Baby sister. The story.

That's what we call her because we haven't yet picked out the "perfect" name yet. We have until Tuesday to decide, so for now we are trying out different names on her and seeing what fits best. Any suggestions are welcome.

She was born Aug. 19 at 11:58pm and now shares a birthday with her cousin Malakai and our favorite photographer.

I went into labor early Wednesday morning having very sporadic contractions. Before Papa J left for work I let him know so all day he kept phoning me every chance he got. To help regulate things and to get things moving more, I decided to go on a walk around the lake. I even opted for some hills and sweated while pushing Z in the stroller, but I wanted things to start moving. I'm assuming it helped since my contractions started regulating around 3pm coming every 10 minutes or so. Papa J came home a little later and soon the contractions began to come more often and a little stronger. I knew I wanted to wait it out as long as possible at home so it wasn't until 8:30 we decided to lock down our night sitter for Z. She was already in bed so we just had some friends stay the night with her. Worked out perfectly....thank you!

We arrived at the hospital just after 9pm and checked into triage. There they hooked me up to their monitors and checked me and the baby out. After two nurses checked me out, they told me I was dilated just over a 3, but 90% effaced. Visions of Z's labor came into my mind and I knew I wanted that epidural as quickly as possible to speed things up. Unfortunately when the midwife came to check me out, she expressed her concerns with the babies heart rate being too high. They were hoping it was due to me being dehydrated so they hooked me up to an IV for a liter of fluids. The only thing was I couldn't have that epidural until all the fluids were gone and the babies heart rate lowered.

So I was admitted. Thankfully I didn't have to return home and I was assigned a room. It felt much better working through the contractions walking than sitting in the triage room hooked to a bunch of monitors. Not fun. So I labored and labored some more while waiting for the anesthesiologist. Unfortunately he was in two emergency C-section operations, and all I could do was wait and labor some more. The nurse was kind enough to give me a drug to help subside the pain in hopes it would hold me over until the anesthesiologist was free. It really helped me relax in between some pretty hard contractions, but only for about an hour.

It was nearing 11pm and Papa J and I were taking guesses with the nurse as to when the baby was going to be born. I was hoping before midnight because I wanted to get it over with, but in my head I figured it wasn't possible. I thought for sure I was only dilated to a 5 or so with much more laboring to continue. The nurse was more optimistic, but we sort of all agreed the baby would be born early Thursday morning.

Finally good news came. The anesthesiologist was finishing up and was on his way. As he arrived I sat on the bed preparing myself for some pain relief or so I thought. As I was contracting on the bed I was feeling the need to push. One nurse told me it was due to my sitting position and it was okay. The other nurse told me to resist the pushing sensation. I could hardly resist it, but tried nonetheless. Then the anesthesiologist said the epidural was in tack, but I wasn't feeling any relief, just the need to push. I remember when I got the epidural with Z, I immediately felt relief and shortly fell asleep thereafter. This was completely different. The nurse decided to check me and when she did she said I was ready to go and went ahead and paged the midwife. She came in, checked me, broke my water and told me to go ahead and push. Twenty minutes later (and just before midnight), baby sister arrived in Papa J's arms. He was thrilled to be able to catch her.

Baby sister weighed in at 8 lbs 1 oz and was 20.5 inches long. She has a full head of dark hair, just like Z did. She is healthy and eating well and we couldn't be more pleased.



We are now home, resting and enjoying our baby sister. We were released from the hospital at 2pm on Thursday. I didn't want to spend any more time than needed. I longed to be in my own bed and comfortable. So far things have been wonderful. Not that I anticipate them to stay that way, but so far so good. I can only imagine what roller coaster of a ride it will be with two children, but I love them both so very much.