Jenna's Story

Jenna Ruth Dixon
Born February 14, 2010
at 3:33am
7 lbs 12 ounces
19 3/4 inches

Saturday started out like most other days-Busy. Steve was at the church all morning for church basketball. I spent the morning cleaning the house and the baby swing, car seat, bouncer, etc. Steve got home after lunch and took the boys to his parents to watch the UNLV basketball game and I got ready and went in to work for a few hours. I left work about six and stopped by my Grandma's to pick up our family's Valentines present (a pie, Grandma always gets each family a pie for holidays). When I got home we headed to Babies R Us to trade in our single stroller for a double. Steve let me also get baby bedding since it was on sale and purple. (He is boycotting pink!)

We finally got home after a long day. I was standing in the family room trying to help Kayden and hadn't even made it all the way through the house yet when I thought I felt my water break. I just stopped for a minute and stood there, a little in shock, thinking this can't be happening tonight. So I went in the bathroom and finally called for Steve to come in our room after a few minutes. As soon as I called him, Steve said he knew what had happened before I told him.

The boys needed to go to bed. So we called my Dad to come stay at our house for the night and got the boys ready for bed. Then we both took showers. When my water broke with Kayden we had been traveling all day and I didn't take a shower before bed. Then we went straight to the hospital when my water broke and I felt so gross already before even going through labor. So I knew this time I wanted a shower because I didn't know when I would get another one. So after showers and eating some food we headed off to the hospital. Kayden didn't even care. He was just excited Grandpa was at our house.

My water broke around 9:15pm and we got to the hospital around 11:20pm. We were obviously in no hurry. I had been having contractions off and on all afternoon, but they weren't very strong or consistent for that long. I figured they were from cleaning all morning and they would go away once I finally got home and laid down. Well, that never happened.

Labor and Delivery seemed pretty quiet. We got all checked in and I was dilated to a 4. I got my ephidural about 2am. That was the worst my contractions have ever been before getting the drugs, and they were coming one right after another. When they checked me again I was still a 4 so they were going to give me petosin, but before they could start me on it I was a six. The baby's heart rate was above normal the entire time so they were really watching that. By 3am I was fully dilated so they called the doctor. When the doctor came and went to check, the baby's head was already coming out. After a couple small pushes the doctor actually told me to stop pushing and just pulled the baby the rest of the way out. Jenna was born at 3:33am on Valentines Day.


She gave a couple small cries, and then it was a while before she cried again. The nurse was working with her, but called up a NICU nurse to be safe. Jenna would cry if they agitated her, but then would kind of wimper in between and her cries weren't that strong. I got to hold her for a few seconds and then Steve went with the nurses and took Jenna down to NICU to monitor her.

I had been shaking really bad for the last part of my labor and had trouble breathing so I was just trying to calm down and relax. They decided to keep Jenna in NICU because her breathing rate and heart rate were really fast. So once Steve and I were in the recovery room, and Steve had talked the nurse into finding him a cot, we decided to take advantage of having the baby in NICU and get a couple good hours of sleep.

I got to see Jenna later in the morning. Her heart rate was more normal, but she was still breathing really fast. The doctor started her on antibiodics as a precaution, and she was getting oxygen. The doctors were concerned about infection because I have Group B Strep and I only got one dose of antibiodics instead of two, which is the standard. (My labor was too short to get the second dose, which I am really not complaining about.) They also did an x-ray of Jenna's lungs and there was still some fluid in them. We were able to hold Jenna, but it was a lot of wires and tubes to move around.

There wasn't much change between Sunday and Monday. Jenna was stable, but we were kind of waiting and seeing. Monday night Steve and his Dad gave Jenna a blessing. Steve went home and slept with the boys Monday night and I went down and held Jenna for over an hour, knowing that I would have to leave her there the next day while I went home. I tried not to let the nurses see me crying. It is hard to leave even though you know they are ok and are being taken care of.

So Tuesday we started the routine of going back and forth to the hospital. I would go in the morning for a feeding, and then Steve and I went right when he got home from work and took the boys to Grandma and Grandpa's house, and they were nice enough to feed them too. Jenna started looking better. Her breathing was slowing and she was needing less help with the oxygen. The doctors wanted to give her the full dose of antibiotics since she was improving even though they still had nothing to confirm if she did have an infection or not. So that meant that she would be there at least 7 days.

By Wednesday Jenna's jaundice had gone up and she got to spend a day sunbathing so we didn't get to hold her. We were pretty much expecting this though. That is a white piece of tape below her mouth holding her feeding tube in place.




When I went in to the hospital on Thursday her nurse was on break, but I knew she must be doing better because her oxygen tube was gone, so she was doing alright breathing on her own. The doctor also rounded while I was there and said Jenna could start eating as much as she wanted (they had been only letting her have 10cc and supplementing with the IV). They also turned off her bed to see if she could keep her body temperature on her own. (See, no tubes in the nose anymore!)


When I went in on Friday Jenna had been moved over to level two (NICU is level 3)and was in a regular bed. She was a pretty good baby in NICU and didn't really cry. She doesn't even want to wake up and eat. We would spend the whole time she is supposed to be eating just trying to wake her up. She will open her eyes just enough to roll them at you and then go back to sleep.

Saturday the doctor was rounding on Jenna when I got there and he said as long as she ate well and didn't lose weight again she could go home on Sunday since she would have her last dose of antibiotics Saturday night. I was really surprised that everything was good enough for her to come home.


So Sunday morning I called the hospital to make sure she was still ok to get discharged and they said her belirubin levels jumped up from the day before so she was on photo therapy again. Not surprised. The doctor was having Jenna's levels checked again that afternoon and if they went down enough she could still get discharged, but I thought that was a really long shot. I went and saw Jenna before church and then we went again that night and continued our routine. By now Kayden was asking if he was going to Grandma and Grandpa's house every night.

Jenna's belirubin hadn't gone down very much when they checked again that afternoon. So Jenna had to stay under the lights until Monday morning.




Monday was just a waiting day to see what Jenna's jaundice would do. She was eating enough and had only lost a tiny bit more weight.

Tuesday morning I was about to walk out the door to make Jenna's 9am feeding when the doctor called me and said Jenna was ready to come home. I was once again caught off guard. So I hurried and called Steve at work to tell him we could bring her home.



All this time it didn't really seem like we had 3 kids. It was like we had two lives; two kids in one life and one in the other. I wasn't nervous to bring Jenna home like I was with Kayden either. I have never had a baby sleep this much. In fact, she sleeps too much and it is causing problems with her feeding schedule because she won't wake up and eat often enough to keep the milk supply up. She is a sweetheart and I love holding her at night when the boys are asleep and I can just enjoy being with her and not worrying about what her brothers are doing.


Jenna still had jaundice, but it isn't bad enough for lots of concern. She just had to keep doing a little sun bathing everyday for a while, which was hard with all of the cloudy days. She hasn't had any more breathing problems though and has a lot stronger cries. In fact, she can get really mad when she does cry, and turns dark red. She is going to have to get mad to handle her brothers though. They, of course, love her to death and will not leave her alone.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped us, and offered to help, and prayed for our family and Jenna while she was in the hospital. They had a NICU support group meeting one night. We didn't go because we wanted to get home to the boys, but we also have so many other support groups from our family, friends, and church that we could turn to first. We love you and love our new little baby! And we are glad she is home with us!