Finally...a little time to update?

Well hello again! It's been weeks I know, but I have a valid reason that I'm sure you all can guess. :) Yes, that's right, we have a new baby in the house! Asher James Fletcher was born on April 22 at 11:32pm. He weighed 7lbs 7oz, and was 20.5 inches long.

Life with a newborn is as hectic as I remember it being, but AJ is a bit more chill then L was as as baby and I am SO grateful for that. I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father knew that I wasn't up to having another high maintenance baby, particularly at the point we are at in my husbands Navy career, with him having to be gone as much as he is ( more on that in a moment).

Labor went like this: I had my 39 week appointment on Tuesday the 20th, and the Dr. expressed a concern about my blood pressure, which over the course of the last month had risen from a normal 120/80 to 139/90. So they had me do some labs, and a 24 hour urine catch ( yes I had to pee in a jug for a whole day, boy wasn't that fun!) to make sure I didn't have pre-eclampsia. Went back for a follow up appointment on Thursday, and my labs came back fine but my BP was at 148/102, so they decided that rather then risk me having a serious complication, they would schedule me for an induction the following Friday morning. So the Dr. stripped my membrane while I was at the office and then sent me to the maternity wing to take a non-stress test and make sure the baby was alright. While I was doing the test, the nurse asked me how I felt and I told her that I had had a bit of a head ache all day, and she told my Dr., who then decided to just admit me and induce me that afternoon! ( I guess headaches mixed with hypertension is a bad thing. :))

So they admitted me at 230 that afternoon ( my Dr. appointment had been at 130) and I had actually started to labor on my own, because apparently my body is one of the lucky few that stripping actually works for! ( I had been stripped with L also and went into labor on my own w/in 12 hours) So when they admitted me I had dilated from a 1 in the office to a 3 w/in an hour. Erick was a work, so they stalled giving me pitocin until he could get to the hospital, and in the meantime I just progressed on my own. At 430 the Dr. came in a checked me again and I was at a 5, so they broke my water and called for the Anesthesiologist to give me an epidural, cause there was NO WAY in a million years I was gonna do it again without one! Erick showed up just before the epidural was given ( he had to step out of the room because needles freak him out :)) and they waited to give me pitocin because I was progressing well on my own. But then the epidural stalled my labor a bit, so they ended up putting me on it around 6 or 7ish, and I stayed dilated at a 5 until about 11ish, even after multiple ups of the pitocin dosage, and a revamp of my epidural because it was starting to wear off. At 11ish though, they made me turn on my side for some reason and that popped me wide open and I had him after about 4 sets of pushes at 1132pm.

I have to say...SO glad I got the epidural, I didn't feel any of the contractions and that was awesome. I did however feel all of the pushing and him coming out, which I didn't feel with L because I was so distracted by the pain of the contractions.

So he's been here for 2 weeks as of yesterday, and he's doing great! He sleeps really well, didn't really have much problems being confused with day or night after the first few days, his awake time is becoming more consistent and he sleeps for between 4 and 6 hours straight at night! Lorelai doesn't seemed bothered by him, she likes to give him his binki and give him and hug, and help bounce him in his bouncy seat, and she whines a little when he cries, I think out of sympathy and it's cute :)

I'm doing well post postpartum wise. Hardly sore at all anymore, and not nearly as depressed as I got after L, except for when it comes to my husbands job. I swear, it feels like whoever makes decisions about the boats schedule follows me around in the shadows, and schedules the boat in ways that specifically make me unhappy. :) Erick did get paternity leave ( 10 days) which was heaven on earth, and then he has been back to work this week. My family is coming out for a visit at the end of the month, and they were supposed to get here just as Erick was taking off for a longish underway, but of course they switched the schedule all up so that he is gone before they get here and after they leave but is in port for their visit! So us trying to strategically make it so my family was here and I didn't have to do the 2 kids alone thing pretty much got flushed down the toilet! I guess Heavenly Father wants me to be able to do this by myself. :) That and the Navy hates me. :)

I think we're also both feeling the weight of deployment looming in front of us now that AJ is here. This will be our first deployment, and so far the longest underway we've dealt with is 29 days. So 6 or 7 months seems pretty impossible. But we can't get away from it...so it's like the elephant in the room that we're both desperately trying to ignore and keep life as normal as possible for the little time we have left, but it's so enormous that it's crowding out everything else no matter how much we try to pretend its not there.

Oh goodness...it's taken me 4 days to write this entry! The above portion was written on Friday and I am now just finding the time to get back to finish! So If I'm a little disjointed here, that's why!

In any case...I'm sure most of you are waiting for more pictures of AJ. :) I'm going to try and upload as many as I can...though I'm sure a few will be disappointed with the lack of variety and number of them. So I apologize ahead of time. But here's what we've got so far:


Alright....these are all from his first week...and I took some of him on his 2 week birthday, but they are SUPER DARK so I'm not gonna put them on here. I'll try to take some of him today or tomorrow and hopefully post again...if I can get my act together!

Until next time
Jen