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It's A Boy!!

 

Sunday September 14, 2003

So, I am sure that many of you are wondering about the new and exciting news that we have.  So I am going to give you the whole story so you will know all the details. 

Before the big day: So Alicia had been living with her parents for the last week while I stayed at our house in Cedar City.  This was because I still had to go to class while she had to be at work, even though it turned out she didn't really have much to do at work anyway.  I would call Alicia every day and she wouldn't seem to be any further along.  On Monday, 8th of September Alicia had a doctor's appointment and he did some things to help her along a little bit, but they didn't seem to be helping. 

Before the Hospital:  Thursday rolled along I didn't think that baby was ever going to come.  I had the biggest day of the week planned with work and school and everything in between.  By the end of the day I was pretty tired.  I called up Alicia about 11:30 at night to see again how she was doing.  This time she told me that she had been having contractions since dinner (she didn't mention this before when I called during dinner).  I get all excited while Alicia seems to think that it is just false labor since they aren't painful.  So I tell Alicia to lie down and see if they go away and to keep timing them.  Meanwhile I get everything ready to go up just in case.  I call every ten minutes to find out they are staying constant at about 8 to 10 minutes apart.  I call one more time about midnight to find out then that her water had broken. 

So I leave from Cedar City after making a stop to get some things taken care of for the next day, and I drive all the way up to Pleasant Grove calling Alicia every half hour to make sure that everything is going okay.  I didn't want her to tell anyone what was going on because I knew she would still be in labor for a while and I wanted to be the one to take her to the hospital (that's my job as a good husband), and I knew that if she woke her parents they would insist that they take her over right then.  So Alicia waited and cross-stitched on the toilet while she waited for me to come and the rest of the water drained out. 

Before leaving for the hospitalI arrived to the Spence home at around 3 in the morning to pick up Alicia and take her to the hospital.  She was all dressed and looked great for already being in labor.  Once her water broke the intensity of the contractions started to increase.  And she looked good. 

At the hospital:  We arrived at the hospital a little after 3 in the morning.  We got up to labor and delivery and they took us in to triage.  They had to make sure she was really in labor before they took her to a 'real' room.  The nurse asked her all sorts of questions, that was kind of funny.  She asked if she had been examined by her doctor, so we told her that she had been dilated to a two and a half at her last doctor's appointment on Monday.  The nurse was surprised.  Then the nurse asked how far along Alicia was.  We said that she was 39 weeks.  The nurse was then really In the triage roomsurprised because she didn't think that Alicia looked that big at all.  Finally, the nurse asked if her water had broken, and Alicia said that it had.  The nurse then knew we were pretty serious.  She tested Alicia's pad to make sure that it was the water that had broken and it had.  So after a while she moved us into a 'real' room.

Once we got into a 'real' room there were a lot of questions they had for us.  Such as who our doctor was, how long she had been in labor, when her water broke and if she wanted to go natural.  They also had a really hard time getting the computer to work.  After looking at the error message and seeing that it was the network that wasn't being reached, I realized there were only a few things that could be wrong.  I looked at the port where the Ethernet cable was plugged in and saw that there were two ports right next to each other.  The one had a sticker of a yellow smiley face on it and it was not plugged in that one.  I asked the nurse if the smiley face meant that it was supposed to be plugged in that one.  She said that it was supposed to be plugged in that one and that it was plugged in that one.  I just reached over and plugged it in the other one, then she saw and realized that it was then working.  She asked us if we wanted another nurse.  I said no, and that I'm sure the network guy was glad she didn't have to call him out of bed for that.

The nurse had her sign the paper just in case she decided that she was going to want an epidural.  Which turned out to be a good thing later. At this point she was dilated to 4 cent. and labor was well on its way.  She did very well handling the contractions.  After another hour or so the contractions started to get harder and harder and Alicia was starting to get all tense.  This wasn't helping her to dilate any farther.  Then about 5:30 she was having very intense pain with the contractions and was starting to get too tense.  She was dilated at 7 cent. but the pain was too intense and she got the epidural.  She was very brave and did very well.  Once the epidural took effect she no longer felt any pain, and not too long after that the nurse checked her and she was complete, meaning that she was all the way dilated to 10 centimeters.

after the epidural waiting to pushAlmost there:  Once she was complete and the epidural had taken full effect Alicia started to shake.  I put some blankets on her thinking she was cold but it was just a normal reaction to all that was going on.  Plus, they gave her oxygen to help the baby as his heart rate would drop with every contraction.  We found later that his cord was wrapped around his neck. He was just fine this was just to help him to get more oxygen to help him out.  The nurse gave her some antibiotics to help the baby prevent infection.  So while this was being put in her she also just waited for the baby to descend a little before the pushing stage.  We waited here like this for about 30 minutes or so.  Alicia's parents arrived at this point and stayed in the room just for a moment until it was time to start pushing.  Damon Chase Jackman, 7 lbs 10 oz

New Baby!  Alicia pushed really well for having an epidural.  After about fifty minutes of pushing and at 8:41 am Friday morning September 12, 2003, Damon Chase Jackman was born.  He weighed 7 pounds 10 ounces and was 19 inches long.  A very healthy baby boy.

The Name:  Damon means 'Gentle One' which is exactly what he has been for his mother.  And the middle name 'Chase' comes from his Uncle Logan who helped him come in to this world by playing an hour of tennis with Alicia prior to the contractions starting. 

Alicia recovered quite well.  And we now have our Bob holding Damonwonderful new edition to our family!Alicia holding Damon

See more photos in our Photo Album.