IT'S A GIRL!!!

So for those of you who don't know........I had the baby! Amelia Naomi was born 3 weeks early on November 24th at 5:43PM. She was 6lbs 6.5oz and 20 inches long. She is beautiful!! So people don't have to keep asking me over and over what happened and because I love hearing others' birth stories I shall share mine.....

It was just another normal Monday(23rd) night. I actually slept fairly well, for once, and then Noah woke up around 4AM and crawled in bed with us. About an hour later I woke up to put him back to bed so he wasn't fully woken up by Joey's alarm for work at 5:30.

Well, I put Noah in his bed and went to go to the bathroom, cuz that's what pregnant women do all too often, and it felt like I peed my pants a little bit right before I got to the bathroom. I thought that was a little strange considering I wasn't laughing or doing anything to provoke my bladder. I finally decided that my water broke and went back to bed and,unsuccessfully, tried to go back to sleep. I was really unsure if it was my water breaking because: a) I was 37 weeks along THAT day and b) I wasn't having any contractions. (Usually when my water breaks the baby is born in about an hour.)

So excited and a little nervous, I told Joey that I think my water broke and he sat right up and said, "Really?!?". I told him not too worry too much since I wasn't having contractions and to go to work and I would call him if we needed to go to the hospital. Funny thing is is that I had a doctors appointment that morning at 9 so we decided that Joey would take me just in case my water did in fact break and I was staying at the hospital. Unable to sleep and the boys asleep, I took a shower and got ready for the day fully expecting my contractions to start any moment.

Well, the time came for me to take Noah to preschool and to head to my appointment and still no contractions. So we dropped Elias off at grandma's and headed to my appointment. Walking back to see the doctor my nurse asked me how I was doing and told her I think my water broke. She said, "What?!? Well, we need to check you then". Sure enough I was right and I was about 3 and 1/2 centimeters and 60% effaced, still no contractions! So over to the hospital we went and was sarted on Pitocin to get my contractions going.

I have never had Pitocin and let me tell you that I HATE the contractions induced by it!! They hit you (at least me).....hard! I was getting less than a teaspoon an hour, but that was enough to put me into full blown labor. I had a lot of back pain labor with this baby, so I sat on the labor ball which helped, but after a little while I just couldn't handle it anymore. My nurse also realized when she checked me that I still had a big bag of water. I guess that when my water broke at 5 that morning it was just a little trickle and not a full blown break. Well, as she checked me it broke.......Bring on the Epidural!

I got an Epidural around 4:30PM......*sigh of relief*......the doc showed up at around 5:30 and I was ready to push. About 2 and 1/2 pushes later little Amelia was born and 5:43! The doctor thinks that I went into labor so early because of the kidney stone that I had. And I will tell you what, I would rather have a baby than another kidney stone! They are just such a different pain with no satisfaction at the end of it all.

This picture makes her look chubby, but she is TINY! At least to me and compared to her brothers. She is like her momma and is good at hiding her double chin unless she puts her head down. ;o)

She is our "litle sweetpea"!

Her brothers just love her and always want to hold her! The only bad thing is is that they are both sick right now. They have colds and are all boogery so they can't get too close to her for very long. When Noah found out that she was born he asked if they "punched the baby out of my stomach". LOL! Elias is always coming up to me, "I want to hold her!". It is kind of strange having something so small and pink around the house, but she is a wonderful addition to our little family!