept on making squeaking noises just to hear himself talk. Carter also took his first plane trip to AZ for Tiffanie's wedding. (Which was amazing!!) It was so warm down there! And he did so good on the plane. He got his own seat and everything, and yes he was buckled.

He learned to roll over when me and Chris were celebrating our 2 year anniversary. We were at the hotel just watching tv and over he goes, from his back to his belly. He hasn't quite figured out how to completely roll over yet, but he will get there. And he loves to talk!!! He would just babble away sometimes to no one, to a toy to me or Chris or just at the ceiling! It was so cute. He loves to laugh, Chris is the best at making him laugh, and its so cute, he has been laughing since he was about a month old.

As for February, well things have been good except for the past couple of days. Saturday Feb. 20, Carter woke up with a cough, a deep barking cough. I was worried it was RSV, so I called my mom, and the doc, and my mother in law, and they all told me what to look for and when to go to the hospital if it came to that. Well he was fine during the day part of Saturday, but that night he started having problems breathing, and was struggling to get air in. I was nursing him and he would have to stop to breathe, and that is one of the major signs to look for, his nostrils were flaring when he would inhale, and his chest was caving in around his ribs when he would breathe. We were in the parking lot of the hospital waiting for my mom and stepdad to get there, and he was just in his carseat, not really doing anything, he would just stare ahead, and not move, and that was another sign that they are in distress. It was so scary, so we took him to the emergency room at 2:30am Sunday morning, and they admitted him in and immediately started doing breathing treatments on him. That was hard to watch because he was screaming, and you could tell it was hard for him to get the air in that he needed. Under his sternum it would go so deep when he would take a breath in. But you could tell immediately after that he could breathe so much easier. They also gave him steroids to help open up the passage ways for breathing, but those don't start working for about 24 hours. They did chest X-rays to make sure there wasn't anything else going on, and there wasn't, but he did have croupe. And he was struggling to get good air flow. About 2 hours after the first treatment, they did another one, and then finally the ER doc said that he was admitting him to Pediatrics, they knew we were coming, and had a room all ready for us when we got up there. We were there all day Sunday, Sunday night and Monday night and finally came home Tuesday morning around 9:45am. He was getting breathing treatments every 4 hours, sometimes every 2, and they gave him another dose of the steroids (it had been about 14 hours since the last does, they can only give those every 12) and the doc would call and talk with the nurse, and he just felt that Carter should stay because he was having difficulty and because he was getting so many treatments. He is doing better but he still gets tight around his bronchiol tubes. They cleaned his nose out a few times, and that was hard to watch, because it was so hard on him. No one got any sleep Sunday, so Carter slept a lot while we were there and is still sleeping. Which is fine, because his little body went through a lot. They didnt have to do an IV, thank heavens, but they had him hooked up to a monitor to watch his respitory, his heart and his blood oxygen intake. But he was a happy camper the whole time, he only cried when he was tired or hungry (which is normal for us!) and sometimes when they did the treatments. But so far so good with being a mom. It is such a blast. I will try to keep this updated more, I know there are other things that have happened, but I dont have all the pictures to put up with the story, so that will happen later.