the dalton family

So the months of January and February are past, but they were most definitely NOT uneventful! Not long after our return from Oregon I was told I had gestational diabetes. BLECH! I found out that it doesn’t necessarily mean no sugar, but limited carbs; unfortunately sugars are full of carbs, so unless I wanted to eat a mini, halloween-sized kit-kat for dinner, I pretty much had to skip most things sugary. I got to poke my poor little fingers 4 times a day, and had to make sure my blood sugar levels stayed below a certain point or it was straight to labor and delivery for me (which fortunately DID NOT happen)!

Never fear though, not all of January was sugar-free. Cambrie turned one and of the cake I did partake (a very little bit)! Cambrie is by far the cutest one year-old on the face of the planet! She is SO smiley and happy all of the time. She is constantly on the go and into things and she LOVES to walk! She loves to “talk” and “sing” and does both almost constantly. Our favorite is when she wakes up and sings to us until we get her out of bed – you really CANNOT beat a morning serenade from such a cute little thing!

(Layout of her birthday will be posted soon)

Unfortunately, not long after that, protein started showing up in my urine and my headaches began increasing in frequency and severity, and I started getting all yucky and nauseous again (like I was at the beginning of my pregnancy, even worse at times). And then around the beginning of February, my vision started going crazy (blurry, fuzzy, whatever). With all of this and the gestational diabetes they started to monitor me more closely for preeclampsia; blood tests every week, 24-hour urine test, non-stress tests each week, and a second ultrasound. All this of course made me a bit nervous and concerned, and all of the symptoms, made me virtually useless. I was so worried they were going to put me on bed rest, but my blood pressure stayed normal and I never had any swelling (in fact I had no swelling, unlike in my other pregnancies where I at least had the normal swollen ankles).

We did get to celebrate Ava’s 3rd birthday. Ava was so excited to turn three and couldn’t wait to show everyone her three little fingers and tell them that she is 3! So cute.

She is such a sweet and tiny thing. Her smile just melts your heart and that giggle erases all cares. She is very loving and tells you at least every 10-15 minutes just how much she loves you. Her vocabulary and her talking has exploded and she is now at the point that you can barely get a word in edge-wise. She is almost potty-trained; we started not long after returning from our Christmas vacation to Oregon, and while she did VERY good the first 2-3 weeks, she’s had a little more trouble recently. But, she has done very good and I’m sure will continue to improve (she even keeps her panties dry over-night, so we’ve stopped using pull-ups and now she only uses panties).

Also, while all of my pregnancy related drama was going on, I got to plan a wedding in a week for my brother in-law Darren and his fiance (and my friend) Rochelle. They had their big day on Valentines Day. It sounds cliche, but we did our best to make it not so. I way over-did myself and could barely function the entire next week, but the wedding turned out fabulously (with only a few minor hitches) and everyone had fun and was happy!

A week after the wedding, I still had all of the same symptoms, was still very concerned, and got to have more testing. And then one more week after that puts us at February 26th. I went in to visit my Dr. and she ran all of the same tests, except this time, she spoke to a high-risk OB and they both agreed that I had atypical preeclampsia, and the benefits of waiting for the baby were far out-weighed by the risks, so they were going to induce me. Off she sends me to the hospital to be induced…THAT NIGHT! Whoa, at least give me 24-hours to let it sink in that I am going to be induced 4 weeks early!

So we scramble to get the things together for the girls to go stay overnight with Darren and Rochelle and to get our bags packed as well and then head on over to the hospital. We get there, they hook me up to the monitors, put in my IV (with some trouble and much puking) and by this point I am wasted! My head is killing me, I’m EXTREMELY nauseous, I’m unbelievably stressed, and I just want to go home and go to bed (and eat something – because 3 bites of a burger IS NOT a meal)!

The on-call Dr. finally arrives and we sit down to talk about the induction. But instead of just an induction, we start talking about doing a cesarean (partly because I had mentioned to the nurse that I was done for and wanted to get it over with – half joking, half not). Well, I guess it was a good thing I made mention, because after talking about the risks and benefits of both a cesarean and an induction, Tyler and I both felt (against our natural feelings) that we should go the route of a cesarean. From this point I will have to let Tyler take over because I really don’t remember a whole lot (I was only slightly drugged up and may or may not have totally passed out). But for the record, and before I let Tyler have the floor, if I ever do a cesarean again they better knock me out right from the beginning because I do not want to ever feel that way again! I do not do well with meds and the dreams and experience I had was one of the most terrifying I have EVER experienced!

Okay, now Tyler can continue on with the story.

Not sure I signed up for this…holding your hand through delivery is one thing, but then having to write about it…well you may never forgive me. 

Anyway, the delivery was an interesting experience.  Next time I must remember a video camera, or a tape recorder at least.  Oh, and good thing for anesthesiologists who prep you for what happens, or I would have likely hurdled over the blue screen, and started throwing doctors to the floor from the sounds of torture coming from my wife.  (Is that a bit overly dramatic???)

Thankfully the “drug pusher” (anesthesiologist) was on my end of the table, and would warn me without fail what to expect from my wife, including moaning, and possible screams of dying.  What a weird, and surreal experience.  I agree with Lissel – put her out completely, none of this drug induced nightmares…although one good thing came of it.  I learned that my dear wife in her most frightful moments just wanted her Tyler (that’s me), as she repeatedly called out for me amidst the pleas of help.  I’m always looking for the bright side. 

Well that was probably much more detail than needed.  From there, the baby came out, and I suddenly heard the nurse laughing, then she said “It’s a girl”…which quickly led to another doctor saying something like “where’s the stem on that apple” (no joke, those were his words).  I got over the shock pretty quickly, but it took Lissel at least a day to come down enough off the drugs to realize we had a girl instead of a boy.

After the initial shock, I found myself leaving my poor wife to get sewed up while I accompanied our new little girl to the nursery where there were better tools available as she was not breathing very well.  Have you ever noticed how doctors in tough situations tend to say nothing, but use lots of needles.  I think we should hook microphones up to their brains, so we have some kind of clue as to what is going on.  Poor little Jacelyn, not even an hour old, and she already had both arms pricked looking for veins, and heels punctured for blood, and an oxygen tube in her nose.  If it hadn’t been so early in the morning, and I so tired, I think I would have grabbed her off the table and run away.  Thankfully, sanity won out, and although on oxygen for about 5 hours, she recovered perfectly and was in with mom and dad later that day.

At some point Lissel was brought in to the recovery room (more like a recovery closet if you ask me), and I tried to convince her we really did have a girl…she still seemed very out of it, and not able to grasp that we didn’t have a boy.  Anyway, sleep overcame us, and upon waking up we began brainstorming for a girls name for our little surprise.  Jacelyn Isleana Dalton (born 1:41 am on February 27th) was finally named a day later.  One note on the name: We changed one of the boy names we liked (Jace) into a girl name and fell instantly in love with the name Jacelyn and Isleana our variation of Lissel’s Grandmother’s name.  Oddly enough we learned later that day that Jacelyn was the perfect name because in one of the baby name books the nurses let us borrow, we found that one of the meanings of the name was “a replacement”, which truly she was.  A perfect, beautiful, amazing replacement.

Hope that’s what you were hoping for hon…Just remember I do this because I love you, so if I said too much or too little, love is all you should hear. 

Love you, and welcome Jacelyn to the Dalton family…Now, anyone know what kind of shotgun I’ll need to keep boys away from my princesses as they get older?

(If I ever find my camera which has been missing since about 3 days after Jacelyn was born, I’ll insert the photo of Cambrie with her new sister into this layout. I could take a new one, but my back-up camera is even worse than my missing one.)

Filed under: Uncategorized on March 21st, 2010