Carter Gary Johnson

Carter is now 10 days old, so it's about time that I record the story of his birth.

I was overdue and my fluid levels were a little low on Thursday, January 30, 2014, so my doctor said he wanted to induce me before I went too much longer. He offered to induce me on Monday, but since that was Peyton's birthday, we opted to be induced on Tuesday, February 4 instead.

We had a small birthday party with Shawn, Peyton, Grandpa Gary and I on Monday night and then Peyton went to Annie and Abe's for a sleepover. It made for a fun end to a fun birthday, but it was so weird dropping him off knowing that the next time we were all together we would be a family of four.

We had to be at the hospital at 7:30 a.m. for the induction. By the time we got in and got set up, it was about 9. My doctor came in at 9:30 and broke my water and then they started me on pitocin. I started having very bad contractions immediately. It was so crazy how quickly they came once they broke my water.

They had two sets of twins being born that day as well, so they wanted to get me my epidural as quickly as they could before the anesthesiologist had to go in for the twins, which was fine by me! He came in about 15 minutes after they broke my water to get my epidural going. He struggled a bit getting the epidural in and had to try several times before he got it in place, the whole time I was having very strong contractions every 2-3 minutes. It ended up taking about 15 minutes to get it going. Once it was in though, it was fantastic :) I would never go without one if I didn't have to!

After I got my epidural, I was able to relax and even fell asleep for about 45 minutes.

At noon, they checked me and I was fully dilated! I couldn't believe that I had gone from 2 cm. to 10 cm in about 2 1/2 hours!

I had to wait for a while though, while my doctor delivered one of the sets of twins. At 12:30 he came in and they were ready for me to push. My doctor checked and said that I wouldn't have to push much. He was really ready to be born.  I ended up pushing one time for less than a minute and he was born at 12:37 p.m. I was pretty shocked that it was so quick. He had the chord wrapped around his neck one time, but the doctor was able to get it off so quickly!

My doctor had to leave pretty quickly after delivery to deliver the other set of twins. All five babies were born in one hour. My doctor was happy that he didn't even have to reschedule any appointments because they all came during his lunch hour.

We named him Carter Gary Johnson. He weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz. and was 21.5 inches tall (Peyton was 7 lbs. 1 oz, 19 inches long).

Peyton loves him. He calls him Baby Brother or Cute Brother. Every time he sees him, he says "Ah, he's cute!"Today we were in the car and Carter started crying and Shawn said, "Carter, no crying." Peyton thought it was the funniest thing he had ever heard and kept laughing and saying, "No crying!"

He has been such a good baby. He is pretty calm, except when he takes his bath each night, which he HATES. He still has his days and nights switched. He sleeps really well during the day and is awake at night. He wakes up about three times each night, which isn't so bad, except that he is up for HOURS when he does wake up. The other night he was up for four hours, which is tough, but it is getting better.

Right now, we are trying to get adjusted to having two kids. It's much less of an adjustment than the first one was, but it is still tough to get into a new routine! We are loving our little Carter and are so glad he is part of our family.