The Rest of the Story

Contractions continued all evening. Rob put the kids to bed and I took more vicodin to try and get some more rest. Papa stayed the night, expecting things might happen quickly when they finally started happening. He was right. Just after midnight I was woken up by a really, really painful contraction. Three mins later there was another one, followed by another one three mins after that. I woke up Rob and called the dr's answering service. We got up and started getting ready to go and my water broke. The dr called me back (my dr was on call that night) and upon hearing that we were headed in and that my water had broken, asked if I wanted an epidural :) I love my dr :) Anyway, we woke up Papa and called Beca and Brittney. I had to call both of them twice to wake them up. Brittney said she rolled over, glanced at the phone and thought "oh, it's Laney. I'll call her back tomorrow" - then remembered what was going on and jumped up and called me back. Brit actually beat us to the hospital, although Rob made pretty good time and Beca showed up shortly thereafter. We were all a little concerned about a repeat of Kylie's delivery. We made it though!

When we got to the hospital, I was at 5 cms. They got everything hooked up and I got an epidural, which was such a blessing, as at that point, I had been in labor for about 35 hours. It was so much fun to have Beca and Brittney there! I was a bit loopy from the meds and exhaustion and the four of us laughed and joked through the few hours we waited for. We got to the hospital (for the third time in a week - and may I note that all three times were in the middle of the night) around 1am. It took them about an hour to get everything set up. About an hour or so later, they checked again and discovered that I was at 8 cms and the baby was really low. Her heart rate started dropping with each contraction, a good sign that we were getting close to delivery. They explained to me that since I was at 35 wks 6 days, I would not be allowed to hold the baby immediately after delivery and that she would be taken to the NICU and kept there for at least 4 hours.

Although the hospital has a pretty strict policy that only two people (besides the mom and medical staff) are allowed in the room at delivery, we were happily surprised when my dr said that both Beca and Brittney could stay. I pushed for two mins and out she popped :) The cord was around her neck twice, but she was fine. Her little cry sounded like a kitten to me. Brittney exclaimed "her eyes are open! I thought they couldn't open their eyes for a few weeks". Beca told her that was dogs :) The NICU team wisked her off to the warming tray and started working on her. Her apgar scores were 8 and 9, and although they had to suction out quite a bit of fluid, she didn't appear to be having any problems, so I got to hold her for a minute. They let Rob briefly hold her too and told him he could go with her as they took her to the NICU.

It did not take 4 hours to clear her. 20 mins later they were back. Rob said as soon as they pricked her heel for the blood work, it was obvious that she had no problem with her lungs :) She spent the next two hours nursing and had gained 1.5 oz (in milk) by the time the took us upstairs.

She is a fantastic baby :) She nurses perfectly and sleeps for hours in between feedings. She's tiny though. We took out the two outfits I brought to the hospital for her (one preemie sized, one newborn) and laid them next to her. The newborn sized outfit looked HUGE. Despite her size, she is already holding up her head and looking around. She stops fussing when she hears Rob's voice and looks around for him. She smiles at me when I talk to her :) The pediatrician said she is doing better than most of the 39 and 40 wk babies in the nursery.

We came home this morning (thank you so much Mom and Dad for helping out so much with the kids!!!) and are settling into life with five kiddos. Rob gets two weeks paternity leave and we're excited that one of his weeks will cover the time his sister, Kate, will be here :)