Birth Story

SONJA JORDYN RITTER is here!! Here is her wonderful birth story!





I went in to the hospital on February 15th at midnight to be induced. On Wednesday the 12th I went into the ER because my water had broken. Turns out it was only a pocket of my water, and I was no longer leaking it and there was enough left to send me home. I was bummed! They did have me follow up with the doctor the following day, and my doctor advised that we go ahead and set up the inducement as soon as the hospital had an empty bed. I agreed! I was worried for her health and was really getting anxious.





They started my pitocin at 2am on Feb 16th, but kept it really low for the first 5 hours. The doctor came in at 7:30am and broke my water, and then they upped the dose. Jason was in there the entire time with me. We watched a couple of movies and just hung out. Jason's mom Crystal came in around 9am to join us. Gary, my mom, and Carmen were also in and out. The labor pains really started to get going around noon or so. I started kind of zoning everyone else out and really focusing on breathing through them. It was nice though to have people around talking to keep my mind off of what was going on in between pains.





It was really slow progress. My cervix was posterior, and was stuck that way, so basically every contraction was just pushing against the cervix wall, not the opening. So I wasn't dialating very well at all. It was so frustrating! Especially when my doctor said that if it wasn't posterior I would have probably already had her [by noon]. The nurse had me get on all fours in attempt to encourage the cervix forward. It somewhat worked, but things were still altogether slow.

I finally decided to have an epidural around 3p.m. I was going to go natural, but with my cervix being posterior and nothing happening, I was running out of steam. I opted for the "walking epidural", which allowed me to still feel the contractions and the birth, but take the "edge" off of it. The contractions were actually still pretty painful with the epidural, but it definitely helped.

After I had my epidural, the doctor came and tried to pull my cervix forward. Since I was numbed, he was able to do it without making me pass out from pain. It worked! I started to progress much faster!!Sonja's heartbeat kept going way down with the contractons near the end, so they kept having me change positions in an attempt to help her out. I was so stressed out for her. I kept praying and praying that everything would be o.k. I was starting to worry that between my posterior cervix and the heartbeat dropping, I'd end up with a c-section. But, when they had me sit straight up, her heartbeat stayed stable! I was so relieved! I am so thankful to God that he kept her safe.

At 5:20, they brought the doctor in to have me push. The birth was amazing!! Jason, Crystal, and Car men were present in the room. My doctor, Bradley Folkestad, is the absolute best doctor ever. He is such a nice guy, and when it came to the birth, I was totally confident in him to take care of us. And he did! As with my other 2, it only took 3 pushes. She arrived at 5:40 p.m. Big, beautiful, and perfect.

Daddy got to cut the cord, just like with Jayna and Xander. This was the first time I actually got to see it though. The other times whatever position they had me in made it hard to see, but with this one I was able to see it all! It was so wonderful!


What a joyous moment it was the first time I held my new daughter. I was so excited to meet her, and so thankful that she out safe and sound. She weighed in at 8 lbs 2 oz (my doctor was right about her being big...just think if I would have waited a week for her due date!), and 19 3/4 inches long. Her head was 13.5 inches. She had a nice lusty cry right from the get go. The nurse gave her an Agpar score of 10, which is the highest you can give. She said it was the first one she has given all year, and will very likely be the last. She is amazingly healthy!! I am so lucky. So, so thankful that God has blessed us so much

Daddy is a pro now at being in the birth room, but nothing can ever totally prepare a father for the awe of watching your new baby being born. He enjoyed this birth so much because he knew what was happening the whole time. We were both so excited the whole time...the scene was amazing and we were able to bond so much during this birth. I will cherish the birth of our youngest for the rest of my life.

Jayna and Xander were thrilled to meet their new sister. At first I thought Xander was jealous of her, but come to find out, he was just upset because we weren't letting him hold her! They are so cute with "baby". My nest is full, and I am so content with my beautiful, perfect family.

DR Appt

Today was another DR appt. I cancelled my induction tomorrow for a variety of reasons. The most important one is that I have been feeling under the weather. The Dr prescribed me some antibiotics to kick whatever is coming on, so hopefully I'll be in good shape by the time she comes. The other reason is, the more I think about it, the more I really just want to go into labor by myself. We were going to induce because my back was in extreme pain (slipped disc) and they had thought I was strep-B positive- as it turns out, my back has totally healed up (knock on wood!!) and my test ended up being negative. A third reason is that Jason's first football game is tonight and I really didn't want him to miss it, but if we were going to induce tomorrow (I'd have to go in at 11pm tonight) I wanted him home. So all in all it really works out. I feel fine with waiting another week or even two. Although I don't think my Dr will let me go past my due date (Feb 20th). So 10 days at the most. That really doesn't feel that far away at all. In fact, tomorrow sounds WAY too soon! I have never been like that with a pregnancy before! I'm always DYING for them to come out! But I feel really good physically, and I know that this is my absolute last pregnancy, so I'm kind of enjoying it. I enjoy being able to lay there at night and bond with baby Sonja as she moves and kicks inside of my belly. It's so precious.

Anyways, the Dr said that I am already a couple centimeters dialated and 70% soft, so it could really happen anytime. He says he wouldn't be surprised if I didn't even last until my appt next Tuesday, but I definitely know better than to get excited over those kind of comments. I've heard way too often the dr tell someone I know that they will go into labor in the next couple days, just to have it turn into weeks. The last two pregnancies, my cervix was hard and thick right up until the day I went into labor, so this is definitely a new one for me. I'm sure your body starts preparing earlier and earlier with each baby, because it starts to get the hang of it or something.

I can't wait to meet you Sonja, your birth story will be treasured in all of our hearts for the rest of our lives! :)

February 4th, 2009

I don't have any pictures of it (can you believe that!!??) but Jason and I had an awesome 3rd anniversary. We arranged to have the kids watched from noon-9:30pm...almost 10 hours to ourselves! They stayed with Carmen until 2, then Grandma watched them, and Robbi and Brittany picked them up and brought them home.

The first thing we did was got some food (I was STARVING, like usual haha) and went to get our car washed in and out. We never put the money into having someone else wash our car, and it felt so good to not have to work for a clean car! After that, we went to get some ice cream and then watched a matinee.

We watched a movie called "Taken". It was a really good movie, but kind of emotional considering the main plot is a daughter being taken and the dad chasing after her. Those kind of movies are so hard to watch when you have babies! But it was a good movie!

Next we headed to the Arizona Center, which is where Jason proposed. We walked a few blocks of downtown, stopped for dinner at a place called Uno (we had pizza, and it was really good!), and then walked to "the place". He proposed at such a cool spot...on the stairs leading down to waterfalls and paths to flower gardens. It reminds me that he INDEED has a little streak of romance in him (hahahaha!!)...now if we could just get that out of him a little more often!!

We spent a little time reminiscing, and then headed towards our side of town. We watched a movie at the Silver Cinemas (Transporter 3, TERRIBLE movie!! ), and then went home. Yes, we are old (actually I think our proper excuse is we are very pregnant and parents.). All in all it was a very memorable day.

I look forward to many more anniversaries in the future! I can't believe it's already been 3 years. I guess that's not very long, but every year feels like a great accomplishment! We work hard all year keeping our marriage and family healthy, and it is a great feeling being able to celebrate :)

Football Tournament FUN!!

Last weekend we all went to a 4-on-4 tournament that Jason and Robbi were in. It was WAY east Mesa (a 45 minute drive for us), and an all day event. I was kind of nervous taking the 2 kids (not to mention being 37 weeks pregnant) on an all day trip, but it was actually a lot of fun!

We arrived there at 8:30am and it was FREEZING! I wasn't really anticipating it being that cold. The wind was what was making it unbearable. Just that pierce through your clothes type of cold breeze. Luckily, we had some blankets with us. So for the first hour or so we just sat there cuddling and shivering. It warmed up really quickly though and ended up being nearly 80 degrees by noon.

A cold morning!

The boys won all 3 of their games, and were placed 2nd seed in the playoffs. I wasn't able to get a lot of pictures, as I was entertaining two small children, but I tried! Someday I'll have to go without the kids and really try to get some good shots.

The kids had an absolute blast at the tournament. We watched Dad play for a bit while eating snacks (they LOVED to just sit and munch, it was too cute). Then when they started getting a little bored, we walked around the field a little bit.

Lining up for their first game

Look at that action!

We discovered a bouncy was set up for all the kids, so Jay and Xan really wanted to go on it. I made them wait until Daddy was between games to try it out...because if something happened and they needed help out, I wasn't really up for trying to climb in after them!! haha! They did extremely well bouncing, even though all the kids were considerably older. Xander kept doing summer saults (Daddy's been teaching him those, and with the soft landing, he was really getting into it!), and every time he fell down he'd continuously roll until he reached the other side. It was hilarious. Jayna was doing a great job keeping up with the older kids jumping. They both really enjoyed grabbing on to the sides (the netting) and jumping up and down. It was so cute.

They loved grabbing on to the side netting and jumping like mad!!

After a while, a few really rambunctious kids came in and it was starting to make me a little too nervous, so I made the kids come out. They weren't too happy about that. Luckily there was a park right across the way, so I bribed them by going there. We stayed at the park for a good 45 minutes. We were the only ones there, so they had the whole thing to themselves. Xander was really enjoying the little rocking horse on springs things, and Jayna was loving going down the slide on her belly . Then we all played "action fingers" for a while, until Mommy couldn't bend

down anymore.

Xan's favorite part of the park

We headed back to the field right as Jason's 2nd game was finished...we missed the entire second game...which is unfortunate because it was the one that they did the best in. We ate some lunch (I had packed ham and cheese and pb&j sandwhiches) and waited for the 3rd game to start. Jayna had brought her backpack (which she LOVES to pack up and take on trips) so we decided to bust that out. She had packed her entire tea set with play food, some stuffed animals, and cars/balls for Xander (isn't it cute that she packs for him, too!?).

The three of us had a tea party, played a little bit of ball, then walked over to Daddy's 3rd game. I got some nice pictures of that game. I could actually walk down the sideline on that one, so I could get some closer up shots. They won that one by a touchdown (an INTERCEPTION for a TD by Jason!) , which they were SO excited about because that team beat them twice in the last tournament.

By the time the third game was over, it was around Xander's nap time, and there was a 2 hour gap until the first playoff game. I was pretty tired, so I decided to head home early. With Jason's good luck charms gone ( ;-) ) they lost their first playoff game. That was frustrating for them, but it was still all-in-all a really fun game.