4 Months - A Letter to Jensen

 4 months ago we welcomed you into our arms. 4 months ago a lot of the unknowns became reality. This milestone hits harder for me as it was at 4 months pregnant when we found out about your diagnosis. 4 months of trying to grasp our new reality, trying to plan and prepare the best way we could, 4 months of tears and grief. It honestly felt like the longest 4 months of my life.. and yet, here we are. 4 months postpartum and it's been the fastest 4 months of my life. It's unfair. It's scary. Time is going too quickly. What if I start forgetting little details? I've already started forgetting how it felt to hold you. All 5 pounds and 9 ounces of you. You were so small. But also didn't really feel all that small since you were always swaddled in two blankets. I was scared to hold newborns for awhile, but I finally did it. It wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. You were so different than these babies. So still. So quiet. Rarely opened your eyes, rarely made noises other than you suckling and your hiccups. It makes me happy that you were different and that holding newborns doesn't absolutely kill me, but it hurts too. Hurt's that I don't get the newborn grunts and scrunch. Makes the reality of your time here hit deeper and sting more as you were different because of your anomaly. I wish I knew how much you comprehended during those 6 days. 

The other day the boys were riding their bikes along the sidewalk, Remi leading and Freeman close behind. I envisioned you following behind. It was a precious thought and invoked a small sense of sadness in me. The last time I felt that was the week we found out about the Anencephaly and the boys were playing in the living room. The sadness sat with me longer then. I've turned my attention to making our house a home. I've bought tons of picture frames and I'm dying to get them all filled up with pictures of our family. I chuckle at the thought of trying to balance remembering you but not making a Jensen shrine all over our house. We received so many wonderful gifts during and after your life-how do I pick what to put up and what to put in our "Jensen" bin? 

The world is scary. I'm so glad you don't have to live in it. I've wanted to crawl inside a hole and just go back to our 6 days with you. No cares about anything other than our little family. Snuggling you, the boys joining us in the mornings and gawking over you and your tiny features. Heaven feeling so unbelievably close. Now, I'm dealing with all the postpartum hormones with two toddlers and trying to be consistent. I'm not good at consistency, Jensen. You would've learned that eventually.. you probably actually already knew that haha.

Happy 4 months Jensen boy. We’re finalizing the details for your headstone. A terrible birthday gift honestly, but it's going to be beautiful and I can't wait to see it. I know you're where you're needed but it doesn't take the sting away of not having you here. For awhile, Remi would ask me how to cut the brain off. He thought that since your brain was exposed that if we would've just cut it off, you would've been normal and got to stay. I keep trying to teach him that we need a brain and that our brains are inside our heads. So now he keeps asking me for a normal baby. One with a brain on the inside. It's sweet and tender. Makes me sad, but also makes me happy he loves you so much to want another one of you here. He’s in his singing era and loves to sing about you and how he misses you and how you’re with Jesus and in outer space. Come visit us please.

Love,

Mom

Freeman's Birth

 I was scheduled to get induced at 10am March 10th, 2023. One day after my due date. The hospital called me the night before my induction and offered to move me up to 5am but I wanted as much sleep as I could get. Funny enough, contractions woke me up around 2am and while I tried to move around and sit on the birthing ball, I was up and ready to go to the hospital around 4:30am. So we ended up getting there at 5am anyway. 

Before I left our house I had the labor shakes and was hoping to get the epidural ASAP. Of course, before we left, I had to wash my feet in our tub really quickly because TikTok ruined me. I saw a video of a lady who had asked her OB if they truly don't care about things during labor and while her OB sincerely didn't mind anything, they said that if they had to pick one thing, often times women's feet are in the stirrups right by their face. There was no way I was going to have stinky feet for my OB haha priorities man. 

I was in so much pain in my contractions. For our 15 minute drive to the hospital I was thinking I had to be close to transition cause I was so uncomfortable. We pulled up to the hospital and went in through the door I thought they told me to enter in, and we could not find the elevators to get up to the labor and delivery floor. Caiden was frantically trying to find them while also trying to apply counter pressure every few minutes. Eventually I found the stairs and we started up them. We got to the door and it was LOCKED?! Yes. Locked. WTF. I literally thought I was going to have this baby in the stairwell. Finally a nurse walked past the door and let us in while saying, "I found them!" Someone had called up to labor and delivery alerting them that we had just entered in the hospital but we never came up so they were confused where we had disappeared to haha

We got settled into our room and of course you have to answer a million and a half questions to get you in the system before you can get your epidural. Felt like forever, but I was grateful for my 2 nurses who helped me breathe and stay calm through most of my contractions. Finally anesthesiology came and I got my epidural. Remember how it took 3 tries to get my epidural with Remi? Welp, this followed suit. Except during one of his tries, I felt this big prick and the whole left side of my body jerked while I yelled out, "Ouch!" Finally he got it. 

The rest of labor and delivery was so smooth. I finally was at a 10 around 11am and my OB said there was a first time mom across the hall who also was at a 10 and wasn't sure where he should go first. I told him to let baby boy descend and to go help the other mom. I teared up when I heard her and her husband cry in joy and relief once their first baby made their grand appearance. Such a tender moment. He then came in and told me it was time and within 8 minutes, our second baby boy was here! 

My whole pregnancy, I was in love with the name "Beckett". I never fully commit to a name until I see my baby but I really loved it and planned on it. I brought a few other names to the hospital as well just in case. As soon as I saw our baby, I knew his name WAS NOT Beckett. I was so bummed because I loved it so much but it just didn't fit. So Caiden and I tossed around the other names we talked about for a few hours but just couldn't agree. Finally, Caiden looks at me and says, "I know we haven't talked about this name, but what do you think about Freeman?" I was totally surprised and wasn't sure of it. The only familiarity I had with the name was back when I dated a guy named Freeman haha I liked the name but also, it wasn't one we had ever discussed so I just wasn't sure I could commit. We mulled over it for a few hours. 

Our baby boy was born with a full head of dark stick straight hair, nothing like Remi as a newborn. He had big blue eyes and was just such a sweet baby. My mom brought Remi over a few hours later and while Remi had no idea what was going on, it was so sweet to have our family together. This birth was so different from Remi's and I was so grateful for that. Shortly after delivery, I was noticing that every time I sat up in bed, my neck would start to lock up and I'd get this dull headache at the base of my head. I mentioned it to the nurses but it wasn't severe so we kind of just waited to see if it would progress. It did. I would start feeling this pain maybe 30 minutes after sitting up, then I'd lay down and ice/heat it for awhile and then sit up again to nurse and the pain would come back in 5 minutes and then it was just there immediately anytime I'd sit up. 

I brought up the possibility of spinal headaches to my nurses but since the symptoms weren't totally in line with the usual ones, they were hesitant about it. Finally the morning before getting discharged the anesthesiologist came up and said we could try a blood patch. Which is basically another epidural but at the same time as them putting the big needle in your back, they're also taking a HUGE vial of blood out of your arm, to put into your back - hence "blood patch" Luckily, this guy got the epidural placed in one try, not three, and I did not pass out while they had 2 big ol' needles in me while sitting up. While he slowly started to push my blood into my back, the pain in my neck slowly relieved. It was the craziest thing. He told me to take it easy as blood patches can dislodge and the pain can come back.

Sunday we went home and I was feeling a lot better. We had wonderful meals brought to us from our ward family and were in newborn bliss. Tuesday, we woke up to take him to his 2 day appointment and I sat up in bed and my headaches were back. My neck immediately locked up and I was in tears knowing that the blood patch had dislodged. How do you function with a newborn and needing to nurse when you can't even sit up in bed? I was so upset. Caiden took him to his appointment while I called the hospital to see if I should get another blood patch or what I could do to help my symptoms. 

A blood patch has a 75% chance of working the first time and a 90% chance of working the second time. For those who don't know, spinal headaches occur when there is a leak in spinal fluid. From my understanding, the leakage causes less spinal fluid that is helping hold your skull up, so when the fluid leaks and decreases, your skull doesn't have as much holding it up which causes the headaches. It sounds severe and in some cases is really severe. The blood patch is when they put your fresh blood back in the spinal cavity to create a scab over the hole to stop the leakage. (I think.. at least this is how I understood it all haha) 

So when your blood patch dislodges, you can do 2 things. Schedule another blood patch or take Tylenol and drink lots and lots of caffeine. I was really not wanting another blood patch as my back was just starting to heal from the last one so there I was at 9am chugging a Dr. Pepper while popping back some Tylenol. It didn't completely relieve my symptoms but did help them be more manageable. My neck was just so locked up I couldn't turn my head and instead had to turn my whole body. It was so uncomfortable. By Friday morning, I knew I had a decision to make on if I wanted to get another blood patch as I knew it was the weekend and that the doctors might not be as easily accessible. I was in pain and just wanted it to go away so I could function normally with my newborn, but again, I really didn't want another blood patch. Caiden and our landlord upstairs gave me a blessing of healing and I cried through the whole thing. I went back to my bed and took a nap and when I woke up, my spinal headaches had healed. I was so thankful that my body could now function fairly normal. 

So while you all know that we did end up naming our cute boy Freeman, I'm sure you're wondering how we ended up deciding on it. It went a little something like this: 

OB: "Okay dad, cut the cord"

Caiden: *Cuts cord*

OB: "Welp, you're a free man!" 

Caiden: 👀👀👀

Caiden: *thinks to himself "Freeman, that's a good name" 

It's now one of our favorite stories and we just had to name him Freeman because of it. So thanks to Dr. Laraway for naming our second born. 

 We love our Freeman J so much!