Welcome, BBB!

Has it really been this long?? So, I guess I haven't updated at all during my last pregnancy - does that give any indication as to how it went for me? :) So this is my "Welcome to the Family" post for our newest addition: BBB! First, I should apologize to anyone who reads this because I cannot figure out this blogger paragraph formatting, so sorry about the paragraphs being all messed up! If you are thinking that this just looks like a newborn picture of Cee Cee, well...you are right that BBB does look exactly like Cee Cee at this age. She is now 4 weeks old (is that any indication of how crazy these past few weeks have been?). The delivery was wild - at least for me and all people involved! Long story short, I thought I would literally die if I had to give birth non-medicated. Totally serious. But, I didn't die and BBB is perfect, so I proved myself wrong! :) I hope to never have to do that again, but already the memory of the immense pain and difficulty is starting to fade, and given how quickly it all happened, I probably will not have a choice if/when I get pregnant in the future. Do you want to know how it all went down??? I wasn't going to say, given how late it is and how precious little sleep I have been getting the past 4 weeks, but I can't resist. I haven't written it down yet, and I don't want to forget. So here goes. P.S. As I am typing this I am realizing that it is serious TMI - so don't read it if you don't want to know!!!! First of all, I had a very specific timeline for this delivery. This would be VBAC number 2 for me, so I should be a pro, right? Like, even be able to choose the date, right? Anyway, after dealing with Gestational Diabetes and lots of pain throughout the pregnancy, I was seriously ready to be done. I did not feel that way with Cee Cee, but I was counting down the days for a long time with this one. It was a tough pregnancy. I had my heart set on taking my children to the temple open house when I would be 37.5 weeks. The day after that was the first BYU football game of the season - probably fun to watch while in labor, yes? It also happened to be on a 3-day weekend for S, so he wouldn't have to take any vacation time from work. Perfect time to be born! Nope, not meant to be. I thought maybe the 2nd game of the season then. Not then either. A week before BBB was born, I started getting serious contractions. Braxton Hicks, of course, but sometimes close enough together and long enough to make me wonder. I never got to the point of actually going to the hospital, but we came close. Sometime in that week, I got concerned about my water leaking and went to the OB Emergency to make sure - it wasn't. Two days later, I fell down the basement stairs (really stupid - I, for the first time in my adult life, was too lazy/pregnant/sore/tired/etc to take the dirty clothes down the stairs so I just left them ON the stairs. And then when I finally got around to doing the laundry, I slipped on them because I couldn't see over my belly.). I had to go to OB Emergency again. Everything was fine. Both times, they could tell I was having lots of contractions close together, but both times it was clear I was not in active labor, so I was sent home. On Sunday, I woke up with crampy contractions - different then the ones I had been having all week. I thought maybe it was the real thing, but I had been fooled so many times during the week that I refused to believe it. We got ready for church and went. S started timing my contractions during sacrament meeting - 7 minutes apart and painful. I thought maybe I shouldn't be at church, but decided to wait it out in case it was a false alarm again. I skipped Sunday School because there were no cushy chairs available. While in the hall, a friend sat down and we chatted for awhile and then she started timing my contractions. We sat together in Relief Society and she timed them the whole time - 5 minutes apart, almost the whole time. She was really concerned, bless her heart. I was in a lot of pain, but I figured that we could just go to the hospital after it was over, so I waited it out. After church got out, I knew we needed to go to the hospital. We called S's brother and his wife to come watch the kids and left for the hospital around 1pm. At the hospital, they sent us in to OB Emergency, where I would be checked to see if I was dilated/effaced and the decision would be made to admit me or not. I was in a ton of pain by this point, and I was not getting much time to rest between contractions - 4 minutes apart, but the ramp-up and relaxation of each contraction ate up at least another minute. Anyway, the nurse checked me at 2pm and I was a 1 and 0% effaced!!! WHAT!!??!? I told her that given the amount of pain I was in and how close my contractions were, this HAD to be the real thing, right?!?! RIGHT?!?! I told her to call my doctor, because she let me have my epidural when I was only a 1 last time and Cee Cee was born 8 hours later. And I was in a TON of pain! "I need my epidural" - repeated about ten times. She said she couldn't call my doctor, but she would talk to the midwife who was there. The midwife said I couldn't get an epidural until I was a 5, and I couldn't be admitted until I was a 4, but since I was clearly in a lot of pain, I could stay and wait and walk around for a little while and see if labor progressed. Well, I was pushed up there in a wheelchair, so I wasn't going to be able to do much walking. And by this point there was about 1 minute between contractions. The midwife came in and talked to me herself (she was really wonderful, just not really grasping what was happening). She did not seem to want to call my doctor, even after I insisted several different times. Eventually the nurse came back in and said that she knew I was in a lot of pain and maybe it was time to check me again. I thought "Good luck at this point!" because there were only 30 seconds between contractions and that was not even enough for me to catch my breath, let alone be able to settle enough to get checked! She put on her gloves and then, thankfully, my water broke before she even got to my bedside! Talk about perfect timing. :) Of course, this meant that I would be admitted, so she took off the gloves and started to leave and I said "I think I have to push." She asked if I meant PUSH push, you know, like the baby. I said I didn't know for sure, I thought maybe more of a going to the bathroom kind of push, but I couldn't tell for sure I was in so much pain and struggling to catch my breath. She said I would be able to tell if it was the real deal, and then she left to go get the paperwork. As soon as she closed the door, I knew I had to push and I yelled for her to come back - "I'M PUSHING!!!!" Of course, she and the midwife ran back in and pushed the emergency button and I was rushed to Labor and Delivery. While they were wheeling me down the hall, I guess I said some funny stuff. I couldn't stop yelling, just like on TV. I wasn't doing it on purpose either, my body just made me scream the whole time. Oh well. I was yelling the whole time that I needed my epidural, and finally someone had the courage to tell me that it was too late for that. WHAT?!?!?! S tried to comfort me by telling me to think of all the money I was saving by not getting an epidural. I must have been crazy because instead of smacking him, I just repeated what he said, yelling "I'M SAVING MONEY BY NOT GETTING AN EPIDURAL!" Ha. Not much to say about the delivery room experience. It all happened so fast and was so painful, that it is a bit of a blur. BBB was born about 10 minutes after my water broke - 3:49pm. Her head is perfect. I thought that Cee Cee's head was perfect, but BBB's is REALLY perfect. They said that is because she spent so very little time in the birth canal. Go figure. My body felt better shortly after the delivery, but I didn't actually fully catch my breath and get over the anxiety and excitement of the whole thing until the next day. Oh, and I guess I should say that...she weighed 8lbs 13oz and was 21 inches long!! They actually consider all babies 8lbs 13oz and over to be "large for gestational age"! I had been worried the whole time about having a big baby and either having a traumatic birth experience or having to have a C-section (since having too big of a baby is one of the main things they worry about with gestational diabetes). And it happened! At one point, the L&D nurse asked me how I felt about everything (afterwards), and I said "it wasn't THAT bad of a nightmare." Ha. The midwife came in later and told me that now I could run a marathon or something and it wouldn't be so hard. I told her that I did run a marathon last year, and that that was WAY easier than natural birth! That's all for the birth experience. Our hospital stay was otherwise uneventful. Since I had Gestational Diabetes, they checked BBB's blood sugar a couple of times. Her first one, taken later in the night, was pretty low, but not too low, but the next few were normal, so she was fine. She breastfed like a champ from the get go, so that is a nice change from what I have been used to with the other 2. I have only used my breast pump a handful of times the past month. BBB is a wonderful baby. She is a joy to have in our house. Cee Cee adores her and talks about her all the time. Actually she talks about BBB's By-you (BYU) shirt all the time. Boo is not interested. I think the unpredictability of her movements kind of troubles him, so he stays away. But he is happy to point to her when we talk about her and he will touch her for a split second if it is mentioned that he should try it. Still, that is more than he did when Cee Cee was born, so I'll take it. BBB still wakes up three times a night, but that is OK - such is life as a newborn, right? And she is super sweet to take care of. She has the prettiest little face and big blue eyes. She has started giving smiles this week, but only to me, and only like three so far. She loves to be talked to and held. She will take a binky, but only if we can find where Cee Cee has put it (Cee Cee, who would NEVER take one as a baby, is suddenly very interested and likes to walk around sucking it). She is awake more and more in the day, which is really fun. Now I just have to figure out life enough to get her consistent tummy time and all that. She spends most of her awake time just observing the goings-on in our house. Which are many, although not very interesting at this point. 3 diapers and 3 feedings every 3 hours doesn't sound like much, but it has a little bit rocked my world. I am getting there though. And I am making a point of enjoying all of my children and putting off housework where I can get away with it. Life is good. :)