Phoebe Lynn was born July 29, at 1:30 p.m. and she was 6 lbs 11 oz, 19 1/4 in. long.
Naturally, since I've now had two kids I can't help but compare the two births. Phoebe's was easier than Logan's (
Logan's birth part 1,
Logan's birth part 2). In so many ways.
You can go back and read his story if you want, but for this post I'll keep it short with a picture demonstration.
Mari after Logan.
Mari after Phoebe.
Really, there's nothing more to say about that.
Let's look at the full-term pregnancy pictures too, just for kicks.
Logan.
Phoebe. (we took this right before we left for the hospital)
So, her birth story needs to start the Friday before she was born. I went to a regular doctor visit to get checked out. We had decided to do an induction the next Wednesday and I was super excited to have a date for the baby. Logan was late and since her due date was that Wednesday I was thrilled that I wouldn't have to go overdue (which I accidentally just spelled overdie and is exactly what going overdue feels like) again.
As I was putting my pants back on (don't think about that too much) my slightly sweaty toe got caught in the fabric. Being enormously pregnant and already off balance does not bode well for trying to stand on one foot for any period of time.
I awkwardly hopped and tried to work my foot through the leg of my pants but to no avail.
I was going down.
But I was worried about landing on the hard floor on my belly and there was nothing to grab onto so I jerked my foot down to break my fall.
And somehow broke my toe.
It's really the best days that get TWO visits to a doctor.
So that hurt.
And, as a little more background to the story, Tyson got some sort of fevery flu on Friday night, and Tyson's family was in Utah for a reunion until Sunday night.
The weekend was not a good time to have a baby.
But alas, she had other plans.
Sunday morning at 4:30 am I rolled over in bed and felt a little trickle. My first thought was "huh, I didn't realize I had to pee that bad." Bladder control can be a bit of an issue at this point in pregnancy but I thought I had been doing pretty well until then. So I went to the bathroom and laid back down. Rolled over and felt another trickle.
Huh.
Now I was feeling suspicious.
So I got up again, put a pad on and limped around my bedroom for a few minutes to see if anything else would happen. Tyson was sleeping in the guest room since he didn't want to infect me with his fever and I didn't want to wake him up if I was really just wetting myself.
Well it didn't take long for me to decide that yes, my water broke (just like in the movies! but not) and I should probably let Tyson know.
"Hey babe? I'm pretty sure my water broke but I'm not having contractions or anything so there's no rush. In fact, I'm going to take a shower before we leave so you can just go back to sleep. No big deal."
I love that I thought he'd be able to sit back and relax after I told him that.
So I did take a shower and got ready while texting a few friends trying to work out child care for Logan. I was planning on waiting until he woke up to leave, but as I was trying to pick something up off the floor a gush of water came and soaked through my pants. Which made me suddenly nervous and I decided that we should go ahead and leave right then.
Poor Tyson, who had been obeying my instructions to take it easy, didn't even get breakfast before I rushed him out the door. My bad.
We got checked into the hospital around 6:30 and after blowing the first vein she tried, the nurse finally got me hooked up to an iv.
I was glad when that was over because I had lots of people to text that morning.
After being hooked up for a while and getting fluids going, we decided to start pitocin around 9:30 because my body wasn't contracting on its own.
As the contractions started getting going I really wanted to walk through them. It took forever for me to get hooked up to the monitors because my stomach was a weird shape (?) and they were sliding off but I finally got out of the room.
For about 10 minutes.
I only made one round through labor and delivery when my doctor called me back in. The baby's heart rate was dropping with each contraction and my doctor was worried that the cord was being pinched.
Back in bed :(
They couldn't find a place where the cord was being pinched but they wanted a better read on her heartbeat so they put an internal monitor on Phoebe's head. It took three tries and three separate monitors to finally get it hooked on there and the doctor got me all excited when she said it wasn't working very well because she must have lots of hair.
At this point I was dilated to a 5 and my doctor said if I wanted an epidural now would probably be a good time to do it. She thought the rest of my labor would go quickly and better now than never. I was happy to get one with her blessing.
Epidural went in easy around noon and 10 minutes later I was happily in no pain.
Bonus! Broken toe, also numb.
A couple minutes later the nurses handed me an oxygen mask to make sure the baby was getting what she needed even with her heart rate dropping. This was becoming eerily reminiscent of Logan's birth which ended painfully so I got a little freaked out at this point.
Since I was in labor for about 11 hours after I got the epidural for Logan, I was expecting several more hours of labor and settled down for the long haul.
About an hour after I had last gotten checked I was telling Tyson that I think I could feel some of that pressure that everyone talks about as the baby descends. I felt absolutely nothing with Logan and I was glad that I could feel a little bit this time.
Just a couple minutes after I told him that, the doctor came in because she wanted to check me one more time before lunch.
Good thing because I was at a 10 and ready to go!
Before I even started pushing the doctor told me that she could see her head and that she had tons of hair. I got excited again and she asked if I wanted a mirror.
Um. No.
We chatted as we waited for a contraction and I eyed the clock because I wanted to keep track of how long I was going to push for. Since I had a vacuum assisted delivery with Logan I wasn't really sure if I knew how to push or not.
One contraction and three pushes later she was out.
It took like 30 seconds.
Whoa.
I had to get an episiotomy because I had so much scar tissue from before and the doctor was worried I would tear really badly through that if she didn't control it a little. But it turns out a second degree tear is way better than a third degree and recovery has been so much easier.
They weren't lying about the hair. And apparently warm baths and having it brushed are totally her thing.
I have to admit that leaving the hospital was way harder this time. It was so nice to have some quiet bonding time with her without any interruptions. I missed my Logie boy, but I loved being able to focus on just her for a little while. Also, people would bring me cranberry juice mixed with sprite whenever I wanted.
Naturally I've tried on every headband she has and now I'm dying to get a million more just to see what they look like.
Before we knew it, it was time to take her home and start our life as a family of four!
Our first family picture :)
Don't worry, things got better.
