Baby!

When you aren't working full-time any longer and your baby is overdue, you start to look for things to pass the time. I started reading the Harry Potter series again. I also wanted the house clean and enough laundry done so that I wouldn't worry about wanting to do them for a week.

The days dragged on.

I went to work the Friday and Saturday before I was induced mostly so I could have something to do. I also wanted the pity tips. Both reasons were satisfied. I'm going to miss serving while pregnant.

Todd's parents were in town for the weekend also, so we headed to his sister's house for dinner on Sunday night. I claimed a spot on the couch next to on top of the air conditioning vent while we, as a family, tried to come up with good names for a baby boy. I don't know why, but we really struggle with boy names. We were pretty set on our girl names, but were waiting to meet the baby like always.

Right after we found out we were pregnant, we started talking about middle names. Both Rylin and Evan have names from my side of the family, so I figured we could look at Todd's. Here is what was available from his four grandparents: Alva, Althea, Wilda, & Lee. Now, if YOU were about to give your child an identity, which of those names do you think you'd pick? Also, both Todd's Mom AND Dad have the middle name of Lee. It was a no-brainer for us. Boy or girl, the middle name would be Lee. Spelled just like that.

Side funny story, Todd's Grandpa (Lee) gets a little... concerned whenever he hears about a new pregnancy. He firmly believes that two children is the cap. Especially if you have one of each gender. Pretty much this is what we've heard from everybody from the get-go:

We were therefore a little hesitant to let him know about this pregnancy. I hoped that telling him about our middle name choice might soften the reception. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: We're going to have another baby!
Lee: Uh oh! Here we go.
Me: And boy or girl, the middle name will be Lee.
Lee: (pause) Well congratulations!!

It still makes me chuckle.

At any rate, it was fun sitting around with Todd's family even if no name ideas came from it. Then one of the things I hate most about being pregnant happened. It's always by some older gentleman that thinks he's being funny. Why?! What is it about those grandpas?!?!?! They look at me, look at my belly, and say, "Are you sure there's not two in there?" After I inwardly roll my eyes and try not to throat-punch them, I say, "Yup. Just one." Their inevitable response is, "Well, you're just so big!"

This is not an appropriate thing to say to anyone. Ever. Especially a 41-week pregnant lady that YOU BARELY EVEN KNOW!!!! (He was my sister-in-law's Father-in-law. No relation to me and I had only briefly met once before). I don't understand why they think this is OK. I've seen pictures of pregnant ladies in the '50s. They looked huge in those freakin' mumus!!

Don't even try to tell me otherwise.

My Grandmother thinks women should still wear these and doesn't like the current fashion trends, "Where you can see every bump and roll." She even offered to buy me a mumu and didn't understand when I told her they don't sell them anymore.

By the way, I was NOT huge and when I told this "kind" sir that I wasn't even as big as I was with my last baby, his astonished, "Oh, really?!" was enough to make me tell Todd it was time to go home.

Harrumph.

Monday was spent cleaning the house and getting things set for Sandy (Todd's Mom) to take care of the kids for the next two days. Just as we were about to walk out the door at 19:30, the impending thunderstorm finally hit. Within minutes the sidewalk was flooded! I can say that the baby's birth story starts out with, "It was a dark and stormy night..." Ha Ha.

We got to the hospital checked in, met the nurses and midwife, and got settled. They started me on cervidil at 21:45. They told me I could still eat, so Todd rushed to Macaroni Grill before they closed at ten for a late-night mushroom ravioli craving. We finally went to "sleep" a little after 23:00 and I knew I was in for a rough night.

I had no less than three things attached to me at all times: my IV, the baby heart-rate sensor, the contraction sensor, the blood pressure cuff, and the oxygen sensor. This made getting comfortable nigh impossible. I get really warm at night and the plastic mattress had me sweating. Thankfully they brought in a fan that made it bearable. To top it all off, I was also having contractions. They weren't really painful, more uncomfortable. I was having a lot of back labor though, so the muscles up and down my back seized up with every contraction. I was only able to doze off and on all night. By the time morning came, I felt like somebody had been punching me in the back for the last 12 hours. 

I had progressed from a 1+ to a 3 in dilation on my own overnight. That was progress, but not enough. I was in too much pain and knew how much was ahead of me. I also knew that my body was exhausted. I knew that I was going to need Pitocin, and I knew it was going to hurt. A lot. We decided to get an epidural after all. We were disappointed, but knew that healthy was the goal. A Mommy under tremendous stress puts the baby under stress too.

The epidural and Pitocin were started at 10:30. Going off of my previous labors, we figured the baby would arrive by noon. Nope. Lunch came and went. I decided to finish reading Harry Potter book 3.

The Pitocin had been pretty high, but the baby's heart-rate had dropped too much so they cut my dosage in half. At 14:00 I was barely at a 4.The midwife offered to break my water, and we agreed.

It had meconium in it.

Crap.

Literally.

It means the baby's first bowl movement has passed and doesn't normally happen until after they are born. This can mean many things, but it always means that the baby is now ingesting and possibly inhaling their own poop. It can (but doesn't always) lead to some pretty serious complications. For now it meant that the pediatrics team was going to take the baby as soon as it was born and might have to perform some heavy-duty suctioning to get it all out.

That's all I needed, more reasons to stress. It really made me want to get the baby here now.

So we waited some more.

Todd had this delivered (and I couldn't eat it yet!!) and all the nurses were jealous:

My awesome cousin surprised us with Jamba Juice (which I could eat!) later in the afternoon.

Around 17:00 the midwife said I was officially in "active" labor and I was at a 5.

More waiting.

Shift change happened at 19:00 and while I was waiting to meet the new (and now third) midwife, I started feeling a lot of pressure.

At 20:00 the midwife was still dealing with another birth (that mother better freaking hurry!!!) and I was feeling constant pressure (the baby's head was now engaged).

At 20:15 the midwife and nurse still hadn't returned so I told Todd to go find them and tell them I was ready to push.

I clicked the epidural button again and a few minutes later everyone was finally showing up in our room. I was in transition and was shaking.

At 20:29 after 24 hours and no more than four pushes, baby arrived!!! The chord was wrapped around the neck once (like I needed any more scares), but only delayed things for a moment while the midwife unlooped it. We were still waiting to find out the gender, and nobody was talking, so I yelled, "What is it?!?!" Todd said it was a boy initially, which I have to admit made me sad for just a half of a second. Then I was happy. Then the midwife said, "Nope, it's a girl!" I was so happy I started crying. Todd was able to "catch" her and cut the chord before she was taken to the warmer by pediatrics.

Her first Apgar score was 5. She had only let out a feeble whimper initially. Once she was on the warmer they started rubbing her down vigorously and had to suction out her nose and had a tube down her throat to suction out her stomach and esophagus. She finally started crying loudly and her second score was a 9.

8 pounds 2 ounces, 20 inches long

 They brought her back to me within a few minutes saying she was just fine.

 
She was so alert for being on that epidural for so long! I couldn't get over all her dark hair either. I secretly don't like bald babies and am always jealous of people with dark hair because their babies have it too! Rylin and Evan had some hair, but nothing close to this! I still can't get over it. :)

We stayed in the hospital for the next two days to get to know our little baby girl and recover. We kept going back and forth between naming her Josephine and Olivia. What did she look more like? Josephine is Todd's Great-Grandmother and it's safe to say that the genetics are strong.

From top left: Rylin, Evan, new baby, Todd, Josephine.

See what I mean?? It's all in the eyes.

Todd's Mom brought the other kids by and they got to meet their baby sister for the first time.

We were still torn on the name though. We liked the name Josie and we liked how Rylin was right that it was a girl and "her name is Olivia." At some point I suggested the idea of two middle names. I did a little bit of research and found out it wasn't as big a deal as I thought it might be. I was worried filling out government and school forms and such would be a hassle. We wouldn't do two middle names if we went with Olivia though. So that's where we were after one day. She was either Olivia Lee or Josephine Olivia Lee.

The second day in the hospital, Todd had to go to a training all day. I had to fill out the birth certificate form and we had been leaning towards Josie. I looked at the baby and it just felt right. Now she officially had a name.

Josephine Olivia Lee Allison

We love baby Josie with all of our hearts and are so glad she is part of our family!