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This little beauty made her debut a little earlier than expected, at 38 weeks and 3 days, almost exactly when her brother made his appearance at 38 weeks and 2 days. They were also within 2 ounces of each other, but she was a full inch longer. Not that I'm comparing or anything...
The Friday before her arrival (38 weeks), my doctor told me I had made no progress, and he was certain that we would be having a birthday party for her the following Friday (March 28), when we had scheduled her C-section. I was surprised that I hadn't made any progress at all at that point, because I had been having more Braxton hicks, and I was just flat out exhausted. I just KNEW I had progressed, but on that particular day, apparently I hadn't yet. So we went on with our weekend plans- Friday night we had a date night, Saturday I helped host a wedding shower for a sweet friend, Sunday we went to church, and (thankfully) the entire family was able to take a good 2 hour nap that afternoon. What a huge blessing that nap ended up being, although we had no idea at the time. That afternoon, we cleaned the house, took Will to the park, and went for a long walk- such a long walk that Hunter kept asking me if I was "ok to walk that far?" I remember specifically having a contraction on the way back that was big enough to make me nearly stop in my tracks, but I kept moving, and I never thought another thing about it.
That night, Hunter cooked us dinner, and I went upstairs to bathe Will and put him down for the night. Dinner was ready when I came back down, and as soon as I sat down I casually mentioned to Hunter that my back was hurting. I brushed it off, as I was in fact 38 weeks pregnant, had been on my feet for most of the weekend, and I had just bathed and lifted our nearly 30 pound toddler in and out of the bath tub, and into the bed. I kind of had just few explanations as to why my back could be bothering me. When we finished dinner, I told Hunter I was going to take a shower and probably go on to bed. I took a long shower and my back was showing no signs of relief, so I took two Tylenol and asked Hunter to bring me my heating pad. We got in the bed right at 10, and I struggled to get comfortable. But again- I was 38 weeks pregnant. Of course it was hard to get comfortable. I was still tossing and turning at 10:30 with still no relief of my back pain, and then it occurred to me that my pain was having a pattern to it. I hesitated to even try to time it, because I thought surely I was making this up in my head. But, I opened my contraction timer on my iPhone (isn't technology amazing??), and these "peaks" in my back pain were happening less that two minutes apart. I timed them for about 10 minutes, and then felt like I may have tee teed a little. So I sat up in bed, and felt a little more. I walked to the bathroom, and it kept coming. I sat in there for a few minutes and finally called for Hunter, and told him to bring me my phone because we needed to call the doctor. We called my doctor (who was thankfully on call this time- he wasn't with Will), and called Hunter's parents to come over to stay with Will, and we headed to the hospital around 11:15. My contractions were getting more and more intense, and were ranging 1-2 minutes apart at this point. My sweet husband stayed so calm throughout all of this, and I'm pretty sure he loved getting an excuse to speed down 280 with his flashers on in the middle of the night.
We got to the hospital around 11:30, and by this time I absolutely could not talk through those horrid back contractions. I always said I wanted to experience natural labor, and I surely got my dose of that this time around! I also said I would feel much better about having a repeat c section if I could just go into labor on my own- and I certainly had that wish granted too. They put me in a triage room and the nurse checked me and said I was "a good 4 cm" and that we were certainly having a baby that night. But remember that delicious meal Hunter cooked for us that evening? I just KNEW that meant they were going to delay the c section and epidural until the morning. Thank goodness, they did not! They called the anesthesiologist, and although I was certain 14 hours had passed, I got my epidural around 12:45, and that man quickly became my best friend. Seriously. I've never been so excited to see a stranger in my entire life. They wheeled us back to the OR at 1:15, and that sweet baby made her grand entrance at 1:27 am, weighing in at a whopping 5 pounds and 15 ounces, with a head full of dark hair.
Again, it wasn't exactly our birth plan, but it was the Lord's plan, and we were so very thankful for a safe and quick birth this time, without complications. I was so sad that my mom wasn't there yet, but she got there Monday afternoon. While I was laboring, Hunter's sweet mom came to the hospital to be with us, and I was so thankful to have her by my side during that not-so-fun time. She was a great labor coach, and was very helpful in getting me through the contractions, and also answering what seemed like 1000 questions from the L&D nurses, who seemed to only ask me questions in the middle of the contraction.
Later that day (technically, since she was born in the wee hours of the morning), the visitors started trickling in, and there were lots of people that couldn't wait to get their hands on this newest little blessing.
And her biggest fan- her big brother absolutely could not wait to get his hands on her, and hasn't been able to get enough of her since. And I can't get enough of how much he loves her.
This little girl has expanded our hearts in ways that we didn't know possible. When I found out we were expecting for the second time, I had so many emotions- of course excitement and thankfulness, but also hesitation and doubts on how I could possibly love another baby the way that we already loved Will. It's amazing how God expands your heart to love so much more than you ever imagined.
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