Jonah Robert

We welcomed our fifth child into our family last weekend, on Sunday, March 13, 2011. Jonah Robert was born at 10:02 a.m., weighing in at 7 lbs, 7.4 oz and measuring 19-1/2 inches long, after nearly seven hours of labor. He was my second longest labor and my second smallest baby. My water actually broke while I was sleeping, waking me at about 3:10 a.m. I was in the middle of a very strange dream in which someone had just slugged me in the stomach causing me to bleed, when I woke up and realized that I was drenched and that my water had broken. So Corey and I rushed around packing my bag and making a phone call for someone to come sit with the kids and then went to the Jordan Valley Hospital.

I had an epidural at about 4:30 a.m., and when the medicine started, I suffered a severe drop in blood pressure. The nurses were able to stabilize my blood pressure with some medication, several doses of it, in fact, but it never quite returned back up to normal. The labor was pain free, thanks to the wonderful epidural I got, and I spent about 15-20 minutes pushing him out.

After he was born, I had an episode of shaking that didn't stop for several hours--I think I was just cold and exhausted from it all and my body was handling it by shivering and shaking. I wasn't able to nurse him right away because of the shaking, so Corey took him to the nursery and fed him a bottle there. After the epidural finally wore off, around 2:30 pm, Corey went home and got the kids and brought them back to see me and Jonah.

We came home from the hospital on Tuesday around 2:30 pm. Since then, Jonah has lost a lot of weight and needs to gain back about ten ounces before he is rechecked on March 28th (two weeks). He also has been dealing with jaundice and higher than normal bilirubin levels. The solution to this for him to eat a lot and poop out the bilirubin. He has been eating a lot but he is not pooping, so now that is a huge concern.

I am trying to get the hang of breastfeeding again, and like usual, not doing very well at it. We are trying to adjust to life with five kids instead of four, but I guess that will take a while until we are settled more into a routine.

New baby Jonah

Westley and Jonah

Caleb and Jonah

Travis and Jonah

Eliza and Jonah

Ready for Baby

We have been trying to get things ready for the new baby. Corey's sister recently moved back to California and left us with a double bed, some shelves, and a dresser. In order to make room for that furniture, we moved Westley and Caleb to the toy room. We decided then to move Eliza and Travis to the toy room also and open up that space for the baby's room, which he won't use until he's at least three months old, but we figured that they could have a few weeks to get used to being all in one room before the baby comes. Then we set up the guest room and are trying to get the baby's room set up (moving some toys in there, moving some storage around, etc.).

We also went through our stuff and got rid of a few big items by selling them through the classifieds online. Then we used that money to buy a new stroller/car seat combo for the baby (the one we've had for all the other kids is now too old...but that's a rant for another post someday) and a new carseat for Eliza.

Today I had my 36 week ob check-up and I'm dilated to a 2, 70% effaced and will be induced on March 23rd if I don't have the baby before then. He's measuring big (all my babies always did) and by then I'll be 39 weeks. So, the latest this baby will be born is March 23rd!