On the day that H was born...

Baby H.

A few pictures of baby H, the proud papa, and me the day before H was born.

I have never gone into spontaneous labor. I have always wanted to. I was hoping that this would be the time that it would work for me, but it didn't turn out that way. I went in on the 24th for a non-stress test. Everything was fine, but my doctor and I started talking about options. I was already dilated to a 3 1/2 and 60-70% effaced. I was having contractions like mad, so we figured the baby would come any time. I really wanted my doctor to be there, and since he doesn't live here I was willing to work around his schedule. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do....wait and have this baby, or have the doctor rupture my membranes. He said he would let me wait until 42 weeks if I wanted to, but who wants to wait for 42 weeks when you are already 40 1/2 weeks. That just seems like forever. So I came home and discussed the options with my dh. We decided we would go in the next day and have the doctor rupture my membranes and get things going. I was started this way with my last daughter as well. Things went much quicker that time. The doctor broke my water, and I had my baby 3 1/2 hours later. We figured things would go faster this time, but they didn't. When the doctor tried to break my water, it didn't work too well. He said usually there is a forebag of water below the babies head, but there wasn't one. The membrane was right over my daughter's head, and her head was directly over my cervix. With some pushing and prodding (and my baby had the scratch marks on her head to prove it) he finally got a slow leak going and said he would come back in an hour and see how things were going. I was disappointed to find out that I was still only dilated to a 3 1/2, but I was about 80% effaced. I had been having tons of contractions all week, and had hoped I was further along than that. So after he broke my water we waited. We had hoped to have her in about 3 hours, but 3 hours later I was only dilated to a 5, but things were progressing, so we kept on waiting. My contractions were getting harder and harder. I have had all of my kids natural, but I think I was the most scared with this one. After 3 others, you know exactly what you are getting yourself into, and it doesn't sound like much fun. I have been so stressed out the last 5 months that I wasn't mentally, physically, or emotionally prepared to go through labor, so the task seemed extra daunting to me. Thing started progressing faster and faster until I could finally start pushing. It took a few more pushes than anticipated, but my baby finally arrived at 8:15p.m. I was so relieved and excited when they place my little daughter on my belly. It was a sweet moment when I could look into my husband's teary eyes and know that together we had created another miracle. We are so glad to have little H in our home. She is a sweet little baby already. She even let me sleep in two 4 hour blocks last night, so I feel like a totally different person today. I hope she stays on that schedule. Welcome to our family H.

Our new itybty princess.

Our new itybty princess joined our family yesterday at 8:15p.m. She weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces, and measured 19 1/2 inches. Mom and baby are both doing well. More to come later.

Today is the day.....

That we get our new little girl. My doctor is going to rupture my membranes this afternoon. Hopefully it won't take too long after that. I am having lots of contractions, so we think things will get going right away. Wish me luck!!! Stay tuned for some cute baby pics in the next week or so....if I can figure out how to get them to stay on here.

Things that won't induce labor....

These are a few things that I have found that Do Not induce labor:

Eating tons of chocolate (while a lot of fun, it doesn't make you have contractions. My babies never like chocolate in their breast milk, so I am stocking up on one of my favorite treats now before I can't have it anymore.)

Jumping on the Trampoline (I thought it was worth a shot!)

Jumping Rope (I was trying to teach my 7 year old how to jump and land on one foot at a time, but it didn't do anything either)

Long rides in a bumpy truck up a bumpy mountain dirt road (The bumps weren't so bad, it was the swaying side to side that was horrible. I came home miserable with side aches, but no labor. This was the worst experiment of all...I think I will stick with the chocolate.)

I guess we will just have to keep waiting for our new little one to arrive. 40 weeks, 2 days, and still counting. :(

Happy Birthday M....

We just celebrated my daughter's 7th birthday. (Hopefully this picture will come through this time.) She wanted a My Little Pony birthday party. I found a little set of birthday party My Little Ponies that I decorated her cake with. It was the easiest cake I have ever decorated. I can't believe how big she is. Where have the last 7 years gone? She is getting so tall and smart. It is so fun to watch her grow and change. We will see what this next year will bring.

My New Perfume....

I bet you are grateful you are not wearing the same perfume I am this morning. I call it Eau de Skunk. We have been battling a few skunks around our house. My hubby went out one night last week and there were three skunks in our chicken pen. We have a trap that we have set up to catch them. They are pretty elusive, but we have now caught two of them. A few days ago we caught the mom. The trap is designed so that once the skunk is inside it can not lift its tail to spray its lovely perfume. DH was able to dispose of the skunk without any incident. We were not so lucky last night. We caught one of the babies. It is unfortunately much smaller than the mother, so raising its tail in the trap is not a problem. So while trying to dispose of it, it let loose with its infamous perfume. Luckily we were not in direct fire, but that didn't seem to matter too much because that smell can go anywhere! Once we got done and came inside we stripped down in the laundry room and immediately threw our clothing in the washing machine. My hubby got the worse of the smell and his hands and his hair smelled like it. I couldn't get the smell out of my nose. I almost gagged.....being 8 1/2 months pregnant and smelling skunk don't exactly go well together. I don't know how such a cute little fluffy animal could smell so bad. They really are adorable I just wish they didn't smell so bad. We still have one more to catch. I hope we don't get sprayed again.

UPDATE!!!! Apparently my hubby and I are not that great at skunk disposal. I just went out to throw out some garbage, just to hear rustling in my garbage can. There is a very much alive, very much out of his body bag, very frisky skunk in my garbage can. He is giving out free perfume samples if you want to come over......what do I do now?

Do these panel pants make me look sexy?

I know you were probably expecting a picture with this post, but with the 10 pounds of water weight I have put on in the last couple of week and my ankles swelling to the size of my calf muscles you aren't going to get one! I mean really, is that something we would really want to preserve for my posterity...I don't think so. Anyway, back to those panel pants. Can I just tell you how excited I am to not wear panel pants anymore. I have worn the same horrible panel pants with each of my 4 pregnancies, and I am ready to BURN them. I have progressed to wearing only my largest of maternity clothes (and, might I add, the ugliest). I want to gag everyday when I get dressed. I just keep counting down......2 1/2 more weeks and I won't have to wear these awful things anymore. At least I hope I will be able to wear some smaller clothing soon after delivery. I unpacked all of my cute skinny clothes the other day, and I am so excited to wear them again.

I had my 37 week checkup this week. Everything is looking fine with the baby. He actually gave me the option of having a cervix check or not. I want to know if anything is happening, but if it saves me the exam, then I would really rather not know. I am sure by next week it won't be optional anymore. We have decided to strip my membranes on the 18th if nothing has happened by then. My parents are coming that weekend to help with the girls, and my hubby has a day off of work, so it would be the perfect time to have a baby....that is if it works. Last time I had my membranes stripped it didn't do a thing. I am excited to not be pregnant anymore, but worried and scared about delivery. You would think it would get easier the more children you have, but I know exactly what is coming, and it doesn't sound exciting AT ALL. I hope it is quick that is all I can say.

I better go wash those panel pants of mine so I have something to wear tomorrow.

Here At Last....

I am back!!! The DSL man just left. I am so excited to be back up on the internet. It seems like it has been a long time since I was cruising around all of your wonderful blogs. Now that we have a new computer and faster internet access I will be able to check out all of your blogs again. And hopefully I will be able to add pictures to my posts again...but that might take me a while to figure out. Everything with our new computer has taken awhile to figure out. It seems that when you upgrade your system, you also have to upgrade everything else. We had to buy a new printer, and many of my favorite programs now no longer work. That is aggrivating, but it is nice to have a newer system.

Just an update on my life. I have finally moved to be with my husband again (after 7 weeks of being apart). We still have not sold our house. We have had lots of people that love it, but most of them have to sell their own house first. It has been totally depressing. We keep praying that something will happen soon. We figured that I couldn't stay there by myself any longer with the baby coming in 3 weeks. I can't believe how fast this pregnancy has gone, and how guilty I feel that I haven't had time to even think about my new little girl. You know how much you think about your first child...what they will look like, what they will do when they grow up, all the fun things you will do with them. I haven't had time to think of any of that. Now that I have moved I have been able to do a little bit of nesting and at least unpack the baby clothes and set up the crib and changing table (you forget how dang cute those newborn diapers are!). It has been nice to finally be together as a family again, and get in to a routine again. It has also been nice to have some furniture and things! (When my hubby moved, he took everything with him except for a few beds and diningroom chairs....we were camping out in our own house!). I have been busy trying to unpack everything and mingle it with my in-laws things. I have had to pack up quite a bit of their things to make room for our own things. It has taken me a week and a half to get all of the boxes out of the family room. I still have some putting away to do, but we are mostly settled. I want everything to be ready before the baby comes.....which I wish was soon. It is so hard to clean and put away things when you can't bend over! Well that is all for now...but I will be back with more posts soon.