Welcome Baby!

Our little girl was born this afternoon at 1:01 p.m. She is 7 lbs. 14 oz. and 20 inches long. Both baby and I are doing fine and glad that labor and delivery is over. We are busily occupied with sleeping or eating. More to come... at some point when there isn't so much sleeping and eating to do. ;]

In Labor

Well, for once in the past few weeks, things went according to plan. I am in the hospital in labor, hooked up to an IV and fetal monitors.

I spent yesterday madly doing laundry and some last-minute shopping with my mom getting ready for my Tues. evening appointment at the hospital. There is something unnerving about a set induction date: it is just strange to know that on this day you will walk into the hospital pregnant and come home no longer pregnant with a baby instead. Even though this is my fourth, there is still a feeling of nervousness and apprehension ("Will I be able to handle this?") and a little bit of awe and disbelief ("On this day a new person will come into the world... a new person that I will be trying to raise into a responsible adult.") And there are always last-minute issues- it's time to leave but Jackson is a wreck and doesn't want to eat, where is the camcorder?, etc. Despite last-minute craziness, we finally set off for the hospital last night.

Dave and I have a tradition of going out to dinner the night before I have a baby- the "last meal" before your life changes forever and you have to take a baby with you for months. =](Of course this tradition is much easier to do when you are induced with all of your babies.) We went out for a nice dinner, which helped to calm some of the nerves and stress of the day, before heading to the hospital.

I was at a 1 when we arrived at the hospital and had one dose of the cervix treatment last night, after which Dave and I watched part of a movie and dozed off. In the middle of the night the contractions started to get more regular, so they started me on pitocin. This morning I was at a 3, so they broke my water.

I'm plugging along with contractions, which are starting to get stronger and more uncomfortable, so I probably won't be blogging for too much longer... at least until I get an epidural.

Roundabout to the Hospital

It's been a whirlwind weekend. On Thursday I went in for my normal OB appointment. I had been really itchy, so I had my blood drawn to check for a condition that I had at the end of my pregnancy with Jackson. During the last few weeks of my pregnancy with Jackson I had cholestasis of pregnancy. It is a rare liver problem that is caused by pregnancy that causes your liver to not process bile properly. Its most recognizable symptom is that it causes you to itch all over, especially on your hands and feet. It's not dangerous to the mother- although it is quite uncomfortable and somewhat inconvenient- but it can be dangerous to the baby and is associated with an increased risk of stillbirth or "unfavorable outcome." When you have this condition they recommend that you induce labor as soon as the baby is full-term or very soon thereafter to avoid risk of any harm to the baby. [This is why Jackson was induced two weeks early.]

On Thursday night I got a call from the doctor saying that the test came back positive and that I needed to come in the next day for an ultrasound and testing. While the ultrasound results were good- the baby looked great and healthy- the recommended course was to induce soon, since I had already passed 37 weeks. So this left Dave and I to decide with the doctor how soon we wanted to induce.

I hate decisions like this because you are trying to balance out factors, risks and statistics, let alone preference and convenience, but there is no way to really know if you are giving weight to the correct thing. So Dave and I sat in the doctor's office trying to decide: Do we get induced sooner or wait for a few more days so the baby will be a little more mature and our doctor will be on duty? After sitting for 45 minutes going back and forth, we decided that we didn't want to take any unneccessary risks, so we were set to go to the hospital on Sat. night (Oct. 3) for a cervix treatment with the induction starting Sunday morning (Oct. 4).

Of course, this suddenly made all of our babysitting plans, etc. for the hospital obsolete. I spent a good portion of the afternoon on the phone trying to figure out who was going to watch the kids. We finally settled that my mom would fly out the next day. She changed her plane tickets and I headed to the store for some last-minute purchases and tried to contain the nervous energy and stress that I felt.

As I was loading bags from the cart into my car, my cell phone rang. It was my doctor again. As she was looking over my chart and filling out the paperwork for the induction, she noticed that on my very first ultrasound the baby measured slightly small. She hadn't changed the due date to be later because she wanted to confirm at the 20 week ultrasound. When the baby had also measured slightly small at the 20 week ultrasound, she had forgotten to go back and change the due date. So that meant that we could be inducing a 36 week old baby, which would put her at a greater risk for lung problems and other issues. So the long and short of it is that we moved my induction to Wed. Oct. 7th, so the baby would be between 37 and 38 weeks, no matter how you calculated it.

So... I called my mom yet again and she booked her third set of plane tickets. This change of date did, thankfully, give us a little bit more time to prepare, but the whole thing made for a very stressful weekend. "You're having a baby in a week and a half!" "No wait, you're having a baby tomorrow!" "Actually you're having a baby in a few days." I thought the whole point of inducing labor was so that you could pick a date and plan around it and make it more stress-free. ;) Right?? If only babies were more cooperative.

Due Date Dilemma

As my due date draws nearer and nearer, the question always hovers, "When should we induce the baby?" I have been induced with all three of my kids. I have really big babies (think 9 lb. 11 oz. and 9 lb. 15 oz.). My last baby was induced two weeks early and still measured 10 lb. 1 oz. I happen to have an unfortunate family history of big babies- both mine and Dave's mom had babies that were over 11 pounds- and my mom had the added plus of always delivering a couple of weeks late. While I have done fine with deliveries so far, I have no desire to see if my body can handle an 11 pound baby or how large my babies would be if I went two weeks overdue. So inductions are a great option for me. It's also kind of nice to be able to plan ahead a little bit and know when you're going to have the baby.

My mom has planned to come out and help with the baby and has been waiting on pins and needles for me to settle on an induction date so she could book her tickets. Just as we got to the point of setting when I was going to be induced, another complication came up. My 91-year old grandpa (my mom's dad) got engaged last month and was set to be married over Thanksgiving in November. But he decided that he couldn't wait that long and so he moved up his wedding date to October 17th... the weekend before my due date. This made it decidedly more complicated because if I was induced a week early (as I planned to be) then my mom would need to be at the wedding at the exact same time that I would need her help. Then it turned out that my OB was going to be out of town for the weekend that we wanted to be induced, so I would have to have someone else deliver the baby. The odds were stacking against us.

After multiple conflicts doomed my preferred induction date, it was finally set for Oct. 16th, only a few days before my actual due date of Oct. 21st. You mean I can't just pick the exact dae when I want to have my baby and make sure it comes then? C'mon, where are the perks of being induced?

Conference Weekend

Last weekend was General Conference. It was nice to have a change from the usual Sunday routine and busy-ness and to get a chance to listen first-hand to messages from our church leaders. As a kid I remember going to one of the Saturday sessions and then going to Winchell's donuts (before the days when you could watch it at home on TV). When Dave and I were first married, conference was one of my favorite times of the year. We would often get the chance to go in person and despite it being 8 hours of meetings over two days, I loved the chance to listen to the talks and music, to focus on spiritual things, to evaluate where I want my life to be going over the next six months and enjoy the family dinners that always capped off Conference weekend.

Not to say that I don't still love Conference, but having children and moving away from family has made it a little bit of a different experience. We live in a different state from both sets of parents, so family dinners have gone by the wayside, and we rarely- if ever- get the chance to go in person, but despite the changes I've tried to create traditions for my kids so it will be a special time for them.

I know there are lots of people like Lara who make homemade cinnamon rolls for conference. That has always sounded like a great tradition, but we have ended up with Monkey Bread as our morning conference treat (refrigerated biscuits with cinnamon sugar and melted butter/brown sugar... much easier for the mom/cook). I always print out a packet with conference-related activities from the internet for the kids. And the kids really do look forward to conference... but I think it's mostly about the Monkey Bread.

It's nice to be able to have a weekend home together, but trying to use conference as an opportunity to focus on the spiritual is much more challenging with kids. Usually the kids start out doing their coloring and puzzles and then phase into some more active pursuit (probably because of the Monkey Bread sugar rush) like tag or wrestling. On Saturday afternoon, I was trying to watch the session and actually comprehend some of what the speaker was saying over the noise and din of the kids playing. They had long since passed the phase where I still attempted to have them sit still and do quiet activities and were having full out wrestling matches, tossing toys across the room and running like... hyper sugar-charged monkeys (anything to do with the Monkey Bread?). I finally had had it, so I pressed pause on the TV and said, "Everyone DOWN TO THE BASEMENT!!! No more noise!! You can go play and be wild but go DOWNSTAIRS!"

Jared and Camryn paused for a moment and looked confused. "But Mom," Jared said, "we can't go downstairs. We'll miss conference!" ("Hmmm... I'm sure you're getting a lot out of it while you toss toys at each other and wrestle.") But hey, at least they wanted to "watch" it (as long as seeing it out of the corner of your eye while you pull your sister to the ground and chuck a pile of putty at the ceiling to see if it will stick is "watching" it). =] One step at a time, I guess.

The Tooth Fairy

Our family has a very irresponsible tooth fairy. While she always eventually gets the job done, she is known for forgetting to pick up the tooth for a couple of days. Our kids are often left in suspense as to how long it will take our absent-minded fairy to remember to bring them their money.

A few days ago, Jared lost a tooth at school. He brought it home and excitedly showed me the specimen, showcased in all of its glory in a plastic ziploc bag. It didn't really surprise him that the tooth fairy forgot to come that night, but when she hadn't come for a couple of days, he started to get a bit annoyed. One night he said to me, "Mom, the tooth fairy probably isn't even real. Is it you, mom?" I hemmed and hawed and avoided the question. As I went to tuck him into bed that night, out of earshot of his younger sister, he asked, "Mom, are you the tooth fairy? C'mon, you can tell me. It's not a big deal." So I finally confessed that yes, I am the tooth fairy. It's a fun thing that grownups like to pretend to make losing teeth fun for kids. I even still have all the teeth that I've collected from him and Camryn.

I didn't think it was a big deal until a few minutes later. I was rocking Jackson to sleep in his room when the door opened and Jared appeared with tears on his face. "What's wrong?," I asked. He said, "Now that I know that the tooth fairy isn't real it takes all the fun out of it." Now I started to feel bad... Have I scarred my child or made him unable to trust me because of this lapse of truth-telling? Have I broken some unwritten code of parent-hood by admitting to my child that I really am the tooth-taker that leaves money under his pillow? Jared continued, "I mean, if the tooth fairy isn't real, that probably means that Santa isn't real. I bet there really isn't a Santa Claus. There's just some guy at the north pole with a beard that is glued on. Or maybe there's just one Santa for every neighborhood... because it would be impossible to take that many presents...."

I didn't finish the job on the subject of Santa Claus, although maybe I should have- Jared is 8. It's just a little bit sad to see a child outgrow childhood fantasy and magic. I know there are a lot of people that advocate not "lying" to your child by teaching them to believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, but would my childhood really have been better if I had never believed in Santa? I think there is a time and place for fantasy and magic and part of me wishes that we didn't have to outgrow it so quickly.

A day or so later, Jared asked me if he could see all of the teeth that I'd collected over the years, that I'd mentioned earlier. In typical tooth fairy style, it took me a couple of days to get around it, but I finally showed him and he thought it was way cool. Now he really likes the fact that he knows a big secret that Camryn doesn't know and has even seen the secret stash of teeth to prove it. It's cool to be in on a grown-up secret. So maybe I haven't scarred him for life.

Cantico Women in Concert

Last Friday night, the ladies from the Cantico (the choir I co-direct) performed at "An Evening of the Arts," a concert for the American Mothers Association. We sang "How Do I Love Thee?" one of the songs from the concert we gave in May. Unfortunately the camera that was recording it died about 30 seconds before the end, but at least it can give you a taste of our fun performance.

And yes... three out of eight of us are in our third trimester of pregnancy. =]