Lucas Boyd Jensen is here!

Lucas Boyd Jensen

October 22, 2007

5lbs 8 oz

20 inches

So here is the story for those of you that haven't heard yet:


Tuesday night (the 16th of October) I took Joelle down to Kids Care because we thought she might have a UTI. Shortly after we got there I started having contractions, I had been having some off and on over the weekend, but they always went away. Well after the 2 hours of waiting at the Drs I went home. I called my midwife and she advised me to drink a ton of water and lie down, if they didn't slow down, I was to go to L&D. After an hour and a half of no improvement I drove myself over to the hospital.

I figured I would get all hooked up to the monitors and then they would stop. Well, that was NOT the case. The contractions continued to be very regular. So the nurses gave me a shot of tributalene (sp?), took a fetal fibronectin (sp?) test and checked me. The test came up positive (meaning I was likely to deliver due to preterm labor in the next 2 weeks) and I was already 4 cm dialted. This earned me a stay in the hospital on bed rest. A half hour later I got another Tributalene shot and a shot in the hip of Betamethazone (sp? this is the steroid to help accelerate lung development). After another shot of the Tributalene I started an oral drug I took every 6 hours the rest of the time I was there to try to stop the contractions.

It worked pretty well through Friday morning, when I started with another run of regular contractions, in spite of the pills. They stopped these with another round of the tributalene shots and some IV fluids. I had another round of regular contractions that night (I was checked at this point and was now dilated to 5), but they stopped those by upping a single dose of my oral medication (procardia).

Everything went fine until Sunday, when in the morning I started with some small, irregular contractions, but as the day progressed they continued to be more and more regular and caused more pain. By later that night, they were 3-5 minutes apart, so my nurse decided she needed to yet again check me. I was now dilated to 6, so it was no turning back, he was going to come no matter what we thought about it. I got my epidural and we waited for my midwife to arrive to break my water. By the time she arrived I was at 7 and within a half hour of breaking my water Lucas was here. We had a few little scares in between, as he had some decellerations in his heart rate during my contractions (it turned out he had the cord wrapped around his neck) and there was meconium in the fluid, but when he arrived he looked like a perfect little man! His apgars were 9 and 9, amazing since he was only just 34 weeks! He never really had any breathing problem (THANK YOU Betamethazone!!!).

They took him to the NICU based on his gestational age, and he only stayed there 12 hours (and he was just being observed the whole time). So the rest of the time in the hospital he stayed with me in my room. He is doing great with nursing and almost everything else. He will join us at home tomorrow. He is having some problems keeping his body temperature up and he is having some problems with jaundice. He is spending the afternoon and night tonight under the lights, and depending on how successful they are in lowering his levels, he will be home as early as in the morning, but should be atleast sometime tomorrow.

We can't wait for him to get here! I am so glad to be home with my family though, even if it is without my little baby. I have missed Jared and the kids so much! We were so lucky that my mom was able to come over the weekend so Jared could come stay with me in the evenings while I was on bed rest.



Well, sorry for that crazy novel!! I will post a few more pictures here below! Thanks to everyone who has expressed concern and their desire to help. We feel so blessed to have so many wonderful friends and a wonderful family.