Josephine is here!

It's taken me 2 weeks, but I can finally blog that Jopsephine Elizabeth has arrived! She took her sweet time and made things much more difficult than they needed to be, but we always say that baby is worth it and it's totally true. I got checked on Thursday the 8th and not much was going on. I was disappointed to say the least. That night at 10:30 I was sleeping and my water broke- which shot me awake like a gun! I have never had my water break on my own so this was a crazy thing to experience. Good thing I just bought a watterproof mattress pad last month for our new mattress :) I jumped up expecting to deliver a baby within a couple of hours and made all my phone calls to my "people" but nothing else happened. I kept waiting for contractions to start and they just didn't. I walked the circle for awhile and packed my bag, but nothing. At midnight I called my midwife who told me to come to the hospital as soon as contractions were anything regular because this is baby #4 and they usually come fast. By 9:00 am we just decided to go to the hospital anyway. I prepare for unmedicated births and have had 2 of them that way. I thought this would be no different- I was wrong! We finally started me on pitocin at 11:00 which started 5 minute contractions immediately, but they were so much worse than natural labor pains. This means I had to have fluid put in me and keep an IV in. Then, Josie's heart rate dropped with every contraction so I had to stay hooked up to the monitors. Once you start with all these things the chances of going unmedicated fly out the window.

By 1:00 I was pretty depressed because I wasn't really dialating and the contractions had stopped. So this is me immitating what Josie must be doing on the inside- "I'm not coming out. Can't make me!" After this they jacked up the pitocin, which was awful, but contractions started every 3 minutes. It was at this time the nurse asked how we were going to spell Josie's name. I said j-o-s-i-e and Tim said, or we could spell it j-o-s-e. I had to remind him that spells Jose. (Think Spanish) :) There was lots of concern over her heart by this time, so they had me stay in the bed and try lying in all sorts of differnt positions. Nothing worked, and I was really starting to struggle with the pain of it all. By 2:30 I was still only a 6 and 70%. Then I went through the worst hour of my life where I quietly dealt with feeling like I was going to die. By 3:30 the new plan was to put more fluid inside to try and relieve stress from the baby. They checked me again and I was still a 6 and 70% and was staring to lose it. I asked for an epidural and everyone tried to tell me how close I was and I yelled to get me an epidural NOW! It was the best decision of the day. He came right in and gave me one dose and it didn't numb my legs and feet, just my middle. And it didn't take away all sensation, just the edge of pain was eased so I could handle it. 20 minutes later I felt like I needed to push, so I did. It took about 40 minutes of pushing. Also strange for me, I usually push a couple of times is all. Turns out the cord was around her neck, just like Emmary. When asked afterword how I felt I believe my response was, "It's been a really sucky day!" 18 hours after my water broke Josephine arrived at 4:07 pm.

My first look and snuggle with my baby girl. She was much smaller than I thought she'd be for 39 weeks, but I was just so glad it was all over.

I got to hold Josie skin to skin for a good hour. I was shaking so bad it was kind of hard to do, but she was happy as can be snuggled up on her mommy.

Josie weighed in at 7 lb 1 oz (a full pound smaller than Juliet) and 20 in.

I forgot to mention that we chose the name Josephine after Tim's dad's middle name- Mark Joseph Fowers. It is hard to believe that it has been almost a year since he died.

With our nurse- I can't remember her name- but she was with us all day and got to see Josie delivered. All in all, this was an experience I never want to relive, but like I said, it's worth whatever it took to have a healthy happy baby join our home.

Meeting baby Josie

I was concerned about how Juliet would react to seing me in a hospital bed holding a new baby, so I parked myself on the couch and made sure someone else was holding Josie. Turns out Juliet didn't care. She actually has been so interested in the baby and just loves her. She is so good at saying "baby" now and wants to give her her binkie and love on her all the time. She goes looking for Josie as soon as she wakes up. This is much better than how I thought she'd respond. It has made the transition so much easier for me, but I am still overwealmed most of the time.

Our new family of 6! Emmary reminds me all the time that we have a big family with a lot of people. Yes we do....

This is the best we're gonna get trying to convince 4 kids to sit quietly and say "cheese."

Josie with her eyes sort of open. She has big blue eyes with long eyelashes like the other kids, but I think she looks like Tim's side of the family.

This was actually taken a couple hours after she was born. I am so exhausted and sort of forcing a smile.

What a proud big sister. Emmary so sweetly told me that she thinks she loves Josie more than Juliet :) I told her that's not allowed :>