Janie's Story

Jane Noel Olsen was born on Wednesday December 24th at 1:04 pm. She weighed 9 pounds 8 ounces and was 21 1/4 inches long.

On Tuesday night at 6 pm, I checked into the hospital for my induction. I was so nervous but everyone was very nice and before I knew it, my IV was in and we were just waiting. By midnight, I asked for my epidural and I had the sweetest nurse helping me not to move. It was over so quick and I felt so blessed. The epidural was so beautiful! I was able to sleep for about three hours. By Wednesday morning, I was feeling really good and I was progressing. Around 11 am, I was feeling a lot of pressure, and I was dilated to a 6, an hour later, I was dilated to an 8. By this time, the pain med was starting to wear off, so I asked for some more. By the time the doctor came to me, I was a nine, so the nurse asked him to give me something but not too strong so that I wouldn't be numb for the delivery. But by the time I was a ten, I couldn't feel a thing. The nurse came in and got me started pushing, but I was pushing wrong. I couldn't feel how to push and I was pushing the wrong muscles. Finally the nurse told me that I was going to wear myself out by pushing wrong and so the pain meds stopped. Of course, no one knew that Janie was going to be so big. But I felt it all, and I wanted to die. I pushed hard for forty minutes without any medication and the doctor gave me an episiotomy and then reached in and pulled her out. The nurses put her on my chest and I loved looking at her but was so distracted by the pain of the stitches that the doctor was working on. But soon I realized that something wasn't quite right with Janie. She was not crying a lot and the nurses said she had gulped some amniotic fluid on her way out. She was having a hard time breathing. They put her back on my chest for a second then whisked her away. I thought they would bring her back, but they didn't. She was wheezing and wasn't turning pink. They took her to the special care nursery and got her on oxygen. By the time I was able to walk down to the nursery and see her, she was under and oxygen tent and hooked up to several monitors and an IV. I was devastated. She was so small (although huge at the same time) and to see her hooked up to an IV was just heartbreaking. They told us that they had tried to feed her but she had turned blue and was losing her oxygen, thus the need for the IV. They were testing her for pneumonia and other infections and had her on two antibiotics. She needed to stay on the antibiotics for at least 48 hours. We felt the prayers of so many of you as we prayed and waited to see how things would play out.

At 2 am on Christmas day, the nursery nurse came into my room and said that she was well enough to be off of the oxygen. YAY! And things just got better from there. She was very pink by morning and they had started giving her milk and her oxygen levels remained high. On Christmas day, I finally got to hold my little darling. All of her tests were coming back negative and they released both of us last night.

I don't have pictures of me holding her because of the circumstances, but these are her first minutes on earth. I will be posting TONS of pictures in the next few days. We can't tell who she looks more like, me or Jonathan. But she is so beautiful. And her big sister is in love with her. She always wants to be touching her and loves to talk to her.

I feel overwhelmed with the blessings of the Lord! I feel so blessed to have had two Christmas babies in two years. I have felt the Lord's love for me and my family in so many ways these past three days. And I have felt the love and prayers of you, my friends and family. Thank you.

Happy Birthday Janie!