Hey There, Emery Jane

After all those false alarms, Emery's due date (January 28th) finally came. Sophie and I played at Erin's house for a while to pass the time. I wasn't having any contractions or anything all day so I figured we weren't going to have a baby that day. But as I was putting Sophie to bed that night and I moaned and groaned as I shifted my large body around to read bedtime stories and tuck her in, I had the overwhelming impression that I should have just had Sophie stay the night at Erin and Jason's house. She was already in bed so I figured we would make it work no matter what happened. So at one o'clock in the morning I was up with that ever-so-familiar back pain and regular contractions. I felt like I knew pretty quickly that this was the real deal. I went downstairs and watched Downton Abbey while I timed my contractions. After an episode of regular, crazy painful contractions, I went to wake Daniel up. He muttered something about getting up, but I was back at the bedside almost an hour later telling him he SERIOUSLY needed to get moving...little did I know that he had taken a Tylenol PM and was in a drug-induced sleep. I huffed and I puffed and finally we were ready to go out the door. Things were going so fast we decided to just scoop Sophie out of bed and drop her off at the Enger's on our way to the hospital. She did great and I had a hard time watching Daniel take her into their house knowing her little life was about to change. All of this was done in a nice little snowstorm by the way....

We finally made it to the hospital driving 30 miles an hour the whole time. For some reason as soon as we got there I started having a little panic attack. I was almost to the point of full-on hyperventilating and I couldn't catch my breath. I hate how when you get to the hospital at first everything feels so clinical and they are all following protocol and acting a little robotic while I writhe in pain. They strapped me to those blasted fetal monitors which I hoped they would take off, but they left them on while they made me sign a million waivers and I just wanted to get off the stupid bed. So tired, so stressed out, and in so much pain I opted for an epidural. The poor anesthesiologist had just gone home and had to trek back to the hospital in the snow, but he made it in good time. During all this I was progressing rapidly. I was a six when we got there, an eight right after the epidural when they broke my water, and had Emery just ten or fifteen minutes after that. Less than hour after we got to the hospital we had our baby.

She was perfect. You forget how tiny they are when they are first born. I swore she couldn't weigh more than maybe six pounds, but of course I was way off and she weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces & was 21 inches long.

I'm pleased to report that nursing has gone a million times better this time. My previous experience plus the help of a lactation consultant got us off to a much better start and things have stayed that way. Emery and I stayed alone in the hospital for two nights while Daniel went home to Sophie. It was actually much easier than I expected. We snuggled and fed pretty regularly and she hogged the bed like a regular kid. So Emery was born on a Friday---and since we had her so early in the morning (5--something), we were ready for visitors that day. Daniel went to get Sophie and brought Kira along with her. Sophie bounded in the room, her usual effervescent self, and ran up to see the baby. When it came time to hold her, she was excited, but then said she was too big and was done. Then Kira and Sophie watched through the little window as Daniel gave Emery her first bath.

We came home Sunday morning. I'm glad I took the extra day to recover. Sophie went to church with her cousins so Daniel could come help me wrangle all our gear and baby alone. Then finally we were home.