But here she is our 4th beautiful daughter.
9lb 7oz, 23" -our biggest baby by far!
her fingers are sooo long! and her nails already need to be clipped ;)She's perfect and fits right into our family.
We are so incredibly thankful to God for blessing us with her and giving us the job of being her mommy and daddy.
the birth story.... WARNING: VERY LONG!
so on monday the 7th of december i had a doctors appointment... still dilated to a 2 and 50% effaced. after much discussion we decided that we would come back on thursday the 10th to be induced. feelings of relief and frustration consumed me for the next couple days. relief that there was an end in sight and we could plan to have child care arranged for our kids but frustration that once again my body had "failed" and wouldn't go into labor on it's own. the night before we were set to go in i went into a self-pity party and whined about how it seems that i kept reading these great birth stories of women who have some slight contractions in the evening, go to bed, water breaks in the night, they take their time getting to the hospital and are dilated to a 4 or 5 when they get there, get their epidural and labor in ease for a few hours and finally push out a beautiful healthy baby sometime in the afternoon. "why can't i experience that?" i clearly remember saying to chad. he assures me that no matter the "how" having a healthy baby, safely delivered, is the main point. which i know. but still...
we go to bed wednesday night and set the alarm for 6:50ish am. i had been having "stronger braxton hicks contractions" off and on for several days. i woke up at 3am (as typical for the last week or so) and my mind was consumed with thoughts of the upcoming day. the "what if's" playing through my head made it impossible to fall back asleep. i watch the clock count down to the time the alarm would go off. when it does, chad and i talk for a minute and then i decide i need to get into the shower so we can be ready on time. as i roll out of bed i feel a gush....
me: "huh? what is that?"
chad: "nooo way."
me: laughing... "i think so."
i get to the bathroom and i'm pretty sure it had to have been my water breaking. i shower and occasionally feel some contractions but not painful ones. we get ready as planned and take our oldest daughter to school and then head to the hospital. we check in as scheduled and as the nurse is showing us back to our room i tell her that i think my water broke. i get all settled in and shortly after 9am my doctor arrives to check me. i am at a 4 and 75% effaced :) i'm not really feeling contractions too much but some light ones are showing up on the monitor.
we decide that i should walk around for awhile and bounce on the birthing ball as well to see if contractions pick up. an hour later she checks again and i am between a 4 and a 5 and we continue with the plan of walking the halls and bouncing on the ball. chad is a trooper as we trek the whole 2 hallways of our small hospital about 50 bazillion times! i feel contractions get a bit stronger but nothing that makes me stop in my tracks to breathe through them. fast forward to around 1pm. i am checked again and am between a 6 and 7 and 100% effaced. i decide that the past few contractions have been stronger and i should get an epidural since it takes awhile for the anesthesiologist to get there. i get into the whirlpool tub to labor in there until my epi arrives. 2:10ish pm my epi gets here and i am feeling some harder contractions but again nothing that i can't get through pretty easily. at 3pm the epidural is administered but only taking on one side of my body (that is a really weird feeling to have contractions on only one side of your body!) i get checked again so they can decide if they need to redo the whole epidural or just give me something different if i am far enough progressed. i am at a 9 already and she said there is a bulging water sack as well which she breaks. the epidural finally takes on my other side and i don't feel anything. 45 minutes later my doctor checks again and there is just a tiny lip of cervix left and baby is at zero station. thinking i would be pushing very soon everyone stands around the room chatting and waiting for me to feel pressure or the urge to push. but nothing is happening. the extra nurse leaves and my doctor decides to go back to her clinic patients and i get on the ball again to try to get the baby to drop some.
at 5:20ish pm my doctor comes back and decides that since the baby isn't dropping very quickly i will need to push her down myself. we set up to push and even though i feel nothing i start pushing. after several pushes she is crowning and i am definitely feeling lots of pressure! at 5:42pm after about 20 minutes of pushing, our baby girl arrives! 9lb 7oz, 23", head measures 14". So LONG story, short. God gave me just what i wanted, a "perfect" birth story to go with our perfect 4th baby girl.
