Much Overdue!

Baby AJ came the day after my last post. She was born 5 minutes before midnight. I got to the hospital around 10:30 and an hour later when my midwife said, "You're having this baby today!" I thought she was crazy and didn't believe her. I think she was crazy. But now I believe her.

My sister rolled into town around midnight on the 20th-21st. Y'see, she was in Texas for Danyo's birth. It wasn't planned for her to be here, but it worked out, and the same thing happened this time! Her visit was technically to come see my week old baby. Not to actually get her to be born! She took her self-imposed call to get that baby outta me, very seriously. Traipsed me all over the mall (I don't go to malls---people get shot at malls), kept making me go walk, yelled at me for sitting down for more than 5 minutes. It was annoying. And very effective.

Around 9 pm contractions came on, but no different than ones I'd been experiencing for the last 8 or 9 days. In fact, the week prior, I came home from my last class and began contracting. For SIX HOURS. But they never got painful enough to really get worked up about, and when I fell asleep, they went away. That was really disappointing.

So when they started this time, I didn't get too worked up, but I was hopeful, as ever. Mostly because we realized that Bo was born on a Thursday, and on the 22nd. AND my niece, who was here, was born on the 22nd, on a Thursday. We thought it would be cool to let her join those ranks!

Around 9:20 I said aloud, "If these are still going at 10:00, I'll go to the hospital." My sister was sitting across from me playing on her I-touch and completely ignoring my motions. She didn't think I was hurting enough to get any attention. My niece was on the couch and silent as well. Probably thinking, "this isn't how it is in the movies..."

Well, they didn't get much worse, but also didn't go away, so at 10:00, I got up to call my midwife. She said, "Well, if you think you are in labor, go ahead and go to the hospital, I'm headed there myself right now." It was a midwife I hadn't met yet. I wondered what part of "this is my fourth child and the last one came in 4 hours" made her think there was an "if" in the equation.

I definitely progressed in the 2 minute drive to the hospital. I made my sister go a longer route to avoid a brick road between my house and the hospital. Yeah, my sister took me to the hospital. Why you ask? Because my husband was sitting at McDonalds with my BIL, shooting the breeze, ignoring his phone. I'm not bitter.

At 10:45 I was checked and dilated to a 4. I didn't think that was such a big deal, kind of thought I'd be a bit further along. I immediately started asking for an epidural. I'm kind of a badass like that.

I had to have IV fluids for at least half an hour before the anesthesiologist could come, and they couldn't get a good stick on me. Had to call in the IV cavalry or something so I think I finally got an IV around 11:15 or 11:20. At 11:30 my sweet little midwife sat on the end of my bed and said, "I think you might not have time for an epidural." And then later said the baby would be coming before the day was over. I did not handle the news well. At this point, I kind of like hearing my sister and J's recount of things because I was not in a good state of mind and don't really remember much. But stuff was said. And it's kind of funny to hear.

I did not get my epidural. She was born before midnight. It got real ugly real fast. But I survived, she's perfect, and I can happily say I am done.done.done.DONE. I think that may have been the first thing out of my mouth---"I am never doing that again!"

You should never say never. Truly.

She has blonde blonde BLONDE hair and it's terribly cute. She looks like a boy. She has a new look, definitely one of ours, but not a carbon copy of any of the other three. Her temperament reminds me a bit of Bo. She's pretty easy going. She has a ridiculously strong neck and head control. She starts making weird noises and roots around when she's hungry, only cries if I ignore that for far too long. Bo was like that. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to sounds of a little baby pig rootin' around for some grub. Avee and Danyo---not so much. It was 0-60 in 4.3 on the scream scale when they were hungry. That's so interesting Nobody, thank you for sharing! You're welcome.

My recovery was quite slow, in my opinion. I can remember being able to get up and do simple things and ambulate quite easily after Avee and Danyo were born. However, I remember when Bo was born, there was a one day gap between when my mom was there for 10 days, and when my cousin came to. I had to make myself a sandwich and I broke out into a sweat halfway through the process and had to lean on the counter after the mustard, before the cheese. His delivery was brutal, and since he was my first, I didn't know any differently. It took 10 days for me to be able to go without pain meds and do very basic things. Up and down the stairs was even too much on most days. Fortunately, J was there for my every need. Despite his being at McDonald's and not answering his phone when I was in labor... Just kidding.

One morning J brought me breakfast in bed and Danyo started begging for breakfast in bed. J, not really thinking it mattered that much, told him no. Danyo sobbed. I told J he had been asking for a couple of months for breakfast in bed, I just always forgot. So J made three plates and all three kids sat on my bed and ate breakfast...on bed. It was really very cute.

Well, there's lots going on, and lots I could blog about, but I knew I needed to get this written before AJ turned 27. Poor fourth born...

Tomorrow when the baby isn't fussing for me to feed her and it's not 11:30pm, I'll add the picture of me in the hospital with Santa, Mrs. Claus, and Sparky the Fire Dog. Totally worth coming back for, if you read this before then.