Graham Hansen Butler

The day before I had Graham...

We need to back up and talk about the events leading to Graham's birth, because we had a pretty crazy week leading up to it. I went into my 38 week appointment to find that Graham had flipped and was now breech! The doctor scheduled an ultrasound to check on him. The days leading up to the ultrasound I researched everything you could do to help your baby flip. I spent time on all fours, planking with my legs on the couch and then I decided to put a bag of frozen peas where his head supposedly was. I may have been crazy but I could swear that I felt him move. I told Aaron this and when he came home he thought my stomach looked really wide and we thought that he might be sideways and so we tried the frozen peas again where my ribs are and put a warm heating pad down below to help get him in the right direction while I was on all fours. I'm sure I was a sight to see. We couldn't tell if it worked but we were hopeful. Tuesday we went to the ultrasound and found out that he had flipped! We were elated! He was now posterior but so much better than him being breech. The ultrasound tech said though that calling me dilated to a 1 would be a stretch. I wasn't far along at all. I called my doctor on the way home to tell him the news. My mom was wondering when to fly in and so the doctor and I talked about when we would induce me if my body progressed enough that we could, which would be Tuesday the 25th, two days before Thanksgiving. My whole pregnancy I was adamant that this boy needed to be here by the 21st because Thanksgiving can fall anywhere from the 22nd-28th and I didn't want his birthday to fall on Thanksgiving (and so when I found out the induction date I immediately researched what years his birthday would fall on Thanksgiving...). I called my mom and she could choose to fly in on Thursday the 20th or Friday the 21st. I didn't have any preference but she decided on the early morning Thursday flight. 

Wednesday the 19th Aaron got tickets from his work to attend the BYU Basketball game. Carlie came over to watch Bennett and Aaron and I went to the game. The seats were awesome and we had such a great time. 

Embarrassingly enough I made it on TV. I look super large and uncomfortable, which I really wasn't, but my Uncle's both text my parents saying they saw me and my Uncle Grover said, "She looked like she could deliver the baby right there in the Marriott Center." Haha. Aaron and I went afterwards to the Malt Shoppe and shared a shake and fries. I joked saying, "I would hate it if this was my last meal before I had the baby."

We went home that night and within minutes of us being home Bennett woke up and majorly threw up in his crib. Thankfully Carlie was there and took his clothes and sheets home to be washed. Bennett slept with me in the bed that night as Aaron pulled almost an all nighter with homework. I didn't sleep well because Bennett kept waking up, moved constantly and was randomly awake from 5-6am. Aaron had to be to school at 6am to help with an Alumni Canned Food Drive project. I was supposed to pick up mom from the airport at 7:40 but I woke up around 7:00 in lots of pain with lots of pressure. I text Carlie asking if she had this before her contractions started. Suffering through the pain I got Bennett in the car and on our way to get mom Bennett threw up. We turned around, called Aaron to come home and explained that I thought I was having contractions and that Bennett was sick. Aaron stayed home with Bennett, I decided picking up mom from the Provo airport would be a good distraction from the pain and picked her up about an hour late. I told her I couldn't get out of the car because I was having contractions. We quickly drove home, I took a shower and Aaron started to pack the hospital bag. When I got out of the shower I started to time the contractions. They were mainly in my back, but a little in the front as well. They were about 2-3 minutes apart and 40 seconds to 1 minute long. I didn't have these with Bennett and so we weren't sure how urgent it was to get to the hospital and so we left within 2 hours of my  mom getting in town, around 11, for the airport. Below is my text conversation to Carlie as I progressed throughout the morning. She unfortunately didn't have her phone at school that day and so she had no idea.

On my way to the hospital!

As we got to the hospital they took me to a room (which actually was the room where Carlie delivered Hudson, such a nice, large room!) and hooked me up to monitors. I was dilated to a 3 when I got there and 90% effaced. They said they would keep me for an hour and see if I was in "active labor" which means I dilated to at least a 3.5 but they said I needed to be a 4 or 5 for the hospital to keep me. I worked hard through the contractions hoping I was progressing enough for them to keep me. 

A little over an hour later Mikell our nurse came to check me and I was at a 4. About an hour or so later I got an epidural and then we just waited and I continued to progress and dilate. They didn't give me pictocin because my body was progressing by itself so well. They continued to come in and check me and were surprised by how fast I was dilating on my own. 

Mom was home with Bennett and once Carlie was out of school and heard the news she came to watch Bennett and the Bush's brought mom to the hospital. By that time I was dilated to about an 8. She went and got Aaron and her some food and came back and I was at a 9. 

The whole time the doctors and nurses were keeping a close eye on Graham's heartbeat because every time my contractions peaked his heart would drop. This is largely due to the fact that he was posterior and squished. They all thought that he most likely had the chord around his neck and it was something we were going to need to keep an eye on. 

They put a huge foam "peanut" pillow thing between my legs to maybe help him turn from being posterior but it didn't help. We kept rotating sides to see if that would help his heartbeat but it didn't. They put some fluid in me to help pad him, like it was before they broke my water. 

The doctor said before we pushed his head would need to come down more and his heartbeat would need to be more stable. Dr. Nance kept coming in to check on me and said that his head had dropped which made this scenario 100% better. They kept checking me and waiting for a little "lip" of my cervix to go down so we could start pushing. The nurse gave me an oxygen mask to help give the baby more oxygen. The anesthesiologist also came in to give me more "epidural juice" because I was starting to really feel my contractions. 

I was told we couldn't push too long because of his irregular heartbeat and because he may have the cord wrapped around his neck. I pushed hard (unfortunately had to have a large episiotomy) and got continuous encouragement from those around me and thankfully only a couple contractions and minutes later Graham entered the world. He was healthy with the cord just wrapped around his body. He arrived on November 20th at 6:54pm weighing in at 8lbs 3oz, 21 inches. I was 38 weeks and 3 days along. 

 After he was all cleaned and weighed and after I was stitched up I finally got to hold my (not so) little guy!

 I was able to eat a little bit and after an hour we headed down to the nursery for Graham to get cleaned up. Carlie met us at the nursery. She had gotten Bennett and Hudson down to bed and then Emily and Joe came to sit at the house while Carlie came to visit us at the hospital.

Mom and Carlie stayed for a bit to chat and hold Graham and then they left and it was just Aaron, me and our little Graham. I don't remember much about that night. By the time we all got settled into the room and talked to nurses it was 11 or so.

That night and into morning consisted of lots of hard and unsuccessful attempts at breast feeding, poking, ice packs and medicine. I felt a lot better though than I did after Bennett's delivery and I tried to walk around the room, use the restroom a lot and I even decided to get dressed in my own clothes.

The afternoon after Graham was born mom brought Bennett to meet Graham. I had Bennett dressed in his "Best Bro Ever" shirt and had plans in my head of how the pictures were going to go...Bennett was going to be excited to meet him, would want to hold him, say "baby"...but none of that happened. He just wanted my milkshake and nothing to do with Graham.

 We tried getting him to sit, giving him the milkshake and bringing Graham to him but he didn't want anything to do with it. He would rather push the buttons on my hospital bed.

He did sit with me for a minute on the bed and so we kind of got a picture.

We facetimed with Dad and Ethan and let them meet Graham.

 Carlie, Aaron and Hudson all came to visit. Hudson and Graham are almost 6 months to the day apart which is so fun! We love cousins! Aaron took Bennett for a little bit and so Carlie, Aaron, Hudson, mom and I were all able to hang out. 

The next morning mom brought Bennett back, dressed him in his same shirt, and we attempted to get another picture of the boys together and just a pic of the family at the hospital. We were a little more successful this time.

The rest of the day we spent hanging out in the hospital room, eating hospital food and taking advantage of the help from the nurses until we had to leave. We left exactly 48 hours after we got to the hospital. They needed us to stay as long as we could because I tested positive for Strep and so they gave me medicine during labor for it but they needed to keep an eye on Graham to make sure he wasn't sick.

You can kind of see in the picture below on Graham's head a bump which we learned is Hematoma. It is basically a big bruise that is filled with blood on his head. Its from being posterior and all the pressure his head went through. Our pediatrician said it is very common and usually goes down in 2-3 months.

When we got ready to leave we dressed and changed Graham, which as you can tell he wasn't too thrilled about. This is the same outfit Bennett came home in.

We got him all loaded up the carseat and realized just how small he was.

It was so nice to come home, to be with Bennett and get back into "regular" life again...with our now busy family of 4.