My parents took August & Jeanie to Wisconsin over Labor Day weekend in the hopes I would have the baby over the Labor Day break. No such luck. I worked the weekend, and then Doug and I had Labor Day together. We had a nice day together and also spent 2 hours hard core organizing the garage!
My neighbor took this picture of me, "wow you're big!" ummm... thanks.
Headed to the hospital (the first time).
The next day I was feeling some contractions. My mom came over to watch the kids and Doug and I went into the hospital. I was told I was dilated to 4cms, but not much was happening. So we were sent to walk around for 2 hours. We got Starbucks and walked a huge loop of the hospital and came back to be told still at a 4 and to go home. With the confusing instructions to come back "if things get more intense". My previous 2 labors were both induced so I really didn't know what I was to be looking out for! The contractions weren't horrible, but I did need to often stop walking and breathe through them so I thought that was something. Anyway, came home, and pretty much nothing happened the rest of the day. That night I had a bubble bath and a glass of red wine and went to bed. I woke up pretty much every hour to have one contraction and then I would go back to sleep. Shortly before 4am they started to feel more regular though and more painful. So I took a shower and then told Doug to get up and be with me. They started to hurt more and get more frequent. So the neighbor came and sat on the couch to watch the baby monitors until my mom could get there and off we went. We got to the hospital around 4:30am and they said now I was dilated to 9cms.
I think they thought things would happen quickly because my stretcher bed was pushed down the hall to a room so fast my hair was blowing in the breeze, haha.
Anyway, I still had a "bulging bag of waters" which they asked if I wanted them to pop. All I'd ever read in these birthing books was like "Mom's- protect your bag of waters!" so I didn't want to do that. In the past too I remembered once that was broken the contractions hurt a lot more. So anyway, things progressed one contraction at a time, my water popped on it's own at 6:27am and at 6:34am she was here!
We had tried to wait to find out if baby was a girl or boy, and made it to about 29 weeks. I kept feeling like she was a girl since I felt exactly the same in my pregnancy as I had with Jeanie. But all these women at work kept saying to me "It's a boy!" and "It's a boy- good luck! - I'm never wrong!" and it started to keep me awake at night. Not that I was upset about having a boy, just that I'd thought for months that it was going to be a girl so I was kind of sad at the thought of no sisters. Anyway, so after a couple sleepless nights and second-guessing endlessly to Doug if we should find out we just called and asked for the results. And I WAS RIGHT.
So here she is: 💗 Lucy Elizabeth 💗
I always liked the name Lucy after reading "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". That Lucy was so kind-hearted and always believed in others. It also means "light" and we pray she will be a light in the world. And we picked Elizabeth for a family name component as the other 2 kiddos have family names and wanted to keep that tradition. And that name means "God is my oath".
8# and 12 ounces, my biggest baby yet! (and just two weeks ago they guessed she was 7# 6 ounces - so must've been off, she wouldn't gain that much in just 2 more weeks!)
We ended up spending 5 hours in the NICU later that morning because she was breathing too fast. Thankfully it just ended up being observation, nothing else was wrong, and they just said maybe because she went like straight from the amniotic fluid to being born without the usual long process of the lungs being squeezed out through the birth canal since it happened quickly, who knows.
Some mama tears were definitely shed.
Praise God she recovered and we were back to our room.
Spent the day nursing, napping, eating. SO many people come in and out all day to check me, check baby, food, forms, etc. So hard to rest.
My sister, Aunt Elizabeth, visited!
She got her newborn photos taken. I was so excited because the other 2 had those done in the hospital and for a time they'd stopped them for Covid, but they were back. And so pretty.
On our way home!
Meeting Grandma and Grandpa
The next day she had her first appointment with her pediatrician and was found to have some jaundice, so she had to lay in sunny window and get her heels poked for bloodwork and was told to nurse, nurse, nurse. Kinda hard when your milk hasn't come in yet! But we fed her every 1-2 hours all day/night and it worked and she started pooping out the bilirubin.
And this picture makes me so happy, a very full backseat with my 3 precious gifts. I've always wanted to be a mom of 3 and God granted that desire.
Soaking it in! It's been overwhelming and busy and messy house and crying kids, but I'm very thankful.
