Lyda-Rose Marie's Birth

Well, I guess I'm blogging every two years now! Since I wrote my other kids' birth stories on here, I figured I better add the last one.
Knowing this was almost certainly going to be my last pregnancy and birth, I had lots of mixed feelings the past few months. I wanted to savor it, but being so busy with other kids and life made it hard. Plus, getting older and having 5 pregnancies in just over 7 years really took a toll on my body. I was tired. I felt like I was crawling to the finish line and felt like I had pretty much given up on every part of my life. I was stress eating, being lazy about taking the kids out, and not wanting responsibility. Still, I give myself an A+ for keeping the house pretty clean!

As my due date grew closer (April 18th), I started to feel a bit panicky. I didn't feel ready emotionally, physically, or mentally. There were still a bunch of projects around the house I wanted to get done and lots of organizing and preparing to do. I was really praying she wouldn't come early. As usual though, I ended up having plenty of time to prepare and I knew I was really ready when I just stopped caring about the to-do list and wished for contractions. I was also having some labor/birth anxiety. Davy's birth and postpartum period was fairly physically traumatic for me and I was afraid of repeating it. I was scared of the pain, even though I've been through it several times.
I decided having a home birth just didn't seem right this pregnancy. There was a wonderful birth center located next to Vanderbilt Hospital that seemed like it would be a good middle ground. I used a birth center with Donny and loved it! I liked the midwife group and nurses and they were always so accommodating to my kids during appointments.
So,…..
Two days before my due date (friday night), I woke up at 1 or 2 in the morning to contractions. They were not really patterned and were like 15-20 mins or more apart, but they were strong. They kept up through the night, some keeping me up and some I probably dozed through. They were gone in the morning and I had no other labor signs. The next night (saturday), it was the same story. Contractions at 2 am till morning and then gone. This is typical pre labor for me. My last 3 kids' labors were this way.

Sunday (my due date, April 18th), I decided to stay home from church. I had been up for much of the night with contractions and even though they stopped in the morning, I just felt like staying home. I took a nap mid-morning and when I got up after, I was pretty sure I was leaking amniotic fluid. (Fun fact! BOTH my other girls labors started with my water breaking!!) I called the midwife on call and she told me to come in to check it out. I texted Kevin at church and he gathered the kids and headed home. We had to find someone to watch the kids, so by the time we got to the birth center, it was around 3:00 pm. It was confirmed that I was leaking amniotic fluid and I was at about 2-3 cm dilated. No contractions, though. Since I'm strep B positive, I have to have antibiotics every 4 hours in labor, so we started the first dose at 4:00. Since nothing was happening and we had 4 hours till the next dose, we decided to go back home (with a hep lock in my arm) put the kids to bed, and return at 8 pm to stay the night at the birth center. We put the kids to bed, got a nighttime sitter, and headed back for the night, knowing within the next 24 hours or so, we'd have a baby! We settled into our comfy room and watched an episode of "Call the Midwife."


Arriving at the birth center:

 Receiving first IV dose:

Watching "Call the Midwife" in bed. Would've been really nice had I not been so anxious!

  After that we both decided it would be best to sleep while we can. My midwife came in to check periodically, but mostly let us rest until the next IV dose at 12:30 am. I didn't do much sleeping. I was still not showing much sign of labor and I was beginning to get nervous that an induction was in my future. If I was not in active labor by 24 hours, I would need to transfer to Vanderbilt for an induction. We would probably try some natural methods first, but I wasn't looking forward to that either. Finally, like the previous 2 nights, around 2 am, I started having strong contractions, about 20 mins apart. I notified my midwife and sat around playing card games on my phone between contractions. I let Kevin sleep since I knew I'd need him later. They were far apart, but strong enough that I had to stand up and breath through them.

(I'm including this handy-dandy labor chart that my midwife sent me. I had to refer to it while writing, this since I had no concept of time. I thinks its really cool seeing all her notes and all the medical stuff that I didn't notice going on. It's printed backwards, so you have to start at the bottom and read up. )


Finally, around 4 am, I started having stronger contractions about 8 mins apart. I was groaning/moaning through them and having Kevin rub my lower back. My midwife suggested trying a hands/knees position on the bed in case baby was needing to get into a better position for birth and to help with back labor.  It felt great on my back and I was so comfy. The only problem was that I was so comfy, my contractions slowed! While it was nice having a "chill" labor, I knew we really needed to get somewhere, No pain, no gain!
At around 4:30, we decided to try breaking my water the rest of the way to see if it would get my contractions stronger and more consistent. I was 5-6 cm dilated when she broke my water, which sort of surprised me cause I wasn't in a ton of pain. That seemed to do the trick!

 By 5 am, I was finally having very strong, regular contractions. I had planned all along to try using nitrous oxide for pain (Vanderbilt Hospital offers this too!) so I decided to give it a try. It didn't do much at first, but I noticed it made me feel less anxious during contractions. I'm not sure it really took much of the pain away, but it did help me relax. I sat on the birthing ball and leaned on the side of the bed for a while, using the gas intermittently. I think Heather, my midwife noticed a change in my moaning and noticed me drifting into la la land and knew I was getting close to pushing.

 At about 6:30 she had me lay on the bed. I could tell I was going to feel like pushing soon and I was scared. I HATE PUSHING. It's the worst sensation for me. At first, I wanted to use the gas while pushing so I could relax and push slowly. I have a bad habit of pushing like crazy to get it over with and end up tearing really badly. All 4 kids I tore. I just wasn't pushing effectively with the gas, so I stopped the nitrous and tried to follow my midwife's instruction. At some point between contractions, I opened my eyes to see 2 midwives and 2 nurses standing around me. Not even sure when they arrived as I had had my eyes closed for a while. I said, "Oh, hello everyone!" and kept pushing. At first I pushed side lying, then they had me move to my back. All of my other natural births were done in the water, so this was new! Heather was doing all sorts of things to keep me from tearing and having me stop and breathe (as opposed to screaming my head off) while pushing. I am a yeller. A couple times she told me to stop screaming and breathe. I warned them all, but I don't think they expected all the screaming at the end, haha!!
At 6:58 she was out!! I can't even tell you what a relief it was to have her out. I went from screaming in pain, to screaming in pure joy. I literally screamed and laughed and cried all at once when they laid her on my tummy. She screamed too! A first, since none of my others came out crying.
I seriously cannot express how good it felt to have her out. I don't know why I have become such a wimp with birthing, but I seem to get more wimpy each baby! Why do I do this to myself??

After a few minutes, Kevin finally cut the chord and I was able to really hold her and inspect her.
Another miracle- NO TEARS!!!! I couldn't believe it when my midwife checked, but for the first time, no tears! I cant tell you the difference that has made for my physical recovery. As for Lyda-Rose, she weighed in at 7 lb 3 oz (after she had breastfed twice) and 20 inches. Smaller than I had expected, since I got soooo fat this pregnancy. She came out hungry and nursed like a champ from the start.

We were free to go home 4-6 hours after her birth. After all the necessary checks, a meal, and a nice nap, we left at around 2ish. We grabbed some Five Guys burgers on the way home and I went straight to bed. The kids were dropped off by some friends a little while later (they spent all day with friends). The nurse came by in the morning for the 24 hour checkup, and my mom came in the afternoon.

So far, Rosie has been an extremely sweet, easy baby. She sleeps pretty well at night (for now at least) and is generally content as long as people are around, preferably holding her. She loves noise. She sleeps very soundly when a lot is going on. She must know she's a 5th child! Oh, how thankful I am for  this sweet baby!!

The Move

(Writing about events of 2013-2014 a year later. Better late than never!)

We ended up getting the house on the market about a week before Christmas and just a day or so before our big Christmas party we were planning. It was no easy feat getting it ready for market that time of year, but we priced it right and hoped for the best. The next day we had a showing and an offer! It ended up being a contingent offer, contingent on the lady selling her own house. Basically, she fell in love with the house and wanted it, but didn't even have her house on the market yet. We could still show the house, but if we got another offer, she had to either go to closing or it was gone. She would have first pick, though. In the meantime, we had a low key Christmas, tons of house showings, went on a house hunting trip to Nashville, and planned the big move for the first week of January.

Celebrating one last Indy New Years Eve with friends.

Our stuff was going to be packed up and moved by a professional company, so even though I didn't have to pack boxes, there were a lot of logistics to take care of. Unfortunately, the 2 days the movers where there to move us, the weather took a turn for the worst. A blizzard was coming on Sunday and the truck arrived a day late and they didn't get started till friday afternoon. We had so much stuff (15000 pounds?) it was going to take a while. We really needed to leave by Saturday night so we could get out before the blizzard hit. Saturday afternoon came and the truck was still being packed, I was exhausted and overwhelmed. The last items were on the truck at about 8 pm and the truck planned on leaving early the next morning, hopefully before too much snow. Kevin and I decided we were both too exhausted (I was about 30 weeks pregnant, so I was usually tired) to try to drive through the night. Plus, it had already started snowing, so it would be hard to see at night. We all slept on the floor in the living room and hoped to leave early in the morning. Sunday morning came and so did the blizzard. We gave a tearful goodbye to the house and drove slowly toward the freeway.


 The view of the house as we left.

Pretty sure I was sobbing in this picture. I was overwhelmed and tired and feeling sad about leaving this house, those woods, and all our friends in IN.

It was already whiteout conditions. Even though the movers swore up and down they would get out early, we saw them still parked at the Meijer down the street as we drove by. What would normally take about 7 hours, ended up taking over 14. It was like the apocalypse. We were forced to drive single file at about 15-20 mph the entire way on the freeway. Only one lane was open and you had to stay in the car in front of you's tire tracks or you'd slide off. Any faster and you'd spin out, any slower and you'd get stuck. I've never seen so much snow! All businesses and food places were closed, so we had a hard time finding food on the way. We left at 10 in the morning and didn't get to our rental house until 1 am. The one time we stopped to find food, we got stuck in the snow. In short, it was a scary, miserable drive. We debated about waiting out the storm, but I'm glad we didn't. The city ended up being shut down for several days. The next morning, we anticipated our truck would be there. Turns out they had become stuck back in Indianapolis and were in several feet of snow. It took them 5 days to finally get the truck out. In the meantime, we lived out of suitcases, slept on air mattresses and ate on overturned laundry baskets. We also got sicker than we have ever been. All 3 kids and got the flu and it was HORRIBLE. The day the truck finally arrived, Rori had a fever of 103-104 and cried anytime she was awake.

 Fortunately, an angel from our new ward helped me out by logging all the boxes in and keeping an eye on things while I took care of Rori and the other kids. We ended up not being very happy with the movers since they did several things wrong and even a box of our DIRTY LAUNDRY to the wrong address. Oh, of all the things......


The truck arriving at the rental

We got to unpacking and healing all the sickies. A few days later, we left for California. We were no where close to being unpacked or organized, but I was happy to have the break! While we were there, we received news that our Indiana house had received another offer! We didn't think the first offer would be able to counter, but they did, and ended up offering over the asking price! Hallelujah. That house was extremely hard to care for in the winter. We had to hire someone to clear the snow each time we had a showing and had to hire people to clean and do upkeep. It was getting expensive and stressful. Just before we were set to close, there was a leak in the skylight and in the basement, causing us to have to spend several thousands in repairs. It was a major bummer since we were just days away from it being someone else's problem. Still, it was a huge blessing that it sold quickly and for a good price. So, we said goodbye to our Indiana home just in time to put an offer in on a new house in Nashville! We closed on the IN home about 2 weeks before the arrival of baby #4 and closed on our new home about a week before! It was a crazy time.  Between January and April, I was the sickest I've ever been in my life. I just kept getting sick. I'm sure it was from stress and it was nice when we were finally all well.


A look inside the rental!

The Decision

(Writing about the events of 2013-2014 a year later! Better late than never, I suppose.....)

When we went on our 10 year anniversary cruise in October 2013, there was the start of a big change in the air. A few months prior, Kevin and I discussed the future as far as his employment and started to wonder if we wanted to stay in Indiana forever or if we were meant for somewhere else. After 5 years, this was the longest we had ever lived in one place and it had really become home to us. Still, I couldn't ever see us retiring there and had always wondered about other possibilities. Things were getting complicated at work for Kevin and there were some changes that made us uneasy. He quietly put some feelers out in the industry to see if there were any possibilities. Turns out Pearl Corp USA, based in Nashville,  had some changes coming, too. Their longtime marketing person and longtime friend of Kevin was on his way to retirement soon. With this in mind, Kevin reached out to Pearl to tell them his possible interest and to see if they had any as well. There were some emails exchanged with moderate interest, but other than that, the idea was put on the back burner. Finally, around the beginning of November, the people at Pearl arranged to meet with Kevin at a convention they would both be at just before Thanksgiving. They seemed eager to discuss a possible future with him and we were getting excited at the possibility as well. After the meeting and a subsequent offer, we had a big decision to make over Thanksgiving weekend. Conn-Selmer/Ludwig had been good to us. Financially speaking, we had a pretty sweet deal in Indiana. Kevin made a very good salary and our mortgage was awesome. We knew cost of living would go up in Nashville, but so would the possibilities. It seemed Conn-Selmer was starting to turn into a dead end and we just wanted more room for growth. Ugh, it was such a hard decision! We had so many wonderful friends, an amazing ward, a choir I loved singing with, and a home that we had fallen in love with. Still, I knew in my heart it was the right decision. As soon as we prayed about it, I knew. We were needed in Nashville!! So, Kevin resigned from CS and signed on with Pearl the last week of November/first week of December and wanted him to start ASAP. Let me tell you, the thought of putting our house up for sale and moving during Christmas while pregnant and with a 5, 3, and 1 year old seemed overwhelming. Plus, we were leisurely renovating our basement and had already planned on holding a little concert/party at our house right before Christmas. So, the concert/party turned into a farewell and the basement project went into overdrive. We got our house ready to sell after only living there one year! So SAD. I loved that house and still mourn the fact we had to leave it : ( We put it up the week before Christmas and started looking for a rental home somewhere in Nashville. We'll cover the move drama in the next post!

Here are some before and afters of our basement. Basically we ripped out the ceiling and put in recessed lighting, ripped out the carpet and put down vinyl planks, and painted. Sooo much nicer and clean looking!!

 BEFORE:

AFTER:

David's Birth Story

I've done this 3 times before, and even still, I always have a hard time knowing where to start. Things were crazy with packing for the move, renovations at the new house, showings at the rental, and caring for 3 little kids. (We had closed on the house a few days prior and were planning on moving in at the end of the month. Meanwhile tons of work (plumbing, electrical, etc.) was being done at the house. Since we had a year lease and were getting out early, we were responsible for showing the rental house and taking care of it until it sold or got new tenants.) A couple days before David's arrival, I started having the feeling that the baby would be ready soon. No real signs, I just had a feeling. Braxton-Hicks contractions were starting to mimic labor contractions and I could barely shift positions without having one. I had a midwife appointment on Friday. I joked about how all my babies were born within a day of an appointment so maybe I would see here again soon! We also joked that Sunday sounded like the perfect day to have a baby. My "due date" was April 13th, which would be Sunday. Donny was born on his due date, so why not his little brother as well?!
Saturday came and we had 3 showings at the house. Showings are always a bit of a pain, but at least our house is always spotless! (Btw, that whole week we had showings every single day!) So, after once again leaving the house spotless (no easy task), we headed out to the new house. It was basement demolition day there and most of the basement (walls and floor, at least) were being ripped out.

 I didn't do much but sit around and watch. The kids played out back. The whole day I felt very serious. Maybe focused is a better word. I really didn't feel like messing around. I didn't necessarily think labor was eminent, but I just felt very interior and quiet that day. Sometime during the day, my midwife called to check in. Given by quick labors in the past, she wanted to make sure she was ok traveling an hour away to a reunion during the day. I told her to go. I wasn't in labor.
A friend of ours (he's Brad Paisley's drummer, actually) invited us to dinner and Kevin thought it would be nice to have what might be our last date before baby. I really didn't feel like going out and told him so. I just felt the need to stay close to home, relax, and go to bed early. So instead, we took the kids to Chick-fil-a for dinner, put them to bed and stayed home. The house was already clean, birth supplies were ready, and pantry and fridge were full, so I just sat around and relaxed. Around 7:30 or 8, I was  having some real-like contractions, but they were not consistent and not in any sort of pattern. Still didn't feel like I was in labor, but it seemed things could turn in the next day or so. I decided to text my midwife and birth team to let them know that labor *might* start in the next 24 hours or so, but I wasn't sure. Kevin had to go run some errands including driving down to Murfreesboro to buy a fridge for the new house. At one point while he was down there, he called. I didn't tell him much yet, but said I thought he should come right home instead of finishing his errands. I tried not to freak him out, but I'm sure he could hear the seriousness in my voice. I'm not sure what time he arrived home, but it was probably 10ish. Contractions were all over the map. They were somewhat painful, but I didn't really need to breath through them and they didn't even make me grimace so I had a hard time thinking of them as real. I'd have them constantly for an hour or so, then they would stop for 30 mins and start up again. No pattern. Then finally, around midnight, there started to be some consistency. They were definitely getting stronger and could be timed at around 5-7 mins apart. Because I am crazy and in denial during early labor, I decided since things were still manageable and slow, I would try and get some sleep till things pick up. Laid down just after midnight and tried to sleep. Kevin was already out cold. The moment I laid down, I had a contraction. A strong one. Still in denial, I decided I'd wait to see what the next one was like. 5 mins. Another really strong one. Ok, lets try one more...... (repeat 2-3x) I finally decide I just cant handle these contractions laying down and it's way more comfortable to stand/walk through them. I still didn't feel like calling anyone, but the logical side of me knew that this was definitely a sign that I should call everyone. So, at about 12:30, I woke up Kevin and called the birth team. In the back of my mind, I still had this thought that I would feel so silly if this was just a false alarm and I felt bad about calling everyone over in the middle of the night. My friend, Christy, was the first to arrive just after 1 am.  She is a friend from church and also a fabulous photographer. She had offered to help out and take some pictures. Awesome, since in the past, our pictures were always taken by whoever was sitting by the camera at the time, lol! She quietly let herself in and we chatted in between moderate contractions. They were still a bit sporadic and about 4-5 mins apart. It felt good to breath and sway during them while Kevin rubbed my lower back.

 Next to arrive was my midwife's assistant, Katherine. I decided I wanted to sit in the tub for a bit, so we filled it up. I leaned over the side of our bathroom whirlpool tub and continued to breath/moan through contractions.

 Soon my friend Lori arrived. She is a nurse who worked at Vanderbilt in the NICU and was used to taking care of little babies straight from the womb. She was going into home health care so this was right up her alley. It was nice having friends there, especially when they are experienced nurses! Finally, my midwife, Bobbi, arrived. She was caught up by a slow train and was quite flustered at being the last to arrive. Contractions were pretty consistent, but seemed to be slowly building. I got out of the tub and she checked my progress. About 4-5 cm. Yep, that seemed right. My past 2 labors, 4-5 cm is the point where I'm still a bit in denial since I can still be jovial and fairly normal between contractions. With Donny's labor, I was 5 cm and still walking around like normal, not in labor! So, I wasn't surprised, but I was a bit nervous that this was going to take longer than what I was used to (my last 2 labors were only about 2 hours long) I decided to try some walking to get things moving and headed downstairs to the kitchen. The house was dark and Kevin was the only one who came with me. There in the dark, I leaned on him or the counter during contractions while he continued to rub my lower back. His hands must have been getting so tired, lol! I think I looked at the clock at one point in the kitchen and it was around 2 or 2:30 am. Someone came downstairs and encouraged me to drink something. At some point, someone said they thought the baby could be here by 3. I laughed. Ridiculous! I was thinking maybe by sunrise, if we were lucky. That was the last time I thought about or had any concept of time. As I returned to our bedroom and tried to converse with everyone, it was clear that things were moving ahead. My vocalizing during contractions was getting louder and there was no more quiet breathing. It didn't feel like there was much downtime from one contraction to another, and I was definitely not jovial in between. I became pretty quiet and was deep in "labor land"at this point. I started getting mildly bugged by the light conversation in the room and wanted a little more quiet. I got back into the tub, this time with Kevin. Everyone mostly just left us alone and that was fine. Christy quietly took some pictures, Lori and Katherine offered me water intermittently and Bobbi, my midwife, checked heart tones. I knew this part well. I was definitely in transition. I always start to feel a bit frantic and start to doubt my sanity in once again choosing to go without pain relief. Bobbi checked the heartbeat. I was tough to get a good reading that time, and for a few seconds, it sounded slow (I'm no expert, but I really think she might have caught my heartbeat for a second instead?) Anyway, I was ordered out of the tub and onto the bed (onto my left side for better blood flow) to get a better reading. I remember thinking for a split second that I thought I might die if I had to travel to a hospital. Of course I would do anything for my baby, but riding in a vehicle sounded utterly horrible at the moment.

I cropped this one a bit for modesty's sake, but I love how you can see my stomach contracting. It looks rock solid and I can just imagine what I was feeling at that moment.

 Fortunately, it was a fluke and the heartbeat was strong and not the least bit slow. I hated laying on that bed, but as I was laying there, I knew I was going to start pushing soon. Still no overwhelming pressure, but I could tell by my contraction pattern that it wasn't far off. I hadn't planned on delivering on the bed, but moving again sounded too hard. I started having the urge to push.  Just as everyone was beginning to prep the bed, I changed my mind and decided I wanted the water after all. I jumped back in the warm water with Kevin behind me, ever whispering sweet words of affirmation, ever rubbing my back. Oh, that man. He is the greatest labor coach ever. If I knew nothing would go wrong, I would have a baby with just him by my side. He is so soothing to have around and so involved in the process. I think I remember him shushing people a couple times during a contraction and feeling so grateful that he was looking out for me and knew what to do.

One of the ugliest pictures ever of me, but its perfectly describes the moment. That man carried me through.

I hate pushing. I HATE this part. The first few pushes always feel so strange and frustrating to me. I feel like I have to push but they don't seem to do anything at first. Then at some point, BAM! They get all crazy and the baby starts barreling out and I can't slow it down or stop it. The only semi cool part was after the first couple pushes, I reached down to see how far back the head was. It was right there. I touched the top of his head and felt a little excited to know that he was only a half and inch away from making his way out! On the next push, my water broke and his head moved down even more. An interesting observation- with both Donny and Davy, my water broke right at the end as they were coming out. With Both Josie and Rori, my labor began with my water breaking. An interesting coincidence? After a couple more pushes, things got serious. I was pushing like crazy and couldn't stop.  I could feel his head start to crown. I tried to remind myself that it's better to let things happen slowly so I wouldn't have tears like I have EVERY time. No good. I give a sad attempt to breath through the contraction, relax and let things happen on their own, but I pretty much just barreled through and pushed until I was blue. The baby is so close, how could I not?! It would be over soon! The head took waaaay too long to come out. At least that's what it seemed like. It felt like it took forever and at one point I said "Why isn't it coming out?!?" I had planned on doing all the "delivering" myself, guiding the baby out and bringing him up. When it came down to it, I was too wrapped up the the pushing and gripping the tub too hard to reach down. Then it happened. Bobbi told me to "reach down and grab your baby" and I pulled him out of the water onto my chest. Ah, felt so good!

Again, super ugly picture of me, but look at that baby bum!!

Time was 3:32 am. Only 3-4 hours of labor, but seemed like much longer!!  My babies are not screamers and are always pretty quiet upon arrival. He had his eyes open and was moving around in my arms, so he seemed fine to me. Bobbi ordered everyone to be quiet so she could get a good heart tone since he wasn't crying yet. All was well. Good strong heart and with a bit of stimulation, he let out a hearty cry. As everyone was celebrating and as Bobbi was taking heart tones, I reached down and felt something between his legs. A boy!! I exclaimed, "It's a boy!!!" and Kevin was so excited he was almost laughing. That was a great moment.

 Kevin cut the cord and we dried off and moved to the bed. Another totally crazy coincidence. Remember how Rori had this crazy placenta with marginal, velamentous insertion? What are the chances of it happening twice in a row?!! This time, Davy's placenta was also marginal, velamentous insertion, but was a little more crazy. There wasn't a real big danger since the placenta was pretty high, but it was awesome to look at. I tried to look it up and couldn't find anyone who has had it twice in a row. It's pretty rare to begin with (0.5%) Anyway, interesting coincidence. I'll spare you the hi-def pictures : )

He was doing really well and was wanting to nurse immediately upon exiting the womb. That boy knew exactly what he was doing and got down to business. He has been a little piggy eater ever since! I wont get into the details of my injuries, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. Even still, I was in quite a bit of pain for several days. Pretty sure a lot of that has to do with going through this 3 times before in 5 years and the fact that he was over a pound bigger than any of my others.
Time to weigh this big boy! I knew he seemed bigger than my others and I guessed him at maybe 7.5 pounds. Our jaws all dropped when the scale said 8.2! How the heck did I make an 8 pound baby?!? He wasn't even overdue!! No wonder his head took forever to get out! (ok, really it was only like 5 minutes, but still) Lori and Bobbi performed his checkup while everyone else cleaned up. Since people always ask, really it's not that messy, especially when it's a waterbirth. You drain the tub and throw everything in the wash. Within an hour, it's like it never happened. Midwives and assistants are good that way.

By 6ish, the kids started waking up. Rori was first and she was pretty excited to have visitors. Josie and Donny both were up not long after. As Lori brought her in, I heard Josie say "Oh! I didn't know the baby was coming today!! I thought you were kidding when you said it was coming soon!" She was so excited. Then Donny saw his new brother and fell in love. There was immediate kinship between these two. Christy headed home to get a bit of sleep and freshen up and was going to come back to take the kids to church with her. Bless her sweet heart. Everyone else left over the next couple hours and we were soon left to rest with our new sweet baby!! The day was spent sleeping, skyping with family, snuggling, and getting to know our new family member.
I don't want to ruin this story with negativity, but I'll just say that the immediate postpartum period sucked this time. I cried a lot. Everything hurt and I was so tired of feeling pain. This time around the labor pain seemed more intense and it caused more distraction to me than in the past. Must have been that big ol' head! I'm sure a huge part of it was everything else going on. Moving, renovations, showings, 3 other littles, etc. I felt pretty overwhelmed and feeling super sucky made it worse. Now, 5 weeks later, the pain seems like a distant memory. At the time though, it was enough to make me seriously rethink ever wanting to go through that again. I clearly remember stating "Ugh, that was awful! I never want to do that again...." a few minutes after he was born. Oh, how quickly we forget. If you asked me today I'd say it wasn't that bad and I'd do it again. Those babies are just too stinkin' cute!!
So far, this guy is super chill and by far my best sleeper yet! He is such an easy baby!! Truly a huge blessing from the Lord : )