Our Sweet Valentine

Well, it's been 10 days that we've had our baby girl in our family. Today was actually my official due date, and I cannot imagine if I had still been pregnant. I would have been miserable!
Here's the story: At about 5 pm on Monday evening the 13th, I started having pretty regular although not painful contractions. So I started working, I scrubbed the kitchen, I made dinner, I ran up and down the stairs. Dan got home from work and after a while he convinced me we better call my mom and have her come over to be with the boys. She came, and Gary and Brett. We headed out the door around 7:30. I made Dan stop at Harmon's so we could get batteries for the camera. On the way to the hospital (25 minutes) I had a total of about 3 contractions-they totally slowed down since I wasn't running around anymore. Then you have that battle in your head because you don't want the nurses to send you home because you're not really in labor yet. When we got to the hospital Dan was willing to walk down one of the sidewalk paths with me and I did lots of jumping jacks. We checked in and I was STOKED because my nurse was Laura, I had worked with before she transferred to labor and delivery. If I had my #1 choice it was her. So she put me in bed, hooked up the monitors and updated my admit information.
She checked me and I was the same as I had been in the office the Thursday previous, 4 cm. She said, "You have an hour. You can stay here or walk the halls. If you progress, great; if not, you go home." So Dan put up with me and walked for almost the whole hour. And more jumping jacks. Dan timed the contractions and I was having them every 2-3 minutes but I realized as the hour was almost up that they really weren't lasting very long. So I felt kinda discouraged as I climbed in the bed and said, "You'll probably be sending me home..." Well, she checked and said, "No, you're a good 5 cm!" Yay! So she started an IV, drew some blood and called the doctor. Seems like something happened about every hour. The resident came in to do an ultrasound and make sure the baby was head down and broke my water. I wanted an epidural a little later but the anesthesiologist was putting one in for someone else. When he came in, it was the same man who did my epidural for Joseph. Really nice guy. Dan said afterwards that it looked like he could have placed it with his eyes closed. I wondered how many he's done during his career. A bit later the doctor on-call for my doctor came in and said she wanted to start pitocin. About 40 minutes later I started to feel pressure so I called my nurse. She came in and I said, "I either need to push or I need a bedpan." She checked me and I was completely dilated. So she went to call the doctor. Turns out she was in the middle of delivering someone else. Bad timing twice, eh? So I took a hit on the epidural button and waited. After she came in, Miss Elizabeth Suzanne (Elizabeth for my mom and Suzanne is my middle name) was born after 3 pushes. Nice! Born at 1:51 am on Tuesday February 14! What a fun birthday for a little girl! So we held her and I fed her and we tried to rest. Yeah right. I got about 45 minutes at a time for the rest of the night and the following day. I got transferred to maternity about 3:30, they check again at 4:30, did baby's bath after that, I had to use the bathroom at 6. At 7 the pediatrician came, at 8, my own doctor came, at 9 the picture person, at 10 the social worker, at 10:15 my Dad! I was glad to see him and from there it went like that for about the rest of the day. Dan brought the boys after Joser got home from school. I finally slept that night for about 3 hours at a time between feeding the baby. That's all folks!
We're so glad she's here to be in our family. It's amazing to think about the people who sent her off from heaven. With the boys there was my great-grandmother and my great aunt, but this time there were people I was much closer to, like Grandma Folsom and Grandpa Glen and David. Love that thought, that they kissed her and held her before she came to our arms. Hope you like these pics: