Let’s recap. Leanne and I first met in 2020. We re-connected in 2021. We got married in 2022. You know where this is going.
In an ideal scenario, we would have met 10 years ago. We would have enjoyed our time together, by ourselves for a few years. I would have liked to have done some traveling with just Leanne and me. On my own I rarely took a vacation because in a weird way, I didn’t want to do things on my own. I wanted someone to go with me.
Since Leanne was just about to turn 40, we both agreed that waiting a few years probably wasn’t the smartest idea if we were to have children. Leanne also had her own worries. She’d had some medical issues that could have posed difficulties in getting pregnant. It wasn’t a guaranteed issue, but it wasn’t nothing either. After some talks, we had a couple options or ways things could play out.
One was the ideal situation. Leanne gets pregnant within a year, and that was that. The second option we talked about, and I had a harder time accepting, was that we may have to adopt. Leanne wanted to give it a year of trying, and then after that, we’d start the process of adoption. She’s looked into adoption a little, before I came into the picture. She mentioned that there is an age limit to them accepting you as parents. She was worried that if we tried for too long, we’d miss the window of being able to adopt. And she actually wanted to start that adoption process right away because it takes a few years to adopt a baby. She wanted to at least get a head start just in case because she was really worried she would be unable to get pregnant. Like I said, I was a bit hesitant. I asked if we could at least wait a year before doing that. We just got married, and now we’re talking about starting the process of adoption? She agreed but still felt the sooner the better.
Fortunately for us, we found out we were pregnant Tuesday, January 3rd of 2023. Leanne was getting ready for work, and about 6:30 a.m. she jumps on the bed and asks me, “Dustin, are you awake?” I was, but just 2 seconds before that, I wasn’t. Then she says, “Dustin, I’m pregnant!” All the joy in the world came to me in that sleepy haze and I said, “Are you serious?” I probably could have said something more profound, but after we just got done having the discussion that this may take a while, I wasn’t expecting her to say those words and wasn’t sure how she knew she was. In my brain fog, I thought she was just “feeling it.” No, she had taken a test. And a few days later it was confirmed by the doctor.
The timing of finding out was just right too. Leanne, with her history, gets a yearly MRI to make sure things haven’t gotten bad. She was supposed to have her yearly MRI on that day she found out. She called the office, they congratulated her, and told her that for the safety of her and our new little one, they would reschedule for another year.
We went in to get the first ultrasound. This would be the first time we’d hear the heartbeat. Still too early to tell what we were having though. With a TV in the room for us to see, and the sound playing from the ultrasound, the nurse spent a few moments trying to find the heartbeat. Once she found it, I heard the rapid pumping sound of the heart and welled up. Leanne turned to me and said, “Ooooh, Dustin!” It was a real moment.
Shortly after that, we made a trip back to our parents to let them know. We didn’t do anything fun or fancy. We just told them and showed them the ultrasound. They were ecstatic and very happy for us.
In between that time and when we found out if we were having a boy or girl, I had a dream. I’ve always wanted a boy, and this dream I had was a weird one. We were at the hospital and I was in the waiting room with my family waiting. I wasn’t in the delivery room. Then a nurse came out and told me that Leanne had given birth. I walk into the delivery room seeing Leanne holding our son (this is a dream, in case you’re skimming.), she’s already named him and introduces me to “…our son, Jimm. That’s Jimm with two M’s.” She turns Jimm around and I see the most triangular-shaped face I’ve ever seen. Also, the eyes are really narrowly set. And Jimm has long, really dark hair.
As soon as I woke up I told Leanne this dream. She had a nice giggle. Once I got to work, I drew out what “Jimm” looked like in my dream and sent her this. From then on, our nickname for our baby was “Jimm.”
Speaking of names, my first niece is named Harper. She is named after the town that my sister and I grew up in, LaHarpe. Before we knew what we were having, I told Leanne if we had a girl, we should name her Rose after Leanne’s hometown of Roseville. Leanne loved that idea and started rattling off all sorts of variations of that name. Not long after that, we found out we were having a girl. So after narrowing names down, we settled on Rosalie. We only told our parents we were having a girl; we told no one else. We also kept the name to ourselves. We were holding onto that until the birth.
After everything looked safe, I made the official announcement to everyone outside of our family that we were expecting. I wanted to do something fun, so I found the two largest cameras in my collection and the smallest. I had a “mommy” camera, a “daddy” camera, and a “baby” camera. I took a photo and posted this on Facebook and Instagram. As I was doing a little color correcting of the image, I saw an opportunity to include an Easter Egg. I like adding little details into projects. I noticed that the “baby” camera had a 3-digit model number right on the front. I asked Leanne what the 3 digits of Roseville’s phone number were after the area code. 426. I went and found a font very similar to the one on the camera and Photoshopped the new 3 digits onto the camera. This Easter Egg represented Rosalie’s name. Not that anyone would ever get her name from this, but I thought it was a clever way to tell people that we had this planned way back then, a whole 6 months before she was born. I remember telling this to someone (I think Leanne’s brother) and they did mention that they thought that it was cool the camera had the same number as Roseville’s phone number.
With Leanne being in the high-risk category for pregnancy, she had monthly checkups. Every one of them came back perfect. Rosalie was growing just fine and she always seemed to be in the 50th percentile.
Rosalie was scheduled to be induced about a week before her due date. Because of the high-risk category, this was something they did. About 2 months before that date, they did an ultrasound and saw that Rosalie was head up and not head down. She was head down the previous checkup and should have stayed that way until birth. Somehow she got herself turned around. The doctor mentioned that at that stage, there was not much to be done to make sure she got head down. There were exercises or positions that were supposed to help, but nothing was guaranteed. Leanne tried all of them because she didn’t want a C-section. We were led to believe that Rosalie was most likely going to stay this way because she was going to be too large to flip back around.
At our last checkup before going into delivery, the nurse was doing the ultrasound and just casually mentioned that everything looked good. Leanne and I looked at each other and asked, “Like she’s just doing fine? But still head-up?” The nurse responded, “No, the baby is head down and is ready to come out.” That was a huge relief for us.
We appropriately went to the hospital on September 4th, Labor Day, at 7 p.m. The plan was to get settled for the night. They were to give Leanne some things to prep for the induction that was scheduled to happen at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, September 5th. They told us that with this being Leanne’s first delivery, it could take the majority of a day, maybe longer. We had some training classes that told us what to expect and things to do to help with contractions and passing the time. We brought some things to keep us busy. I brought my Nintendo Switch with Zelda: Tears in the Kingdom. Both of our moms were already in town, they came with us and visited for a while and then went back to our house. My dad stayed home back in Illinois and was going to head over in the afternoon on Tuesday. Leanne’s dad stayed home as well, as traveling was pretty hard for him. Monday evening, I think we watched a little TV, and then I made my bed and played the Switch for a little bit. We tried to get some rest for the long day that we were about to have.
At about 11 p.m. Monday, the nurse came in to give something to Leanne. I don’t remember what it was, but it was to prepare for that 8 a.m. induction. She also checked her dilation. At around midnight, Leanne’s water broke. We called the nurse in, who confirmed her water had broken and said contractions would likely start soon. I looked at her and said, “We’re not getting any sleep tonight, are we?”
At midnight all the nurses scrambled. Rosalie was on her way, ready or not. Keeping in mind, nothing that was given to Leanne was supposed to make her go into labor yet. She went from little to no dilation to full dilation in less than an hour. They asked her if she wanted an epidural, but Leanne refused. She wanted to go as long as she could without it. They also had to call the doctor, who was currently asleep at her own home and wasn’t supposed to be there until much later. I also remember seeing one of the new nurses come in with pillow markings on the side of her face.
Leanne was having strong and painful contractions very close together. The doctor wasn’t there yet, and Leanne finally asked for the epidural. At first, they said they would get it, then after Leanne asked a second time, they told her she was past the point of being able to receive it. She was going to do this naturally regardless. At one point, our first nurse mentioned to another nurse that she checked Leanne and she wasn’t ready at all, and then the very next time she checked her, she could feel the baby’s head. The nurses kept telling Leanne she couldn’t push until the doctor arrived. And there was another issue happening too. Leanne’s blood pressure shot up. It was in the dangerous zone. They gave her some medication for that. And with each contraction, Rosalie’s heart rate would decelerate drastically. They wanted to get Rosalie out as soon at they could. Little fact about myself, I had the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck 5 times. Every time my mom had a contraction, my heart rate would drop. I was an emergency c-section.
After the doctor arrived, Rosalie couldn’t wait much longer. I don’t remember exactly how long it took from that point, but from the point when the nurses discovered Rosalie was making a break for it, to being delivered was only 3 hours. Rosalie was born Tuesday, September 5th at 3:05 am, 5 pounds, 13 ounces.
The doctor raised her up to show Leanne briefly, then she passed Rosalie to the nurses, who then took her to a warming station just feet away. While I don’t think they were too worried, they were not relaxed. I think it took them a couple extra moments to get Rosalie to breathe. I wasn’t sure what they were doing. I saw they had Rosalie lying down and were raising her arms up in the air and letting them fall. Rosalie would slowly lower them. The nurses were not content with this and kept doing it, until one time, Rosalie gave that falling flinch reaction. “There she is,” said one of the nurses. And Rosalie started to cry. I welled up at that point too.
After the nurses cleaned her up, they asked if I’d like to come over and get a photo. So I did. After that, they handed her to Leanne, and she held Rosalie against her chest for the very first time.
They ended up moving us to another room for the longer care portion of our stay. They took Rosalie to the nursery room to warm her up since her body temperature was a little low, and we got a couple of hours of sleep. I left Dad a text message around 5 am to call me once he got up. Usually, he leaves his phone out in the kitchen, where I don’t think he could hear it. He must have had it next to him because he called me shortly after. I told him to pack his bags and get over here to meet his new granddaughter. I could hear him sniffle on the other end of the line.
Our moms were still unaware, and since they were in town, I didn’t want to tell them over the phone. My mom called me around 9 am to ask how our coffee machine worked. After I told her, and she said it still wasn’t working, I just wanted to say, “Hang up and just come over to the hospital.” Since they knew the induction was going to start at 8 am, they weren’t planning on getting to the hospital until about 10 am. I get a text from Mom saying they were going to stop by Walmart before heading over to kill some time.
Once they did arrive, I met the new grandmothers in the lobby and I told them that it was fine to visit but be very quiet because she was sleeping. They walk in and step slowly around the privacy curtain with Leanne fully awake, sitting up in bed. The grandmas with a puzzled look. Leanne then points to their left, where they were standing right next to Rosalie sleeping in her bassinet. They were quite shocked.
With both of us having been an aunt and uncle for a few years now, and being around our nieces and nephews, we figured we already knew quite a bit about taking care of a baby. What we weren’t really exposed to, were changing diapers. The entire time in the hospital, the nurses changed Rosalie’s diaper about 10x more than Leanne and I did. They’d come in to do a check and see that Rosalie needed changed, and they’d go ahead and do it. We said to ourselves, should we be doing that? Yes, yes we should have.
There was another realization that hit me. While my parents and Leanne’s mom were there visiting with us, the nurse came in. I don’t remember exactly what she requested, but she requested that “Dad” needed to do this. I sat there, doing nothing, not seeing that my dad was getting up. It took me a few seconds before it sunk in. Oh! “Dad” is me. Not my dad.
The second night there, we had a new nurse taking care of us. She was the overnight nurse. The first time she came in and introduced herself we quickly found out she was a talker. High energy. During that time, I started to see something in Leanne that I wasn’t sure if I was seeing correctly. The nurse had to go do something and she’d be right back. After she came back, I paid more attention to Leanne because I was seeing something that was starting to worry me. While the nurse was telling a story, I interrupted her and asked Leanne how she felt. I was noticing that when Leanne blinked, her eyes weren’t blinking together. Her left eye was a little slower. This evening, I really wished we had one of our regular nurses. She just had one of those personalities where she liked to talk and tell stories. She blew off my concern at first. After reaffirming that this wasn’t normal for Leanne, she finally called in an on-call neurologist to take a look at her.
The neurologist, who I think was only an intern, came in and took a look at Leanne. She asked her a lot of questions and asked Leanne to do a lot of movements. She ruled out a potential stroke and suggested it was Bell’s Palsy. Something that I started to suspect since I had had a friend with it before. But to be safe, they took Leanne to run a couple of scans. The tests came back good. She wasn’t having a stroke and it was Bell’s Palsy. My friend recovered from it, so I wasn’t too worried, but Leanne was. I also wished the neurologist would have given a little bit more of a realistic recovery estimate. She told Leanne that since they caught it early, and they started medicine for it, she’d recover from it in a day or two. Knowing my friend, I expected at least a month.
In the end, Leanne to this day still has some residual effects from the Bell’s Palsy. Most people will never be able to tell, but from the both of us, we can see them. Leanne more so. I don’t notice them, but if she asks me, I can see what she’s talking about. And since Leanne has had Bell’s Palsy, there are people I see on TV who I question if they have had it. Turns out, there are a lot of news reporters who’ve had Bell’s Palsy when they were kids. For some people, it’s a viral thing. In Leanne’s case, it was stress-induced. It’s hard to imagine why. I mean, going from zero contractions to giving birth in just 3 hours, can’t be all that stressful, right?
With Leanne’s Bell’s Palsy, she became very self-conscious of it. She was covering her face whenever anyone entered the room. She also didn’t want any photos of herself. There were a lot of photos I wanted to take of her and Rosalie that I never did take while in the hospital. It put a big damper on this wonderful occasion. We’ve reflected back on this time, and for us, it feels like two events that happened on their own times. Leanne doesn’t feel like her Bell’s Palsy and Rosalie’s birth happened together. It’s a weird feeling. Two events with two completely separate memories. One of Rosalie without worrying about Bell’s Palsy, and one with Bell’s Palsy and not thinking of needing to take care of Rosalie.
Rosalie was born 5 pounds 13 ounces. She was tiny. She was considered growth-restricted. Going from our appointment just 2 weeks before birth, she hadn’t gained any weight. Leanne also had pre-eclampsia. We are super thankful that both Leanne and Rosalie are doing well. Rosalie just hit 20 pounds not long ago. Leanne, we believe, has recovered about as much as she’s going to recover. She does stretches that help out.
We both learned a lot about taking care of a baby. We finally started changing diapers. Leanne quickly found out how much a baby needs to eat. And I learned that my body went into “dad mode.” All my life I’ve been a light sleeper. The tiniest of noises could wake me up. After Rosalie, I slept really well. We kept Rosalie in our room for the first 6 months. She’d wake up 3-5 times throughout the night crying to be fed. I slept through most all of those. I remember asking Leanne once that Rosalie must have slept through the entire night, because I didn’t hear her at all. Oh, boy. That wasn’t what Leanne wanted to hear. There was a time where I did wake up very briefly. I’d see that Leanne was nursing Rosalie in bed next to me. In what felt like a split second, I open my eyes back up, seeing Leanne facing me, on her side, asleep. I started panicking, thinking that Leanne had fallen asleep and rolled onto Rosalie. I woke Leanne up, only to find out Rosalie was safe in her bassinet and had been for quite some time.
Rosalie has been a joy. She’s already turned 1. We’re grateful she’s happy and healthy. She loves to make new friends whenever we’re out in public. She’ll wave at people until they see her and wave back. She’s started to wave at dogs and “bark” at them in her own way. As of writing this, she’s 14 months old and is on the verge of being able to walk. I’m sure there are so many more stories I can tell about her birth, but I’ve already written more in this blog post than any others. I’ll save those stories for later. At the end of 2023, I’ve learned my lesson on trying to predict the next year, but if I had, I wouldn’t have been prepared for what was going to happen in 2024.