Dear Pepper,
You are one week old today. To our surprise you arrived promptly on your due date, something I had no expectation of happening, even when it was occurring.
Saturday morning I woke up at 6am to work on my "due date" project, the laundry room. I decided a couple days earlier I needed a project that I could complete if you did not arrive by your due date. That way I wouldn't be too frustrated that our little girl hadn't arrived. I needed a shelf in the laundry room to put the laundry basket on and plans to spruce it up just a little bit. I worked on it until about 8 a.m.
Once Lorelai got up we decided to spend the morning at the botanical gardens to see the new dinosaur exhibit. We invited your grandparents too. I was a kind of slow moving, but no signs of labor at that time. On our way home it was about lunch time and I started feeling more aches but chalked it up to my normal Braxton Hicks contractions. At home Lorelai ate lunch and went down for her nap.
It was that time Kevin suggested I may be start timing what was going on. I really didn't hurt that badly and thought it was a fluke. I decided to run to Walmart to get a few more hardware items for the laundry room and I promised him I would time the contractions the whole time.
My contractions were irregular not very long and close to 7 minutes apart during my 30 minute trip to Walmart. I really didn't think much of it since they were nowhere near as long or strong or frequent as I expected. I'd also heard many friends labored multiple days, so I assumed nothing was going on yet. When we got home I measured and marked out the wood for Kevin to cut for the laundry room And we installed the wood. All the while timing contractions. Once that had been going on for an hour and a 1/2 I decided I needed to call the nurse to ask what signs I should look for. I really just wanted confirmation that I had plenty of time.
I got the opposite. She told me that because my contractions were less than 10 minutes apart I should go into the hospital since it was my 2nd baby. I argued a little telling her that I've never heard 10 minutes was the time frame and had always heard 5 minutes.
We went ahead and took our time packing, called my parents and told them they were probably going to send us home anyway, but we should go get checked out. We waited for my parents to arrive to stay with Lorelai and we took our sweet time getting their arriving about an hour and a 1/2 after she told me I should go in. By then some of the contractions seemed to be coming less frequent and I was certain we were going home.
We arrived at the hospital at about 4 p.m.
After all the paperwork, blood work and the like we were told I was at 4cm and staying by 4:45 p.m
I was shocked.
I got all hooked up to IV etc. And we started wandering the empty halls. I mean totally empty. There were 4 other couples in labor there at the time and this is from a women's hospital designed with lots of births in mind.
We walked with little change except maybe frequency of contractions.
After a trip to the bathroom I walked out and started laughing at something Kevin was doing...and peed on the floor which only made me laugh harder and pee more. You probably know where this is going...not pee...water breaking.
It was now 5:15.
With a warning from the nurse that things were going to get real I walked some more. It took a good 30-45 minutes before I thought I was going to die from a contraction and called out for the epidural. What felt like an eternity later (probably 30 minutes) I was back to my happy self. Labor progressed quickly looking back, but at the time seemed relatively slow/normal.
By 9:40 p.m the doctor was called and I was ready to push. In my opinion he took his sweet time arriving about 30 minutes later. I pushed about 20 minutes or so. It sure felt longer.
Our little girl arrived at 10:49 p.m. You were a chunky 8lbs 12 oz...the perfect size. Overall a completely different experience from Lorelai who was induced after her due date, and we used a lot of different (painful) means to get Lorelai out of there.
So you're a week old now. Overall it's been a really good week. Exhausting, but most of the time I feel like we have a handle on things. Lorelai likes to watch you sometimes, give you your stuffed bear and an occasional cookie, and poke at your eyes and announce when she would rather have you asleep or awake and make sure we know baby is crying. It's a lot of work having two to watch after at once. Kevin and I usually each are assigned to one kid, which makes things a little easier.
We think you look more like me, and have my squinty eyes...and then sometimes you also look exactly like Lorelai has a baby.
Right now we predict you're going to be our cuddly one...something Lorelai never was. You already seem more relaxed, love sleeping on one of us, but thankfully you took well to sleeping on your own on our 2nd night home. You eat well, latch great and after a trip to the doctor poop well too :) Basically you're dominating being a newborn. Sleeping is getting better, but if I could give you one place to improve, that would be nice one. We love you so much and are so glad you are finally here.
You are one week old today. To our surprise you arrived promptly on your due date, something I had no expectation of happening, even when it was occurring.
Saturday morning I woke up at 6am to work on my "due date" project, the laundry room. I decided a couple days earlier I needed a project that I could complete if you did not arrive by your due date. That way I wouldn't be too frustrated that our little girl hadn't arrived. I needed a shelf in the laundry room to put the laundry basket on and plans to spruce it up just a little bit. I worked on it until about 8 a.m.Once Lorelai got up we decided to spend the morning at the botanical gardens to see the new dinosaur exhibit. We invited your grandparents too. I was a kind of slow moving, but no signs of labor at that time. On our way home it was about lunch time and I started feeling more aches but chalked it up to my normal Braxton Hicks contractions. At home Lorelai ate lunch and went down for her nap.
It was that time Kevin suggested I may be start timing what was going on. I really didn't hurt that badly and thought it was a fluke. I decided to run to Walmart to get a few more hardware items for the laundry room and I promised him I would time the contractions the whole time.
We went ahead and took our time packing, called my parents and told them they were probably going to send us home anyway, but we should go get checked out. We waited for my parents to arrive to stay with Lorelai and we took our sweet time getting their arriving about an hour and a 1/2 after she told me I should go in. By then some of the contractions seemed to be coming less frequent and I was certain we were going home.
We arrived at the hospital at about 4 p.m.After all the paperwork, blood work and the like we were told I was at 4cm and staying by 4:45 p.m
I was shocked.
I got all hooked up to IV etc. And we started wandering the empty halls. I mean totally empty. There were 4 other couples in labor there at the time and this is from a women's hospital designed with lots of births in mind.
We walked with little change except maybe frequency of contractions.
After a trip to the bathroom I walked out and started laughing at something Kevin was doing...and peed on the floor which only made me laugh harder and pee more. You probably know where this is going...not pee...water breaking.
It was now 5:15.With a warning from the nurse that things were going to get real I walked some more. It took a good 30-45 minutes before I thought I was going to die from a contraction and called out for the epidural. What felt like an eternity later (probably 30 minutes) I was back to my happy self. Labor progressed quickly looking back, but at the time seemed relatively slow/normal.
By 9:40 p.m the doctor was called and I was ready to push. In my opinion he took his sweet time arriving about 30 minutes later. I pushed about 20 minutes or so. It sure felt longer.
Our little girl arrived at 10:49 p.m. You were a chunky 8lbs 12 oz...the perfect size. Overall a completely different experience from Lorelai who was induced after her due date, and we used a lot of different (painful) means to get Lorelai out of there.
So you're a week old now. Overall it's been a really good week. Exhausting, but most of the time I feel like we have a handle on things. Lorelai likes to watch you sometimes, give you your stuffed bear and an occasional cookie, and poke at your eyes and announce when she would rather have you asleep or awake and make sure we know baby is crying. It's a lot of work having two to watch after at once. Kevin and I usually each are assigned to one kid, which makes things a little easier.
We think you look more like me, and have my squinty eyes...and then sometimes you also look exactly like Lorelai has a baby.
Right now we predict you're going to be our cuddly one...something Lorelai never was. You already seem more relaxed, love sleeping on one of us, but thankfully you took well to sleeping on your own on our 2nd night home. You eat well, latch great and after a trip to the doctor poop well too :) Basically you're dominating being a newborn. Sleeping is getting better, but if I could give you one place to improve, that would be nice one. We love you so much and are so glad you are finally here.
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