I am so excited that Emery is finally here and that I get to write her birth story. Things actually worked out super well timing wise and unlike Levi, this sweet little miss didn't make me wait around for her! My mom came out on Tuesday along with Carma and Travis and their family. Unfortunately, Noah, Carma's littlest came down with an ear infection so Travis had to take him to urgent care! So their visit was a little more interrupted and crazy than either they or we would have liked. However, we still got to see them and spend a little time together which was super nice.
My mom took Levi to see the big digger at the library on Wednesday while I was at work. She said he thought it was kind of cool, but that really he was more interested in playing with the water in the fountain with Lincoln haha.
Wednesday and Thursday were my last two days of work and I got the chance to say goodbye to my teams and get everything nicely wrapped up and ready for Ha to take over. I got a lot of requests for baby pictures and lots of well wishes. I am glad that I am going to be back in the fall because I feel like I have been able to establish a really good relationship with all my teams and I think we can get a lot more good done next year since I won't be spending so much time just figuring out how everything works! Haha.
Friday, Levi, my mom, Katie and I went strawberry picking! I absolutely LOVE how living here we only have to go a short drive and we are in beautiful farmland with lots of you-pick opportunities. The fruit is just SOOO good when you are able to pick it yourself right when it's ripe! And it's totally reasonably priced too. So we picked 4 pounds of strawberries and they were amazingly delicious.
I love how pleased he looks as he surveys our pickings!
Levi lost patience with the actually strawberry picking itself pretty quickly but thankfully Grandma took him to play on the little playground they had there so he liked that. And he was very happy to get to help me make a strawberry cake the next day! We called it baby girl's birthday cake because it was her due date! We even sang her Happy Birthday. And we ended up being only one day off :)
The cake was delicious! So good to use fresh, ripe strawberries! No food coloring needed because the strawberries were so red!
On Saturday, I had a few contractions during the day and then in the evening, my contractions started to be more regular so I started to time them. I was getting really excited that she might actually be born on her due date! I made sure our hospital bag was all packed and ready to go and we all watched The Greatest Showman while I timed contractions. But, much to my disappointment, after about 2 hours, the contractions got farther apart and then just went away entirely.
Sunday morning I woke up feeling like my normal pregnant self. I was disappointed that baby girl hadn't come the night before but I was trying to hope that if I was still pregnant by Tuesday that having my midwife strip my membranes would put me into labor.
We went to church and during Sacrament meeting my contractions started coming back. They weren't painful at all but I could feel them. I started unobtrusively timing them on my phone again and they continued throughout church although inconsistently. They would stop and go away for 15 min or so randomly. People at church gave me a lot of sympathetic looks and words about how sorry they were that I was still pregnant. Haha. I kept the contractions to myself until after church when I let Eric know. I continued to time my contractions throughout the afternoon. They still weren't getting super consistent. They would be 6 min apart and then 10 or so minutes apart but they weren't going away so I was hopeful! After Levi woke up from his nap, I was feeling frustrated that my contractions didn't seem to be progressing and so we decided to go for a family walk. Well, that did the trick! We walked around the block and it really kicked things into gear! My contractions got a lot closer together consistently and finally started to feel a little more intense and uncomfortable. I started having to stop walking and breathe through my contractions. When we got home from our walk, I wanted to see if things would slow down again or keep going before deciding to go to the hospital. I told Eric that if things were still consistent that we should go in 15 minutes or so. But then I went back to our room to get the baby monitor for Mom and suddenly I had a pretty intense contraction and my water broke! I called to Eric and told him what happened and then I jumped in the shower to clean off. After I changed, we gave Levi hugs, grabbed our bags and headed to the hospital! After my water broke, the contractions got a lot closer together and a lot more intense. Up until then, they hadn't really been painful at all but at this point they were really uncomfortable.
On the 20 min drive to the hospital, my contractions became about 2 minutes apart and I had to squeeze Eric's hand and just focus on breathing. When we got to the hospital, it took a while to walk to the front doors because I had to keep stopping due to contractions! We went to the labor and delivery desk and I just sat in a wheelchair that was there while Eric checked us in. They called down an L&D nurse and she took what I felt like was forever to meander down the hallway to us. She definitely did not think I was as far progressed as I was. She wheeled me slowly down to L&D and asked about my contractions and I could barely even answer her. I was a little annoyed she didn't seem to be taking me seriously. But thankfully she let me skip triage and took me straight to a room. She gave me a gown to change into and left. Eric helped me change and then I just got on the bed because I didn't know what to do. Haha. No one was coming in so we pushed the call button and I told them, "hey these contractions are right on top of each other!" because I was not really getting breaks anymore. So the nurse came back in and thankfully they started getting things going. They got me some nitrous oxide (after what felt like forever for them to bring it!) and started an IV. Then my midwife, Dana, who had taken care of me through my whole pregnancy, showed up! She had actually just finished her shift but heard I had checked in so she came to say hi. She told me she had to leave but I asked her stay and she did! She was my savior during the delivery. She sat on my bed and breathed with me through my contractions and she was the one who made sure the nitrous was actually on and working. And she was the one who realized that I was ready to push. I had no idea I was that close to actually having the baby but with one of my contractions, I realized that it felt a little better if I pushed with it. Dana noticed me pushing a little and asked me if I felt like pushing and I was like, "little pushes" (which honestly doesn't make much sense but that's what I said haha). Then Dana checked and she was like, "You need to put your gloves on!" to the midwife who was actually on duty and supposed to be delivering my baby but totally wasn't even ready yet! Thankfully she got her gloves on fast because the next contraction I felt baby's head crown and pushed and with three pushes that contraction, Emery was born! I was completely in shock because it all happened so fast! I couldn't believe she was suddenly there! It was 35 minutes after we had gotten to the hospital.
They put Emery on my belly, they couldn't raise her all the way up to my chest because the cord was still attached and too short to reach. The first thing she did when they put her on me was poop all over me! Haha. I was shaking like crazy and felt like I could barely hold her and I was bleeding a lot.
After I delivered the placenta and they let Eric cut the cord and then a nurse offered to take Emery and wipe her off a little bit because she was covered in blood and meconium. I gladly let her take her because I was still having such a hard time processing everything! They told me that I had a little tear and that even though it was just a first-degree tear (thank heaven!) they needed to stitch it up because I was bleeding a lot. They also had a push a drug through my IV to help me stop bleeding. I was shaking like crazy and had a lot of anxiety about being stitched up because of how horrible it was with Levi. I was a huge baby about it, I feel bad for the OB who came to stitch me up! I was still totally sucking down the nitrous but I think what I was really feeling was anxiety, not pain. Eric stayed with me as I got stitched because I was kind of freaking out but as soon as the doctor finished, he took off his shirt and did some skin to skin with Emery. I felt so bad that no one was holding her while they were stitching me up but I was really in no state to hold her due to the shock and shaking and she honestly was fine just laying swaddled up in the warmer.
Anyway, after the OB finished stitching me up, the nurses helped me get cleaned up and find a relatively comfortable position in the bed and then I was finally ready to hold my baby girl! I lay on my side and nursed her and she latched on almost right away with only a little help from me! She looked so perfect with her sweet chubby cheeks and double chin.
The nurses kept monitoring my vitals as I lay there with baby girl because I had lost a lot of blood but thankfully my blood pressure stayed ok and after a couple hours in the L&D room, Eric, Emery and I got to move upstairs to our regular hospital room. I was nervous about sitting in the wheelchair to go upstairs but to my surprise (and delight) sitting was fine! It was sooo different from when Levi was born!
Baby girl's first morning.
She looks a lot like Levi to me in this picture except for her nose which is totally different.
I feel like she looks like a little old lady in this picture! So cute!
I ditched the annoying hospital gown pretty quickly and just chilled in my nursing bra and underwear instead. I love how Emery has her hands all folded up in this picture!
Levi meeting Emery for the first time was just so adorable. He was so sweet and excited about her!
Emery practices her smiles a lot! I feel like she will be a more smiley baby than Levi.
In her carseat ready to head home! I feel like she doesn't even look like a newborn in this picture!
I love her coming home outfit!
This whole post partum period has been so different from what it was with Levi and so much easier! The afterbirth pains with nursing were super intense and painful at first but thankfully those only lasted the first couple of days and since then, I haven't really had any pain at all! Which is just such a night and day difference than with Levi. And nursing has been so much easier. Of course it was still pretty painful at first but it's already getting better and baby girl latches without much help and stays on the whole time and eats great. And she eats so much faster than Levi! 10-15 min/side and she's done until 2-3 hours later! And it's just so much less stressful because feeding her isn't a battle. I just hold her and she latches on and eats and then she's done. Also, so far, Emery is a really chill baby. She sleeps a lot both at night and during the day and she doesn't fuss much except in the evenings when she wants to cluster feed (which we do, but she wants to nurse literally constantly and I do draw the line at that! haha). And she's gone 4 hours at night between feedings for two nights which is great!
Little lady does great in her swing. Makes life a lot easier!
She also loves to sleep on daddy's shoulder. And I love how she tries to raise her eyebrows to open her eyes!
Cutest yawn!
This sleepy smile! I can't even!
I just love seeing the two of them together!
So yeah, that's how things have been! Levi is struggling to adjust as it totally understandable. He loves baby sister and regularly gives her hugs and kisses and wants to touch her, but he also has completely glomed onto Eric and wants him to play with him constantly. And he has really been testing his boundaries a lot. I feel bad because I miss playing with him and sometimes I feel like all I do is feed Emery, but I know that this newborn phase will pass quickly and Levi and I will still have lots of great together time this summer.
Levi has taken to grabbing contraband from our room or the kitchen and running off with it. Tonight he stole the pizza cutter off the counter after dinner and ran to his room and tried to slice his bed with it! In this picture, he had snuck the bag of rice off a shelf without anyone noticing and started cooking rice in his kitchen! When we found him, I asked him what he was doing and he said "cooking rice" and when I asked him what he was putting on the rice he said "ketchup" haha.
Jam goatee! Big brother really is growing up fast! Haha
