Amazing Friends, Amazing Photographers

They did it again!! Damon and Jessica Hair took some maternity pictures for us the first weekend in November. They did an awesome job! I am so blessed to have had them take such wonderful pictures for us over the last year for several different events. I can't wait to have them take some of our little man!! Thanks Damon and Jess!

All in the first month…

The first month of Collin’s life has flown by! We are almost through the second month! I can’t believe it. Sometimes I wish I could just hit the pause button!

After spending the first week in the hospital, I was very ready to get home and get into some sort of routine. However, I have quickly realized that with a newborn baby and being in the middle of the holiday season, a routine is pretty much out of the question! I wouldn’t change anything though!

I could not have made it without the help of my wonderful mother! She took time off of work to help us get situated. I was SO unprepared for Collin to be here. We didn’t even have the base to the carseat in the car to bring him home yet!! So, while we were in the hospital trying to get better- she spent many, many hours at our house getting things ready for us. Including, finishing painting the nursery! Wow. She is amazing.
I love you momma!

This is what we came home to...

Blue ribbon on the mailbox, and the wreath from the door of the hospital hanging on the porch behind it.

                                      This was it hanging at the hospital.

She put together the cradle for Collin. This is what we put in our bedroom for him to sleep in until we move him to his crib. This was the cradle that both my sister and I slept in when we were little.

All the cards placed above the fire place. His cute little foot prints!

PLUS: she cleaned our entire house. I mean my house was spotless!! AMAZING!

I would love to devote an entire post to our wonderful New Years Eve celebration but I didn’t take any pictures because… Eric fell asleep on the couch around 9, Collin went to sleep around 10:30, and I fell asleep attempting to watch tv in the bedroom around 10:45! Oh well, there’s always next year. Being parents is exhausting! This is a picture of Eric during one of the feedings after midnight. Better than nothing!

The best present ever

Christmas 2010 will always be special to me. The food, presents, and quality time with our family was amazing- but it was special for many other reasons as well. Not only was it the first Christmas Eric and I spent together as a married couple, but we had our sweet baby boy here for his first Christmas. Collin arrived 18 days before Christmas. The best present I could have ever asked for!!

Because of my blood pressure issues and Collin being premature, our families had to make the trip to see us for Christmas. I wasn’t comfortable traveling! My grandmothers came from Arkadelphia and Heber Springs and we all had Christmas at my parents house Saturday afternoon. My Nana found Collin a “My first Christmas” preemie outfit!! I had been wanting one so bad! I’m so glad she found one! She mailed it to me a few days before so I would have time to wash it. I wanted him to wear it over to my parents house.

 These are Collin's first Christmas ornaments that my grandpa got him. Love them!!

Eric’s family came from Benton to have Christmas at our house the next weekend. It was a very busy couple of weeks, but so worth it. I’m so thankful that our families want to be so involved in Collin’s life. We are blessed!

Christmas family picture! VERY sleep deprived! Ha!

Christmas with my sweet little Kyndall. Oh, how I love her!

Next year will be a whole different kind of special, in the fact that Collin will actually get to be more involved! I can’t wait to share the true meaning of Christmas with my little guy.



Collin's Arrival

Warning: This is a very long post, with probably more details than anyone would really want to know. This is really just for my memory- so I can remember this very special day!

Monday, December 6, 2010 we had what would be our last appointment with Dr. Martin. I really wish I had known this before the appointment! I was 36 weeks and 2 days. Dr. Martin did an ultrasound to check on Collin. We were told his weight was 5.1 lbs. My blood pressure was doing some crazy things so Dr. Martin decided to admit me to labor and delivery to do a 24 hour urine analysis and to monitor my blood pressure over night. We got settled into our room and I was given a gown to put on. At the time, I didn’t really see the need for the gown because it wasn’t like I was in labor! However, it turned out being nice because we were sent straight from our appointment and I had nothing with me! No bag packed, no toothbrush, no pajamas, NOTHING! Eric and I started calling our families to tell them what was going on. My mom couldn’t handle staying away, so she came to the hospital.

They continued to monitor my blood pressure (every 15 min) for the next few hours. Dr. Martin came by my room before she went home that night around 4. My blood pressure was not any better, and was steadily getting worse. She told me that my body just wasn’t handling the pregnancy very well anymore and waiting any longer wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t be leaving the hospital without a baby! Whoa!

Because my blood pressure was getting worse, Dr. Martin wanted to start an IV of magnesium. When blood pressure gets as high as mine was, there is a serious risk of seizures and other serious complications. The magnesium made me feel AWFUL! I was also started on pitocin and given an epidural. I had only dilated to 2 cm, so I was looking at a long night.

Around 9:00 pm that night my blood pressure had gone from 160/85 (ish) to 180/95 (ish). Throughout the night things went from bad to worse. They gave me some medicine to help me sleep. I found out later that they were just trying to get through a couple more hours so Dr. Martin could sleep a little longer. At 5:00 the next morning, Dr. Martin walked into my room. I knew it wasn’t a good sign that she was there so early. She walked in, held my hand, and told me that I was just too sick to deliver on my own and she would need to do a c-section and get Collin out. One hour and seven minutes later, Collin Blake Jackson was here!

Eric got all decked out in his operating room gear and we were off. Eric had one job to do... sit by my head and look at ME the entire time. Could he do that?! Um… no! He lasted all the way until Collin was out and then he did it… he LOOKED at my stomach. Oh Eric! Let’s just say that Eric had to be helped out of the operating room. He thought he was going to pass out or throw up. They got him out of there so fast I barely knew what was happening. Oh well- I love my husband and his weak stomach!

I think one of the doctors felt sorry for me when Eric had to leave because he sat down by my head and started rubbing the top of my head. I think he expected me to start crying or something. I always thought about the day that I would have a child, and honestly I would have said a million times “yep, I will cry on that day!” but I was so amazed by the sound of that little boy crying I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t do anything but listen. It was the most precious sound I have ever heard.

Collin was taken to the nursery to get weighed and checked out. They called into the operating room to let us know that he weighed 4 lbs and 15 ounces. He was perfectly healthy! Such. A. Blessing. His lungs were fine! He didn’t need to stay in the NICU or anything.

The only cure for severe preeclampsia is to deliver the baby. In my case, it took my body a lot longer to “bounce back” than I thought it would. In fact, I got A LOT worse before I got anywhere close to being better.

I was in the hospital for an entire week after Collin was born. My blood pressure didn’t go down after I delivered, it got very high. Scary high. Thursday, December 9, was a very scary day. My blood pressure spiked. The highest it got was 215/115. They started the magnesium again incase I had a seizure. I started getting pain in my chest and was sent to another area of the hospital to check for blood clots in my chest. Those tests came back negative, thank goodness! Nothing they did was bringing my blood pressure down. I found out later that they were about to either med-flight me to Baptist hospital or send me down to the ICU. They ended up called in one of the head doctors of the hospital to look at my case. I felt like I was on an episode of “House”. She decided I needed to just give my medicine more time to work. She increased the medicine a little bit and gave the nurse orders to give me an additional dose if my blood pressure got up past a certain number.

Collin was doing wonderful. He was actually ready to go home before I was! The only problems he had was his temperature being a little low. Keeping him wrapped up with several blankets helped with that! After a couple of days he developed jondus. They gave him the light therapy for a day, and he was all better! He had the cutest little sunglasses to wear while he was under the lights.

We finally were discharged from the hospital the following Monday. One week of that hospital and I was SO ready to leave. It was so good to be home.

To this day I am still on two different medications (one of them I take 3 times a day) to keep my blood pressure under control. I will see Dr. Martin next week to evaluate my medicine and try to lower the dosage.

The arrival of my little man wasn’t the most ideal situation. There were many scary times. However, I can not even begin to describe the feeling that came over me when I saw my little guy. He’s so precious. It was instant love.

Here are a few pictures of our new family!

The last six weeks...

Well, so much has happened since my last post. I really don’t even know how to get caught back up. I had so many different posts I wanted to get on here before my little man arrived. I’m going to have to summarize the last few weeks of my pregnancy to get up to date. Maybe one of these days I will go back and write all the posted I had planned.


The last six weeks of my pregnancy…

October 31st I was 31 weeks pregnant (cool huh? Well, I thought so! Ha!) We were able to dress up for Halloween at work. I wasn’t going to participate because I felt huge already, and didn’t really want a costume that would probably make me feel even bigger! One of the kids came to school with an orange M&M outfit. It just went over her clothes. I thought it was so cute!! She let me borrow it for a little bit. The big pregnancy belly actually looked cute in it! I wish I had a picture!


The last 5 weeks of my pregnancy are kind of a blur to me. To say that I didn’t feel well is a complete understatement. Every single part of my body swelled up practically over night. It was so bad that I couldn’t even wear shoes. I did go to Payless with my mom one afternoon to try and find some shoes I could get on my feet. I ended up getting a couple of pairs. However, close to a week after I got them they didn’t fit anymore. I ended up going to Walmart and buying two pairs of men’s house shoes. I spent the remainder of my pregnancy in these shoes! Yes, even wearing them to work!

My doctor decided that she wanted me to start coming in weekly. I knew this wasn’t a good sign. Usually the weekly appointments don’t start until 36ish weeks. My body just wasn’t holding up the way it should. At 34 weeks Dr. Martin had me do a second urine collection to check for protein. The results were about the same as the first time. They came back normal.

I continued to work even though I was having such a hard time and felt awful. I knew every day that I didn’t go to work would be one less day I would get paid when I actually went into labor. I felt like I needed to either be working or taking care of a baby. I was pretty hard on myself.

34 weeks: Thanksgiving

Family is very important to me. Even though I wasn’t feeling good I wanted to attempt to make it to Thanksgiving dinner. My family and Eric’s family ended up having both dinners at the exact same time. One was in Arkadelphia, and the other in Hot Springs. Initially, our plan was to arrive early to my family meal and then a little late to Eric’s family. I quickly figured out that my body was not going to be able to handle an entire day of traveling and rushing. We decided that we would just skip dinner with my family and just go to Hot Springs to be with Eric’s family. I missed my family, but when we got back home that night I was very thankful we didn’t try to do both! I was worn out!!


Monday, November 29 (35 weeks pregnant)

The weekend after Thanksgiving I started feeling really awful. Sunday night I went to bed early with a headache. I woke up only a few hours later because my headache had turned into a full blown migraine. I spent the next few hours very sick at my stomach and very miserable. About 4:30 that morning I decided I wasn’t going to get any better and knew I needed to go to the emergency room. They gave me a shot and told me to go home and sleep. I woke up around noon that day and my head was still killing me. I had a doctors appointment at 3:50 that afternoon anyway, so I decided I would just try to wait until then. Eric took me to the appointment because I could barely see to drive. Turns out I was severely dehydrated. Dr. Martin sent me straight over to labor and delivery to get checked out. I ended up getting two bags of fluids and some pain medication to help my migraine. Needless to say, it was a rough day!

Later on that same week…


Thursday, December 2
I went back to work the next day after my trip to labor and delivery. I worked Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday was a whole new ballgame though.
I got up that morning and got ready for work (not feeling good- imagine that right?!). We had our monthly office meeting that day, so it wasn’t going to be a hard day at work. After our meeting we were going to go out for lunch to celebrate the December Birthdays in the office. During lunch I started feeling really bad. I just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t really explain the feeling I just knew something wasn’t right. We got back to the office and I decided to go talk to my boss. I fell apart in her office! I told her how horrible I was feeling and that I felt like I needed to go back to the hospital. I was a wreck! I ended up leaving work and heading to the hospital. Eric was still at work and couldn’t leave. My dad ended up meeting me at the hospital.

It turns out my blood pressure was high. They made me stay there for a few hours to monitor it. They called Dr. Martin and she put me on bed rest until I saw her the following Monday.

Eric was amazing! He went to the grocery store and got me tons of stuff! I was instructed to not leave the bed until Monday afternoon. I’ll be honest… days 1 and 2 of bed rest were way cooler than days 3 and 4! Ha! I got a little bored and wanted to get out of the house SO BAD!

Monday December 6 (36 weeks pregnant)

I had an appointment with Dr. Martin Monday afternoon and my wonderful husband drove me! We were scheduled to have another ultrasound to check on Collin. We were told he weighed 5 lbs 1 oz. I had hoped Collin would weigh a little more. I was afraid I wouldn’t last much longer and really hoped he would be healthy if I had to deliver early. Dr. Martin didn’t say much while she was doing the ultrasound- this was my first clue that something wasn’t right. After she finished she started asking me lots of questions. I had been monitoring my blood pressure all weekend. Normal blood pressure is 120/80. My blood pressure all weekend averaged 150/95- 160/110. Not good.

We had a heart to heart conversation with Dr. Martin. She told me that I had developed "severe preeclampsia". She wanted to admit me to labor and delivery to monitor my blood pressure and do yet another 24 hour urine analysis. We were told that worst case scenario we would have a baby the next day, and best case scenario, we could maybe hold out for one more week. Um… this is when I freaked out. I was so afraid. Collin was so little and I was afraid his lungs weren’t developed enough. Dr. Martin said that white male babies were the slowest when it comes to lung development, but that we would cross that bridge when we needed to. Her exact words were “wimpy little white boys”- I think she knew I needed some comic relief. Ha!

So… off we went. We were admitted into a room and I got hooked up to all kinds of monitors. The blood pressure cuff was set to take my pressures every 15 min!! Can you say annoying?! Ugh.

I’ll end this post with a picture of my husband. Yes, he’s spinning in the chair. He was trying to entertain me! He thought if I laughed a lot my blood pressure would go down! Isn’t he sweet!

Stay tuned for our birth story…