Henry joined our family a few weeks ago! The girls are totally in love with him and he's got us all wrapped around his little finger.
The first 2 weeks of October were kind of crazy around here. I was feeling contractions pretty often (several a day), especially when I was doing a lot of walking around. It made me really nervous because Garrett was scheduled to go to Chicago on October 6-7 for his radiology boards. I was SO certain that the baby would come while he was gone, and I was pretty nervous about it. The last thing I wanted was to go into labor with him out of town! In my head I had the whole scenario played out... I would have to drive myself to the hospital while in labor (how??), I would sit in the labor room alone, give birth alone in a room full of people I didn't know, make all the decisions alone... it made me very nervous. Starting the weekend before Garrett left, I put myself on a sort of "bedrest", which did help to keep the contractions down. It was General Conference weekend, so we did a lot of sitting around anyway so that helped. Garrett worked that Sunday, but thankfully the kids were pretty easy and I was able to relax for most of the day. That week was another story, though... the kids were on Fall break so it wasn't easy to sit around all day like it would have been if the two older ones were at school. I tried to keep them as occupied as I could that day, but I felt really bad that we didn't have anything fun planned for their week off. Thankfully, my mother-in-law took them during the day for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, which was a LIFESAVER. I was home alone ALL DAY for those three days. She brought them home for bedtime. I don't think I have EVER been home alone since having 3 kids, maybe not since having kids at all. It was amazing. I napped, watched Netflix, did indexing (family history), surfed the web, online shopped for baby things I still needed. I hardly left my bed at all. It was the best gift ever. Garrett left early Wednesday morning and got home late Thursday night, and we survived with no baby coming. I was so incredibly relieved. And, I thought FOR SURE that Henry would be born at any moment... turns out he was pretty comfortable in there, though, and wasn't in any hurry.
We scheduled an induction for October 17. Honestly, when we scheduled it the week before, I thought there was no way I would still be pregnant by then so I didn't hesitate (I was due on the 15th but my own calculations had me due on the 12th.. Olivia was 5 days early so I was kinda planning on something like that again since this is baby #4).
His due date came and went (actually I'm a bit grateful for this because my MIL wasn't very available to help out with the kids that weekend, so I'm not sure what we would have done with them if I'd gone into labor). Ironically, even my contractions had slowed down ever since Garrett came home from his boards. I was still in a lot of pain and still exhausted, but no more painful contractions even when I went walking. The induction date was coming quickly and to be honest, I was a bit nervous to go through with it. I induced with both Abbie and Ellie, and both were very successful (labors were under 7 hours each), but for some reason I felt guilty inducing this time around. I was nervous he wasn't ready, and I felt guilty for making him conform to my own personal preference/schedule. The truth was, Garrett had the whole week of Oct 17th off, and we wanted to make the most of his time off. But was that a good enough reason? Probably not. On Sunday I tried to be as active as possible. We went for a looong walk in my in-laws' neighborhood (Garrett's sister and her husband were in town from SC, along with the kids' cousins from GA). On Sunday night we set our alarms for 5:15 a.m. and prepped our bags to show up at the hospital at 6 the next morning. We went to bed around 11:30 and I remember wishing I would just go into labor naturally so that I wouldn't feel so guilty about the induction.
At 1am, I woke up to my water breaking. I ran to the bathroom to make sure that's what it was, and when I was certain I woke Garrett up to tell him. I wasn't sure if we should wait for 6 am, or go in right away, so I cleaned myself up a little bit, and laid back down on the bed to try to get a little rest (my water didn't gush out like crazy, so nothing had gotten on the bed earlier, thankfully). Almost immediately, I got a hard contraction, harder than any I had had up until that point. I told Garrett we needed to go in right away (I was paranoid that this labor would be FAST since Olivia's only took about 4 hours from when I started labor). I texted Garrett's mom and she was here within 15 minutes. Off we went to the hospital. Thankfully the streets were quiet and it took less than 10 minutes. We went in through the ER since it was the middle of the night, and got admitted right away (no one else was there.. this was a small private hospital, a very different experience from our other, huge University-based hospitals!).
My contractions were coming strong by this point, and about 2-3 minutes apart. I had thought I would wait a bit for the epidural but I ended up asking for it almost right after we got settled in our room. I always get nervous for the epidural, but it's soo worth it to me and has made all my birthing experiences so nice. The CNA came in almost right away and got to work. An anesthesiologist also came in to oversee it (he had obviously been sleeping, I always feel so bad waking doctors up!). It went well, minimal pain, and I literally started feeling the effects immediately. Before I had even laid back down, Garrett asked if I was feeling the current contraction (he could see it on the chart), but I couldn't at all. I actually ended up asking the nurse to turn down the anesthesia a bit because it felt stronger than I needed. My contractions slowed a bit, so they gave me some pitocin and things picked up again. I was already dilated to a 4 when I went in (I had been at a 4 for over a week), so things didn't take too long.
At 6:05 a.m. I buzzed the nurse in and told her I felt ready to push. She checked me and told me NOT to push under any circumstances, I guess we were ready! Haha. She called the OB in (poor guy had 1 more hour left in his 24-hour call shift, got to sneak one last delivery in!). He came in by 6:10 and everyone started prepping the room for the delivery. I love this part - everyone rushing around, bright lights coming on, the energy goes from zero to 10 in less than 60 seconds. Once everything was prepped, we waited for the next contraction to show up on the chart. Once it started, the doc told me to push and suddenly he was out! One contraction, one push. Doesn't get much better than that. All my epidurals have been great but I think this was my best one. Not too strong, but strong enough that there still wasn't any pain. It also wore off quickly afterwards which was really nice.
The rest of our hospital stay was okay. Since he was born on Monday morning, we could technically stay until Wednesday. However, I hate staying in the hospital so we always try to leave as soon as they will let us. Thankfully, we were able to leave on Tuesday afternoon. Since it was a private hospital, it wasn't too bad though -- I didn't have medical students and residents rounding on us twice a day, and I didn't have people coming in to do exams or check my vitals around the clock like they always seemed to do at teaching hospitals. But still, I was anxious to get home to my own bed and my own surroundings, and to Emma!! She came to visit and help out that first week, and she arrived on Tuesday afternoon. I didn't want to miss any more of her visit than I had to!
So, there's Henry's birth story. Hopefully I will find some time later this week to update about how these first two weeks have gone! In short: it hasn't been easy!
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