Birth day

She's here!  I still find it hard to believe that we are a family of five now!

Two weeks ago, Garrett and I were just hanging out at home, watching some Burn Notice on Netflix and eating takeout sushi.  Garrett had worked all day so we were just relaxing and planning an early bedtime since Garrett had to be back at work at 7 the next morning (Sunday).

I started feeling contractions around 10, but I didn't really think much of it since I'd had Braxton Hicks off and on for several weeks.  They were painful but nothing too bad.  Soon, though, I noticed that they were lasting a lot longer than normal Braxton Hicks.  I got out my trusty little phone and started timing them.  Sure enough, the first contraction I timed was a minute long, and the next one started 9 minutes later.  The next, 6 minutes later.  Then, suddenly, 4 minutes.  I looked at Garrett and said, "We'd probably better go in."

By this time it was about 11:30.  I texted a couple of my friends, waiting to see who would get back to me first!  Thankfully, my friend who lives down the street was able to walk over and sleep on our couch so that was easy.  While we waited for her to come, though, we packed our bags (no, I hadn't done it yet.... this was a week premature!!).  (As a side note, when we got to the hospital and I looked through my bag, it turned out that I didn't pack anything useful and I had to send Garrett home for some more things.  Basically all I could think to pack between contractions was a pair of underclothes, my toothbrush, and my phone charger.  We also brought the camera (with no memory card).  Haha.).

Got to the hospital around 12:15 and were admitted immediately.  My contractions were about two minutes apart by the time I got to my room.  The nurses got all my information and hooked me up to the monitors/IV's.  I have always hated getting IV's and this time was no different.  The first "nurse" who attempted it busted my vein and I have to say, that was the most painful thing that happened during this whole experience!!  I cried, it was so bad.  (I put "nurse" in quotation marks because even though her tag said nurse, she was obviously being trained and had never done an IV before, ever... an older nurse was talking her through everything.)  Anyway, thankfully the older nurse put the IV in (my other wrist).  But, it was really hard to forget my burst vein because they had the blood pressure cuff on that original arm and every time it went off (every 3 minutes??), my wrist just throbbed.

Anyway, my contractions were pretty painful by this point, so I asked for the epidural.  As luck would have it, one of our friends from church was the anesthesiology resident on call, so he did my epidural for me.  He did a great job and the experience was a bit more enjoyable after the medication kicked in.

Olivia was born at 4:16, weighing in a 7 lbs 14 oz - our biggest baby yet.  

I know a few weeks ago, I blogged that we were pretty certain about what we were going to name her.  I also mentioned that it was a rather uncommon name... obviously we went a different route because Olivia is actually in the top 10 most common names, and has been for a number of years now.  My original name choice was Greta, but Garrett suggested Olivia a few weeks ago.  I immediately ruled it out (too common for me), but for some reason it stuck in the back of my mind.  After she was born, I kept calling her Greta in the hospital but for some reason it just seemed wrong, no matter how hard I tried to make it work.  I just knew in the back of my mind that she was supposed to be Olivia, but I was fighting it pretty hard - this time for more personal reasons.

Literally the last thing we did before leaving the hospital was talk to the birth certificate lady (we had been discharged and everything).  Even when she asked me the baby's name, I had to think for a few seconds about what to say!  Garrett had given up by this point and had told me to just CHOOSE already!!  Obviously, Olivia won out.  I just knew that that was what we were supposed to name her.

We usually call her "Olivia", but she's also gone by Liv, Livvy, and Livia.  I'm not really sure what nickname (if any) will stick, but I like them all.

Thankfully, we were able to leave the hospital on Monday morning, and got settled at home with our family of five.  Garrett got a wonderful 2-week paternity leave, which was amazing (I think he got half a day with Abby?), and it was sad to see him head back to work early this morning.  Three kids is quite an adjustment and I'm glad he was able to help out so much.

Our three girls: Olivia, Ellie, and Abby, all at one day old:

Olivia: