Party of Four

Part I. In the Hospital

The E Family is now a party of four. We're still trying to figure things out here...but I wanted to take a minute to share some of the pictures from Monday. The hospital called Monday morning at about 8:45 am and told us to come in. My mom is in town with us, so she, Mr. N, M and I all headed to the hospital. Mr. N was going to take M up to Lehi to stay with her cousins later. She was there in the room with us for a while.

So what does a little girl do in the Labor and Delivery room? Hide in the closets of course!

There she is!

M was gone and Mr. N returned before the labor pains actually started. See all the bracelets ready for the baby and parents! The nurse made sure to tell me to have the baby on June 30th because everything was already labeled as such.

Part II. Labor & Delivery

Here's Mr. N with me. He was so great! He really helped a lot. This time labor was better and worse that with M. It was worse because I had back labor. Holy cow! The pain was blinding. It was so awful! It was better because unlike with Little M's labor, this time the epidural worked. This time I could understand how women could read a book through their labor. I was in labor for 9 hrs again, just like with M. It was a lot more stressful though because the baby did not do well through labor. Every time I had a contraction her heart rate dropped, but then would recover after contractions....but I was progressing very slowly at first which had all the nurses concerned.

After they broke my water they put this internal monitor on the baby's head so they could monitor her heart rate better. It was so stressful for us to continually hear her heart rate drop with each contraction. They tried pumping fluid through me to help her, but that didn't work. After more than 8 1/2 hrs of labor I was still only dilated 5 cm, and the baby's condition was not improving. Finally, after yet another call to the doctor they started doing an Amnio Infusion (pumping fluid back into my uterus to help her). Pretty much while the nurse was doing that I dilated from 5 to 10 cm. She left and I felt the "push pressure", but I didn't want to call the nurse back in because she had just left and I figured I was mistaken. She wasn't as nice as my previous nurse either, and I didn't want her getting mad.

So anyways, after about 15 minutes of feeling the baby push, I finally had them get nurse and we were all surprised to hear she was ready to come out. It was a relief to everyone because it was becoming more and more a possibility that I would have to have a C-Section. As it turned out my doctor was already in the hospital, so I think they were headed in that direction. Pushing this time was a joke. By far the easiest part! One hard push and then a little one and bam! We had our second daughter! I almost laughed at how easy that part was.

What was funny is when her head came out the doctor stuck his finger in her mouth to hold it open so he could clean it out and apparently she really bit down on him. He kept saying "Ow! Ow! She's really biting down on me! If she had teeth I'd need a new pair of gloves!" She came out and was perfect! 7:23 pm (It would have been a lot sooner had I called the nurse earlier!).

Part III. Compare & Contrast

I've put pictures together of M and Baby L that are fairly similar so you can see how similar/different they are. There's no doubt she's part of the E Family! Its a good thing she came out of me, otherwise there might be confusion as to how I fit in the picture!

Lydia Joy was born at 7:23 pm. They say the camera adds 10 lbs and I really believe it because in real life she doesn't look this chunky! See how she compares with her big sister (pictured below). Lydia (above) was a lot more upset by far. Probably because the labor for her was so awful that she wanted to bit everyone once she was out! Not that I can blame her. I actually felt really guilty during labor because the epidural took my pain away, but not hers. It was awful to watch the monitor as she struggled (at least in my mind).

Here's Little M. She was born at 11:10 pm.

Lydia weighed 6 lbs 10 oz. Little M (below) weighed in at 5 lbs 14 oz.

So tiny!

Here's Mr. N with his new daughter. He was so sweet. He stayed with me until I made him go be with his daughter. He didn't want me to feel abandoned so he stayed with me to make sure I was okay until I made him go to her.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Little M with her Daddy. He's the one holding her hand.

Here's Baby L in my mom's arms. She looks all scrunchy. The good thing about this delivery is they let us stay together as a family for about an hour before they took Lydia for her first bath.

With Little M (another one of my favorite pictures of her) I had her for all of 5 minutes before they took her away. I didn't see her again until about 5 in the morning. Looking back I wish we had had more time together.

Here's Lydia after her first bath.

Here's Little M.

Part IV. Other Tid-Bits

Lydia Joy (hence forth referred to as Baby L) is named after two of her great-great grandmother Lydia's. One on Mr. N's side and one on my side. Her middle name Joy was just a name we liked, but the J in it reminds us of her paternal grandmother Jolene and also her aunt Lorie Jo who's first initials are also "LJ" (No we will not nick-name her LJ so please don't do it for us! She can choose it for herself if she wants in the future). Her aunt, my sister (whose blog name is ELKA) was also thought of because she is named after the same Lydia our Lydia is named after, only Elka's middle name is Ronachert, which was Lydia's Maiden name. In short, Lydia is named after the great women in her life. We didn't have a way of naming her after everyone, so sorry if you weren't included! Just know we wanted her to be named after the many strong and great women in her life.