Labor Day

How civil it was to have a planned delivery day. Here we are, a little family picture before we left. No rushing to the hospital, hoping to make it there in time; I didn't have to wake a friend with a middle of the night phone call telling her to rush over because I had to leave NOW. Eric's mom was here to be with the kids while we were gone -- what a blessing that has been to have her here. I got to take a shower and make myself presentable, eat breakfast, give the kids a hug goodbye all before I left.


We got to the hospital around 8am and tried to get things started but nothing really happened, only two contractions in two hours, pretty pathetic. So around noon my Dr. came and broke my water. That is such an unplesant experience, not because it hurts but just because of the gushing weirdness of it. I cried when they did that with Ridge and I cried this time too. But that also didn't help move things along thus an hour later I told the nurse that yes, I would use the dreaded pitocin and yes, that worked. We were watching "Return to Me" and towards the end I was finally getting more regular contractions and ones that actually hurt instead of just being uncomfortable. By this time I was at 7cm and our nurse, a very sweet lady named Ailee, told someone to call the Dr. because I was progressing quickily. I asked for the pitocin to be turned off but that didn't slow things down. I was starting to panic because it was really starting to hurt and there was no way I could go through an hour of contractions that felt like that. I thought at since I was at 7cm that it would take a little while longer to get to 10cm, but I was wrong, thank goodness. It took about 3 more really painful sets and the Dr. still wasn't there and I just had to get that baby out. In talking with my nurse earlier in the day I had learned that she was a midwife in England before moving here and that she still delivered babies when the Dr. wasn't there in time. At that point I could care less actually about who caught the baby just as long as I could get the baby out and get out of pain. At least Eric wasn't there on his own to deliver the baby. I surprised Eric by saying "oh crap," but just once. I know, so tame of me. I think that was when I knew another contraction was coming and I knew that urge to push was coming and the Dr. still wasn't there. The Dr. literally ran in, and I think he said "thanks for waiting," though that might have been after the fact, and with one real push, plus a little one, we had another baby girl.


I must admit that I was really delighted to have a girl but the relief of being out of pain outweighed that feeling of delight in the moments right after birth. So I can't say that finding out when she was born was a better way to find out the sex than finding out during the ultrasound at 20 weeks. Perhaps if I had had an epidural I would have felt the joy of "It's a girl!" more than I did. Eric told me that when each baby is born Dr. Blackham takes their hand and waves it "hello" in our direction. I've never been in a state to notice that before. She came out with a smooshed little face because of the way she was resting in my body. Her whole right side was mashed down, but we loved her right away just the same. Every hour her face de-mashed and she looks cuter every day.

The kids were so happy to finally get to see her and hold her. Cannon sang to her the first time he held her, it was very sweet. Cannon also asked me more than once why I wasn't getting out of bed. He was also worried that even though the baby came out I still had a belly. Isn't that one of the cruel tricks of pregnancy? I thought I'd stay at the hospital longer than 24 hours, but I came home. I think if it were easier to get more rest there then I would have stayed another half day. I loved having a menu and good food brought to me, but that alone wasn't worth staying for. I need a restaurant service around here for a while for all of us.

Thank you to whomever put up the pink balloons and banner in our front yard. That was a fun surprise to see for all of us. We are so happy to welcome Sommer into our family.