the teeny tiner family: Welcome to the World, Isla!

It's true, our teeny family has gotten a little bigger!

She tried to arrive on her due date, but Isla didn't manage to make her appearance until the morning of May 20th.

Although this second pregnancy was very similar to my first, there were a few differences. My morning sickness started on week 5 (one week earlier than last time), and lasted until week 17 (one week later than last time). It was also at week 17 that I started feeling her move (3 weeks before I felt movement with Colin). This time I had a lot more cravings, mostly during my morning sickness period, which at different times included chicken strips, beef jerky, and lots of cereal. In fact, cereal was the one thing I ate a ton of during my whole pregnancy. I also developed an aversion to skim milk, which I drank my whole life, and started drinking whole.

Now to the birth story!

I had been feeling braxton hicks contractions for the last few weeks of my pregnancy, something I never experienced with Colin. Combine that with being dilated to a three by week 39, and I was just sure that I was going to have this baby any day. I was scheduled to be induced on May 22, but I kept waiting to go into labor on my own. It wasn't until about the 18th or 19th that I had given up hope, and finally admitted to myself that Isla would not be getting here before the 22nd. So the night of Sunday, May 19th, was a surprise when Megan, Matt, and I are watching TV and I started having pains in my stomach. I thought it was indigestion or the way she was positioned in there, so I tried to ignore it for awhile. Matt went to bed, and Megan and I kept watching TV. But by 11:00 I started paying more attention to the pains and timing them...they were pretty consistent and started out about 15 minutes apart. It wasn't until about midnight when I was in our room throwing things into my hospital bag that Matt woke up and I told him I was in labor.

My doctor had told me to go to the hospital if my water broke or I was having strong contractions every 3 minutes. Well, I live about 25 minutes from the hospital, so I figured if I left when they were 4 to 5 minutes apart, it would work out. So by 1:30 am or so, my contractions were becoming pretty painful and were about every 5 minutes, so we left. I finally got back to a bed in labor and delivery by 2:15, but I was still only dilated between a 3 and 4, so the nurse said they would monitor me for 2 hours at which point, if I hadn't progressed, they would send me home. Gasp! I was in so much pain...I wasn't sure what I would do if they sent me home.

So I lay in pain for the next hour having painful contractions every 3-5 minutes. I even threw up at one point. Then when the nurse came to check on me by 3:30ish, I had progressed to 7 cm. Hallelujah! The nurse sprang into action to start my IV and order my epidural. That was the part I was really excited about. Too bad it wasn't until closer to 5 am that I actually got the epidural. It could NOT come fast enough. I was really short-tempered and was not very nice to Matt during that time :) I also remember saying, "I don't want to do this anymore!" to him a few times. I will never give birth without an epidural--I can tell you that much.

Once I got my epidural, I could still feel the contractions on my right side, so after 45 minutes of that, the anesthesiologist came back to give me a second dose which completely deadened my left leg and finally gave me relief on my right side. The same exact thing happened with Colin's delivery...

Although my doctor was at the hospital, she had told the nurse that once my epidural was working all the way she would come and break my water. Quite awhile later...she showed up. Maybe by 7:15? She broke my water, at which point meconium exploded all over the bed making the doctor jump.

It was at that point that the doctor and nurses jumped into action. They called the nursery to send a respiratory specialist down because of the meconium, and the nurses had me start pushing while the doctor got ready for the delivery. I only pushed once with the nurses before they made me stop and let the doctor finish getting dressed because this baby was ready! It only took another 2 pushes with the doctor before Isla was really here at 7:39 am. Only 9 hours of labor and less than 5 minutes of pushing? So awesome!

And from the minute they suctioned out her nose and mouth, she was screaming. The respiratory specialist took her out into the hall to check her over and we could still hear her screaming from down the hall. The nursery nurse kept commenting to us that she's never heard a newborn baby scream like that. And she screamed so much that day that she was a little hoarse for two days after.

She's a great eater and super cute! Colin just adores her and loves to help change her diaper, give her baths, and burp her. And he probably gives her 100 kisses a day. These two kids are keeping me busy, and I'm loving almost every minute of it :)