Two Weeks

 We've now had Davis in our family for two weeks and it has gone by so fast, and at the same time, I feel like he's always been part of us. These big brothers are absolutely as smitten as I thought they'd be. They have been so helpful and so sweet to their new brother! They ask to hold him all the time and are so willing to do little chores and errands for me (as long as they somehow help the baby- like fetching diapers or grabbing a binky).

I set Davis down one morning so I could change the laundry and when I came back Hudson was reading him a book! It was the sweetest thing! Both boys jump at any chance to hold their baby brother.

We've spent most of the last two weeks just snuggling Davis. This newborn stage goes too quickly and Ben and I are determined to enjoy it to the fullest. Holding a newborn is really the closest thing to heaven.

This was the first time Davis came along for morning carpool! Chase was so excited about it. So far, this has been the biggest challenge (the few times I've done it). Davis's eating has been a little stressful- he's not the greatest nurser and is very unpredictable. Sometimes he latches immediately and eats great. A lot of the time it takes over 30 minutes to trying to wake him and get him to latch- and then calm him when he gets frustrated- and by the time we finish the feeding it's taken over an hour! This particular morning I started trying to feed him 40 minutes before leaving for school, but it took me until 10 minutes before we had to leave to get him to latch! But we made it!

Hudson got a little cold so we've been trying to keep him away from Davis, which didn't really go well. He just loves him so much! Here he is blowing a kiss to the baby! Hudson has written two lullabies he sings to the baby. One is his celebration milk song (celebration milk=nursing, another Hudson original) which just goes "suck, suck, suck, suck" over and over and ends with motorcycle noises. The other is "rock a bye baby, don't go a stray" which I think is a hybrid of rock a bye baby and Follow the Prophet. Sometimes that song ends with an elephant noise. They are so funny and have made me laugh a lot these past few weeks.

Ben had to go to Toronto for work for a few days, so my mom came to stay with us. She spent all three nights with me (which was good since Davis REALLY struggled with nursing those nights which was stressful) and then took a day off work to spend with us. She cleaned my whole house, made shamrock cookies with the boys, did our laundry, helped Chase with homework, held the baby and offered lots of moral support. We are so blessed to have her so close by! She was a lifesaver. My dad also took the boys to work with him one of the days, so they got in a little farming adventure. We survived Ben's trip!

I didn't do much for St. Patrick's Day this year. With Davis still being so new we were doing well to just basically survive this time! But the boys did wear green and I dyed their milk green at breakfast! I really loved Davis's little leprechaun outfit! My friend Andrea gave it to us and his tiny body and red hair made him the cutest little leprechaun I've ever seen!

Choosing His Name

I always like to record the story of how we landed on our babies names. And I like Davis' story!

Last time around, we had a hard time deciding on a name for Hudson, mostly because Ben kept shooting down all my favorites! This time from early on in the pregnancy I knew I wanted to name this baby either Cooper or Sawyer (both names I tried for with Hudson) and I was fairly certain if the baby was a boy he would be one of those two names.

 Then we found out it was a boy, and Ben pretty much vetoed Sawyer, but said he was open to Cooper, although not totally enthused about it. Ben came up with Blake, which I was kind of okay with, but wasn't loving either. I assumed it would be awhile before we came to a name consensus. Within just a few weeks of finding out we were having a boy, one night Ben randomly suggested Davis.

 It was like a little light went off in my head. I liked the name Davis! To make it even better, Davis is a family name on my mom's side. The Davis family joined the church in Wales and immigrated to America. They started the journey west, and their daughter Jane married a young man named William Lewis. Jane's parents stayed behind to help other pioneers build handcarts, and ended up dying before being able to come to Utah themselves. Jane and William traveled across the plains in an early handcart company nicknamed the "starvation company". William was a strong, young man, and was helping many other families with the journey as well. Their food was strictly rationed and they were limited to 1/4 cup of flour per person per day. Jane could see that William was struggling to maintain his strength, as many were depending on his help to make the journey. She started sneaking him her portions of flour (unbeknownst to him) and they both made it to Utah. Their story continues to be one of strength, courage and sacrifice. Once I told Ben about this story, it really cemented in his mind that Davis was to be this child's name.

 It's kind of funny, now that we've named three boys I figured that our subsequent boys would use a name we'd discussed for one of their older brothers, but both Hudson and Davis' names weren't even on our radar until that particular child came along. We had never talked about the name Davis before this conversation, but it just immediately clicked and felt like it should be his name. He just felt like a Davis.

 We decided to wait until he was born to pick a middle name. We tossed around a few ideas, but I kind of hoped when we met him we would know what it was supposed to be. I wanted to name him Davis Jack, since Hudson had been asking to name him "Jack went to Monkeys" since the minute we told him Davis was coming- and continued to suggest it as a middle name. When we realized that Davis was going to be born on the exact day Hudson knew he was coming, we both just knew he was supposed to be Davis Jack. While I was in labor and trying to deal with the pain of contractions, I tried to "connect" with the baby- and during those moments I just really felt he was supposed to be Davis Jack. Jack was Ben's least favorite on our list of middle names, but when I told him how I felt he immediately agreed- he was Davis Jack.

Shortly after Davis was born we sent a text to the family to let them know, and included his middle name it in. When my mom told it to the boys, Hudson was immediately in denial and exclaimed, "No, it's supposed to be Davis Michael Jack-went-to-Monkeys Hugo! Quick, someone FIX THIS before he gets any bigger!" There's a chance Hudson still thinks his middle is/should be Jack-went-to-Monkeys. Hudson was just so connected with Davis during the pregnancy (right up to guessing the exact day he'd be born) that we thought it would be a meaningful name for our little Davis.

We love his name, and love this baby even more! He's just the best.

(All these pictures I took when he was 5 days old)

Our Hospital Stay

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the hospital. Even though I was dealing with uncomfortable recovery pain and all that very unglamorous stuff, I still loved all the quiet bonding time with Davis. Ben stayed with me the whole time and the boys enjoyed being spoiled by grandparents.

 Will and Kate came to visit on Saturday night and we had fun talking with them (we rarely see them without all the little ones running around/fighting and requiring parental attention). Then on Sunday morning my mom brought the boys back to visit their new brother. They were just as excited as they were the night before.

 Our first night in the hospital we sent Davis to the nursery so we could get some sleep and asked that they bring him back when he needed to eat. Well, as hard as I tried I hardly slept a wink all night. Every time I'd fall asleep, I'd quickly jerk awake within minutes. I think I still had so much adrenaline in my system from our crazy delivery day. My nap on Sunday went much the same way, so by Sunday night, going on almost no sleep for two days and all the pain of recovery I started to feel very sick, dizzy, nauseated and just all around terrible. The nurses suggested I take a phenergan (an anti-nausea pill that also makes you very sleepy) and that we send Davis to the nursery for the night. They said they would still bring him to me to eat, but not very often and asked permission to give him a bottle if he couldn't give me at least a three hour stretch of sleep. I quickly agreed to that, since I knew I really needed the sleep at that point and I wanted to be a little more well-rested to go home. I sent Davis off and quickly fell asleep. I guess he got fussy kind of quick, so they gave him one small bottle, and then brought him to me to nurse a little later, giving me a nice 5 hour stretch of sleep, which was heavenly! I guess while they had him, he had a de-sat spell and turned a little blue, but quickly brought his oxygen back up with them picking him up and moving him. I was a little scared when I heard that, and nervous that it would happen again. Since it didn't, they decided it was an isolated incident, he may have spit up some amniotic fluid that got caught or something. I was grateful that the nurses were watching him when that happened!

 I think this picture best highlights that Davis got my hair color! Every nurse asked if all our kids were redheads- and we told them just this one!

 In the past I've been ready to go home the second they will let me. This time we decided to just stay as long as possible and enjoy the quiet time with just Davis. The hospital food was actually really pretty good, and since they kept telling me "order as much food as you want" I always ordered a lot of stuff and Ben and I just split every meal. But after we had lunch on Monday it really was time to go home. It was nice to not feel rushed to get home, and not have to stay any longer than we wanted. We were ready to get home to the other two boys and sleep in our own bed!

Even though we've done this before, a new baby continues to be the most beautiful, special, miraculous experience we've ever had. Ben and I both love holding babies- so we basically just took turns holding him the whole time. We had wonderful doctors and nurses the whole time. I felt like the whole hospital staff was just there to help us, make us more comfortable, and otherwise let us be on our own and just be with our new little son. Those two days together in the hospital were sweet and quiet and just perfect. 

Davis Birth Story

Our darling baby boy made his grand debut on March 4, 2017. To preface this story, let me say that once March 1st hit, and we were officially in the safe zone (37 weeks) and the boys knew it was "march" aka- the month baby brother was going to be born, we were all getting a little impatient for him to come. I knew I was being silly, but I still was longing for him to come earlier rather than later and even told my doctor at my appointment that I'd really like to have the baby that weekend, which just sounded like a good time to me.

January and February were hyper-nesting months for me. I had all his little clothes washed and ready to go, the nursery stocked, meals prepped and in the freezer, and the house clean (as clean as it could stay while we still lived there). I was still going to the gym 5 days a week, I even went a had a pretty decent workout on Friday, March 3rd, the day before he came. I was so ready! On Friday, Hudson told me that Davis had told him he was going to come the next day- a thought he repeated several times throughout the day. 

Saturday morning came. I'd slept awfully on that night, feeling lots of cramping, but nothing consistent or labor like. Then, while lying in bed that morning I felt a gush of fluid. I hoped it meant my water had broken, but I continued to second guess myself as I went about our morning, got all ready and now, of course, started washing my sheets. I didn't say anything to the boys about it, but while I was fixing breakfast Hudson came up to me, placed his ear against my belly, and said, "Davis is talking to me! He says he wants to come today!"

Ben finally convinced me to call Dr. Spencer and get his opinion, which was of course, to go in and get checked. My mom ran right down to be with the boys and we headed out. I had a fairly pessimistic attitude as we drove to the hospital, and felt like 90% sure they were going to turn us away and I would feel foolish. Contractions weren't coming super frequently and weren't painful at all, and I wasn't continuing to leak fluid (which is a fairly sure sign that water has indeed broken). 

We got to the hospital around 9:00 am to find it totally quiet and not busy at all. They quickly checked me and concluded that my water had broken! We were going to have the baby today! I was so excited! It really was the perfect day to have him. It was easy to have my parents watch the boys, Ben didn't have work, we didn't really even have any plans for the day! It took awhile to get an IV going and all that, but once we did they started some pitocin to get me in a good contraction pattern, since I wasn't really in one.

My plan (when I planned this labor in my head) was that I would already be dilated to a 6 or 7 upon arriving at the hospital. Hudson's labor was so fast I was fairly certain this one would go faster. I guess Davis had other plans. Although things got painful fairly quickly, it never "took off" like it did last time. I kept putting off the epidural thinking that soon enough I'd make that quick transition to complete, like I have in the past. For the first few hours I felt like I was working through the pain really well and staying fairly calm. Ben rubbed my back and feet and held my hand through it all and I felt like we were going to make it. After being stuck at 5 cm for 2 hours, with contractions getting more and more painful, I knew I needed an epidural. I finally ordered it, and at that point I really have never been in such pain in all my life.  It was SO intense. It took a half hour for the CRNA to get there and she couldn't come soon enough, it was so so hard and so so painful. Ben mentioned to me that this time I was working harder and in more pain than the other two combined. Dr. Spencer checked me right before she put in the spinal block, just to see if I had miraculously gone complete in that time, but I was just at a 7 and he recommended we go ahead with the block. 

She did a spinal block, instead of an epidural, which has the benefit of working faster (within 5 minutes) but doesn't leave a catheter in the spine so it isn't easily re-dosable. Which we were fine with, knowing that the end should be near. I think I'd been comfortable for all of 15 minutes when they checked me and sure enough, I was at a ten and ready to have the baby. I think my body needed to relax at that point, I was too tired and too tight with all the pain, that I just wasn't progressing well. Bless anesthesia! I think the spinal went in around 2:10, and started working around 2:15 pm. 

They quickly set up the room, I pushed through one contraction and out came our sweet, perfect little Davis! It was so surreal. After such an emotional, painful day, I couldn't really believe he was even here! They let me hold him skin to skin right away and just take in all his sweet goodness! We immediately noticed how tiny he was (compared to our other boys) and that he has RED hair! After leaving him on my chest for a few minutes they took him over for monitoring because he was grunting. They worked on him for awhile, put him on oxygen, suctioned a lot of fluid out his little lungs, and finally got him to pink up and breathe a little better. They were just about ready to take him to the NICU when my sweet nurse said, "let's just let him stay with mom for a few more minutes, I'll watch him closely." They let me have him back, I nursed him, and he seemed to do even better. When the NICU came 5 minutes later to take him, they ended up deciding that he was doing just fine and let us keep him with us! I was so grateful! Ben and I spent a wonderful hour with him, bonding and admiring our sweet little son.

 The next best part of the day came when my mom brought the boys over to meet him. They were so excited and so sweet to him. Hudson immediately whispered in Davis' ear "Let's go home!"  And then quickly later whispered to Davis "I'm so happy!" Chase held him and sang him the sweetest little lullaby. Hudson held still to hold him for a long time with a huge grin on his face. This long awaited little brother is very loved!

Davis Jack Hugo

March 4, 2017 2:36 pm

6 lbs 15 oz 20 inches

So there is the story of how we met our sweet little Davis. It was honestly one of the best days of my whole life. We love this little angel so much and we are so happy he's here!