Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Lucy Olivia

There are advantages & disadvantages to having an induced labor.
Advantage: You know exactly when you're gonna have a baby.
Disadvantage: You know exactly when you're gonna have a baby.

I don't know about you, but I am a very anxious person. The night before we dropped off Tatum & Spencer with my parents before heading home to prep, pack and head to bed. It was going to be a very early morning. We took one last pre-baby picture...

We checked into the hospital at 7am on July 11th and started to get prepped. I was so nervous. It was all starting to come back to me. The pain, the blood, the pushing... My heart rate skyrocketed. At about 9am the nurses finally got the doctor's orders and the pitocin was running through my veins. At about noon my doc decided to break my water and I decided a pre-emptive epidural was needed. We waited til about 2 for Mr. Anesthesiologist and by then the contractions were hard, strong and pretty much not fun.

After getting good and "comfortable," my doc showed up to break my water. I thought the entire event was hilarious. My legs kept falling over and I had absolutely no control. Sorry doc, it was entertaining.

Soon after I became nice & nauseas and had a lovely headache. BUT, it was definitely worth the lack of massive pain in the rest of my body. At one point, Lucy's heartrate dropped and a ton of nurses stormed the room to check me and give me oxygen. Turns out she was just dropping lower and must have pushed against the umbilical cord for a moment. It was 5:45 and I was at a 5.

Within 20 minutes my body started to shake uncontrollably, which was a sign of transition with Spencer & Tatum. Then came the uncontrollable crying. Again, did the same thing with Tatum. So Tony turns to the nurse and says, "well we've hit both stages, pretty sure she's ready."

Sure enough, the nurse checked and I was ready to rock. Unfortunately my doc was at dinner. AGAIN. You'd think she'd learn. She was at dinner when I got to 10 with Tatum too and she made me wait. Not fun at all. So I waited... when she finally got there I told her she was fired. She laughed and told me to start pushing. I laughed back and said "I'll start pushing when you sit down!"

She sat down, I said, "I don't know if I remember how to do this," took a deep breath, pushed and all of a sudden at 6:36 pm, there was a full head of dark hair, completely out. Doc told me to slow down and then all of a sudden she was out. Took less than 60 seconds. It was so surreal. I started laughing again...
And here she was, this sweet little girl with a massive amount of hair. The whole thing was just hilarious to me. I could not believe she came out so fast, nor that she had so much hair, NOR that she smelt so bad! The first words out of my mouth were, "she's so stinky!" Apparently, when they are early they still have some stanky vernix (white goo) all over them. I never noticed it with Tate, but Lucy was definitely smelly!

So they cleaned her up, weighed & measured her, and she came in at a teensy 9 pounds, 7 ounces and 21 inches in length. She didn't look like Spencer & she didn't look like Tatum. Perhaps a combination. Not sure. Although it makes me feel good that I finally have one with dark hair like me. But who really knows how long that will last. Tony's blondness seems to be a pretty strong gene...
After spending the night in the hospital and getting very little sleep I was ready to head home. Don't get me wrong, Lucy & Tony slept great, I just could not sleep through the crying baby next door!
When we got home, the kids met us there and got to meet their little sister for the first time. Tate wasn't really sure and it's taken her a couple of days to get used to the idea of her. When I nursed her the first time in front of Tate, Tate got really upset and kept telling me to put my shirt down. She's gotten a lot better though and this evening Spencer & Tatum sat and stared at Lucy for a good 30 minutes just admiring her and pointing out all of her little features.
Spencer was sort of excited to meet Lucy, but as soon as he had, he was kind of like, "been here done this" and headed outside to play with his cousins. He has since been very concerned though, as has Tatum, whenever she cries... to make sure she's okay and has what she needs. I think they are both going to be very good siblings to their new baby sister.
Lucy Olivia Jones