Nolan David Mangelson

So as we're coming up on Nolan's first birthday I find that I finally have some time to breath.  No jobs so far this week, Shaun is at scout camp, and my calling as the gospel doctrine teacher is far less demanding than when I was secretary.  So I'm excited that I finally get a chance to sit down, gather my thoughts, and write a little bit about Nolan's birth.  I've been meaning to for awhile, but all the warnings about having three kids being rough are so TRUE!! It has been a big adjustment, one that I'm sure would have been much harder if Nolan wasn't such a great baby.  Anyways so these birth posts always seem to go so long for me but I really want to have it recorded some place that they can go and read about when they get older if they want to.

So I remember getting ready to go in to start the first phase of my inducing plan with Dr. Harter, who is the best by the way, and thinking that this kid is going to be so huge.  I mean my belly was just ridiculously ginormous.  I mean, check it out.  I was huge.  Granted I weighed a lot more than I was supposed to but I just remember feeling huge.  And that was confirmed when my mom flew in on Sunday and continuously reminded me how huge I was; as if I didn't know!! :-)

 Anyways, so I went in Monday and got the balloon catheter thing put in.  That kind of hurt a lot.  But I started feeling contractions almost right away.  There was a ton of pressure and I was feeling really amazing that this might be the start of a successful VBAC.  I had searched for a doctor here in Las Vegas who would do it and Dr. Harter consistently came up as a VBAC, all hands on deck kind of doctor.  My cousin Tiffany had him as her doctor for both her children's births as well and I was able to get in to see him.  So I was super excited.  We went to Wal-Mart and walked around a little bit after going to Red Robin or something like that for dinner.  Then later that night when the kids were in bed my mom and I went walking around Wal-Mart too and that was the first time I saw these babies.  I don't know what it was but I just thought they were so cool and I HAD to take a picture for some reason.

So that night I had a hard time sleeping and I was like oh my goodness, I'm having consistent contractions, this is going to work.  I was supposed to check in at like 5:30 am or something crazy like that so we got there and the hospital was packed.  They didn't have any room and they said they tried to call me to tell me not to come down yet, but we found that they had the wrong number on file for some reason.  Anyways, I went back home and tried to sleep for a little bit but that wasn't really working so my mom got up and said let's go for a walk because by then the balloon had fallen out and I was really nervous that I was going to stop progressing because my contractions had pretty much stopped.  So we start walking in the blistering morning heat and we weren't gone for more than 10 minutes when I got a call that they had an open bed but I had to get down there right away.  So I called Shaun and told him to get ready and my awesome mom ran back to my house so she could stay with the kids and Shaun came and picked me up.  We got there, and got all gowned up, and in the bed.  Peed in a cup, they took some blood, got the IV started, got me hooked up to all the wretched monitors and started some pitocin.  I was getting excited because the nurse checked me and I was almost at a 5 by the time I got there and contractions started right away.  And they started to get worse.  I'd never felt a real contraction with my two previous births, but now I can say that I have.  They hurt and I know that they can get much worse.

So about a couple hours later they broke my water and I'm thinking this is going to be awesome.  And after they broke my water they were able to put an internal monitor in so I could relax and stop worrying about the blasted belly monitors that are oh so uncomfortable.  When they broke my water, it was crazy.  There was so much fluid coming out that she had to use so many towels to sop it all up and it just kept coming.  No wonder I was so big.  There was an insane amount of fluid.  When she broke my water the baby finally dropped too which was nice because I was able to breath a little better.  But about an hour later he start drifting back up and I wasn't progressing much anymore.  I hit a 5, but a few hours after that I was still a 5 despite my consistent contractions.  Dr. Harter had a patient's uterus burst on him the previous day and he was nervous that that was going to happen to me, but I thought that maybe if I got the epidural that I would be able to relax a little and could dilate a little more.  So I talked to the nurse about that and asked Dr. Harter if I could have a little more time to see if I could get further and he reluctantly agreed.

So the anesthesiologist came in and he scared me a little because (and I knew this) I had small spaces between my spinal columns or whatever space it is that they put the medicine and he said he wasn't sure if he had the right spot and having had not too pleasant of experiences previously with spinal blocks, I was a little hesitant but it went right in it hardly hurt at all.  A few minutes after that Dr. Harter came in and said okay, let's go.  And the nurse was like um, I thought we were going to wait a little bit.  Somehow, somewhere, everyone got their wires crossed and they start arguing in my room about what is supposed to be happening.  Dr. Harter wants to do the C-Section because he's worried about my uterus not being able to handle the trauma of two previous C-sections and contractions.  The anesthesiologist is upset because he just gave me a dose of the epidural meds and is worried if he gives me enough to go in and do the surgery that it can have add complications for me.  The nurse is getting yelled at because she is the one that told the anesthesiologist to come in and get me started because she thought that I was supposed to get it.  Anyways after all the yelling stopped (and they went in the hall after a bit) we all made a collective to decision to wait a half hour mostly for the epidural's sake.  We didn't want the medicine to rise up and slow down my heartbeat or something like that.

So they got me prepped for surgery and I thought that I'd be bummed but I was surprisingly calm and happy.  I was ready to meet this new little person and was excited to see him even if it was through another C-Section.  The surgery went smoothly except that the medicine did start to creep up towards my head and my heart did slow down a bit and my arms went completely numb.  That was really scary and I felt like I wanted to throw up but the anesthesiologist talked me through it and I did a lot of deep breathing to keep myself calm when all I wanted to do was throw-up and scream that I couldn't feel my arms.  That part was scary but then Nolan came and Dr. Harter was like this is a big boy.  They weighed him and he was 10 1/1 pounds.  He was born around 8:00 in the evening and we were just happy to spend some time with him.

He slept so much and was a super happy baby.  Hardly ever cried and seriously just slept so much.  I started pumping right away because I was having a hard time getting him to latch.  His mouth was a little small and apparently I was a little on the bigger side and he was having a hard time with that.  So I pumped which is fine with me.  It's my normal.  I had to push away all those inadequate feelings again but it was easier this time.

 I took me awhile until I could hold him because my arms were still numb but I slowly got feeling back and was able to hold this sweet boy.  I just think it's amazing how fast I fall in love with these little humans.  I feel so lucky that I get to be a mom and take care of these precious babies.

 My mom and the kids came the next morning and they were super sweet with him.  He even smiled for them.

 Grammy Scarfield was there too and came to hold her fifth grandchild.

 Some more visitors from the Shaun's side of the family.  There were other visitors but I didn't get pictures of all of them.  I should have but I guess I wasn't on my A-game.  Jennifer Antonio came and brought me my favorite donuts and a hamburger from Burger King.  I was soo hungry and it tasted so good.  Jordan and Tiffany Quinney came and brought a nice care package for us.  It was so nice to have some snacks and reading material.  Jori Martin and her daughter came and visited for awhile and that was nice to chat and she brought a nice gift for Nolan.  I can't remember if anyone else came to visit but we were happy to have people come meet Nolan.

 This is the first time Jake and Savvy held Nolan.  They love their brother for sure.

 Time to go home.  He was already too big for the newborn head thing.  He was a beast.  And he skipped newborn diapers completely.  The nurse tried to put one on him when he first came out, but he was too big and they had to switch everything out for 1's.  I love my big boy!

 We're home!!

I completely love my sleepy baby boy.  Sorry it took me so long to get this post done.