"Are We Really Having a Baby? Tonight?"

So, here is the "birth story" I've been working on for a week. Yes, it's long. Feel free to just scroll through and look at the pictures- there are a lot of them! :) 

...

Are we really having a baby tonight?
Who else do we need to call or email?!

What just happened? Oh, we had a baby. We are now the parents of TWO little girls. One extra little. Olivia Ruth Peterson joined our family, unexpectedly, on Sunday night, 10 June, at 10:49. She was barely 6 pounds, 17 inches long and has dark hair. (When we get a little time to get her newborn pictures done with my sister, we'll post the official baby announcement).

Early labor

Olivia wasn't due until July 7th but it seems she was ready to come. Thankfully, I'm a nut and perhaps take after my mom a bit with my desire to get things done early. The nursery has been put together and stocked for weeks, I've been doing my best to get the whole house cleaned, organized and kept that way and about a week ago, I had a strange sudden desire to get my bag and an overnight bag for Sophie packed and put in the car. Just in case. At my 35 week appointment I was prescribed some medicine to help stop the contractions. I was going to be kept on those until 37 weeks (yesterday) so I was sort of planning on things happening this coming weekend. Here's what actually happened.

About an hour before she was born

Sunday morning I woke up feeling extra sore- like I had been doing the splits without stretching and as if my hips had been tugged on a little too roughly. We got ready for church, went and despite the cramps and contractions, stayed so Sophie could go to nursery. I'd been dealing with those for a long while, after all. As soon as we got home, we all ate a nice, big lunch, Craig and Sophie went right to sleep. I wasn't overly tired at that point so I read, sent some emails and then decided to take a nap right about the time Craig was waking up. That nap lasted about 2 hours. Craig came up stairs to wake me up a while later so we could do dinner (supposed to be frozen pizza and veggies) and I was not a happy camper. Sunday Rule #1: do NOT wake me up if I'm napping. Craig broke rule #1. He was kind enough, at least, to come back in the room and help me sit up (when you're 36 weeks pregnant, sitting up on your own can be tough.) At that point, I knew we had a problem. I was suddenly wet. I went to the bathroom. I was still wet. And upset. I called my sister who told me to calm down (she had her little guy between 35 & 36 weeks) and go to the hospital to be sure. I was even crazy enough to ask Craig to take a sniff to see if I hadn't just wet my pants. (When there is that much pressure on your bladder, it's not unusual.) I called my mom. More upset. She had bought her tickets the day before for July 2nd. Once again, my mom wasn't going to be able to be there when I was having a baby. Then it was Craig's turn to make a phone call. David & Jamie have had Sophie over several times and they were happy to have her again.

Ready for the baby

After those arrangements had been made, Craig ran around like a mildly crazy person getting shoes, helping me dress, loading Sophie in the car and who knows what else. By about 5:30, we were on our way. We dropped Sophie off with David & Jamie in Orem- Sophie was happy to get out and go until she realized we weren't staying. Last I saw of her as we were leaving was her crying and trying to run back out the door. Yes, I cried. A lot. Craig might have been hit pretty hard when he started making fun.

This is surprisingly easy this time! 

Once we got to the hospital, things happened really fast. We were in triage for a grand total of 5 minutes (changed clothes, checked and checked the fluid to be sure it was amnionic) before being moved to a delivery room. I really couldn't believe this was happening. I was 36 weeks and 1 day, had been at my doctors office just a couple days before and I was still only dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced like I had been for a week prior. Here we were now, at a 3 or 4 (I don't remember), water broken and almost completely effaced. Uh... what is going on? I had felt like for a while she was going to be born early. I even thought she was going to be born on a Sunday but I really thought it was going to be Fathers Day- a whole week later than when she came.

Olivia

From there we made a ton of phone calls, sent text messages and generally tried to get things arranged for work, Sophie accommodations with my sister and her family, process the fact that I was actually going to have a baby right then whether I wanted to or not and so on. It was a lot pretty fast.

Right after she was born! 

We had a great nurse and the floor was very quiet that evening, unlike when Sophie was born. (It was really busy when she came.) After being watched for half an hour, an IV with fluid and pitocin was started since my contractions had stopped. Go figure. Regular, strong contractions for a long time and then nothing once we need them. Once the pitocin started, the contractions were barely noticeable to me. It was upped every half hour. Since I was induced with Sophie, I had gotten an epidural pretty early in the process. Call me crazy but I wanted to see how long I could go before I wanted a little help. I was very surprised with myself- I went quite a long time with a LOT of pitocin at that point (16 units per minute) and dilated to a 4 or 5 when I decided to get the epidural around 9:30. The whole "don't come in until you can't talk through your contractions" thing probably won't be an indicator for me if we ever have more kids. At an hour before she was born, I was still okay. Go figure.

Brand new baby girl

Anyway, it wasn't very long after (about 10:00 according to my text messages with my mom) that I was completely effaced and dilated between a 5 & 6. When the nurse came in to check me 15 minutes or so later, I was pretty much ready to go. We called my sister to come -who we had told a few minutes before to wait to come until 11:00- as the rest of the medical team got ready. The neonatal respiratory team was called to be there for the birth since she was coming so early and there was a risk of her lungs not being ready to take care of her. Everyone was moving pretty quickly and I was trying to come up with a way to slow things down a bit so my sister could be there to take pictures of Olivia and hold the iPad we were facetiming on with my mom. She got there JUST in time.

Daddy and his newest little lady

Once the doctor got there- Dr. Haskett who has been on-call every single time we've been in L&D and when we called when I was sick in Hawaii- we were set to go. It took a grand total of two full contractions and a half, which I could feel but weren't painful thanks to the epidural, until she was born and on my chest. About 3 minutes. Works for us!

She was not impressed with
her first bath

She did look a little blue when she was born and took a second to cry but she was okay! We were able to hold her while I had a little repair work done and show her to my mom. A few minutes later, maybe 10?, the whole room was cleaned and empty. It was very nice to spend some time together before she was taken to the nursery for a little respiratory help/testing and her bath. Craig went with her and Erin stayed with me and helped me get things downstairs to our room for the remainder of our stay. Craig and I spent a while with Olivia in the nursery before being taken to the room to get some rest. I think I was finally in bed around 2:00. I don't know what time Craig finally went to bed. Olivia was on a baby CPAP twice during the night but was able to come to us in the morning. She's tiny and darling and perfect and we all love her!

Our tiny girl on the newborn CPAP.
I hope we don't ever have to do this again.
The tiny IV, heel pokes, tubes... We're
SO thankful she's healthy now! 

In a future post, we'll tell you all about Sophie meeting her baby, coming home, adjusting to a sleep/feeding schedule and all of the other fun that has been a part of our blur of a first week! :)