A whole week late but DONE. I can’t skip the week I had a baby – you would miss so many brand new baby photos! There will be a lot more babywearing selfies happening from this week forward.

Sunday:

Living that #lakelife

Goodbye lake! See you next summer!

I really need to have a baby soon, I have no clothes that fit

Monday:

Really very much so done with this

SO HAPPY TO BE IN THE HOSPITAL

Hospital crushed ice = perfection

Tuesday:

BRAND NEW!

Paparazzi attack already

Someone missed me while I wasn’t home

Wednesday:

I’m quickly remembering what the middle of the night looks like

Can’t stop won’t stop

Actual first day picture, taken by someone else

Thursday:

Squishy faaaaace

Naps

Gave the baby to the toddler so everyone could relax

Friday:

Early morning wake up call

PEACE OUT

So chubby

Saturday:

I forgot how much I hate carrying these things around

The toddler missed us all

And I missed the toddler too

Even though they let us go home, the whole next week was full of doctor’s appointments and a trip back to the hospital for Finn’s jaunice. It’s my least favorite and it seems to happen every time I have a baby. One more 2 week check up to get through and then hopefully we go to normal, infrequent appointments and I can spend all that time snuggling babies instead.

Introducing our fourth child…

My birth story is decidedly average, with nothing super interesting or noteworthy happening. But since I like reading birth stories no matter what, I’m assuming other people do too.

My due date was August 28th, and although I’ve been preparing myself to go at least a week late (I did with both Evan and Linc) I was SO SO DONE when I got to my weekly exam on Monday the 29th. DONE. I had enough of the heartburn and insomnia and peeing every 20 minutes and sciatica and pelvic pain and throwing up (I was still throwing up every morning when I got out of bed) and being incredibly uncomfortable 24 hours a day. I had made it past all our vacations and commitments and E was back from his work trips and my mom had just gotten into town to help with the kids. So basically, everyone was sitting around waiting for me to have a baby but I was in too much pain to walk 10 miles a day to start labor.

I’d been taking evening primrose oil for a while, since it’s on The Internet’s List Of Things That Might Start Labor But Who Actually Knows. I’d also been drinking gallons of red raspberry leaf tea, eating all my food with extra hot sauce (and then crying myself to sleep because my heartburn was so bad) and doing as much walking as I could handle. I’d had a couple of evenings of steady, increasing contractions but they always faded away before I seriously considered going to the hospital. I had refused any checks to see how far along I was because in the past they’ve always been very discouraging, so when I went in at 10 for my appointment I didn’t know what to expect. OK, that’s not quite true. I knew I had either a UTI or a kidney infection. I knew my midwife wasn’t against induction. And I knew if she offered me one I would say yes.

I was right about all those things. My UTI turned out to be caused by e.coli, so I needed treatment. (Sidebar: it must be some sort of non-terrible e.coli though, because I wasn’t any sicker than I regularly am with a UTI. I wouldn’t have even treated it beyond cranberry juice and Tylenol if I hadn’t already been under a doctor’s care.) My blood pressure was high enough that it fell in the hypertensive range and I needed to go up to L&D for a non-stress test anyway. And my midwife could see how tired and stressed I was. Right after I got upstairs she came in and said “So do you want to have a baby?” Yes, yes I do.

If you had told me before I had my first child that someday I would happily and joyfully agree to an almost-elective induction, I would have called you a liar. And at the time I would have been right. But 3 births later, I was perfectly comfortable saying yes. I had a few moments of doubt when things got slow and I didn’t manage to have a baby by 8 pm (which had been my secret goal). I’m not someone who enjoys or longs for a natural, unmedicated birth. I think people who do are amazing and with my second pregnancy I briefly thought about giving it a try, but that one ended with pre-eclampsia and a definitely-medically-necessary induction. I used to think I’d like to know what it’s like to have my water break spontaneously, and then that happened with my third pregnancy, where I almost ruined our mattress and carpet. So this time, my only real wish was to get the baby OUT.

I went to the hospital around 3 pm. I hung out, E left to wrangle the kids and gather up the stuff I forgot, I bounced on the birth ball (I really loved the ball, I wish I had bought one for home), eventually they decided I was definitely progressing so they would start pitocin and break my water. A little later I got an epidural, hung out some more, finally agreed on a name with E, and waited. I ended up with a very slight fever (possibly the UTI, possibly something else?) and they stopped pitocin for several hours which let me get some sleep. But I woke up on Tuesday and felt like having a baby, so we started again. The doctor on call was one of the good ones, he was patient and trusted me to trust myself. Despite the fact that their monitors weren’t showing the contractions super close together, I could tell they were strong and if I were to try pushing things would happen. I secretly tried pushing. Things happened. So I told the nurse and the doctor and they did all the room switch-over stuff for birth and then everyone waited while I did a practice push to prove I could get the baby out. They were all very impressed with my pushing skills. It’s really the only part of birth I’m particularly good at. I was so good at it, my husband and my nurse forgot to help me hold up my legs and I remember thinking “this is nonsense, I don’t want to hold my own legs AND do all the work!” But everything happened so fast I didn’t have time to vocalize my complaint before I had a baby!

The doctor called him a bruiser. Everyone made sort of terrified faces at how enormous my baby was. My guess pre-birth was that he would be 9 lbs 4 oz AT LEAST and E said no more than 9 lbs, so even though they gave us lots of time to cuddle and nurse before they took him off to the scale, we really wanted them to weigh him. 9 pounds 13 oz is a LOT of baby. Plus also I was closer, so I win.

Because they had given me antibiotics while in labor, we had to stay for a minimum of 48 hours. Then his bilirubin levels came back high and they kept us another night. We finally got to come home…but right now as I type this E and Finn are back in the hospital so Finnegan can spend some time under the lights to help him get his bili levels down. I managed to pump so much milk in the past couple days trying to stay comfortable as it came in (I have oversupply issuses, which sound silly, because most people worry about undersuply. But let me tell you, oversuply is nooooo fun) that E can stay the whole 24 hours without me having to go back. I’m not going to completely abandon him – my natural urge to stay near my baby combined with the mom guilt of letting other people take care of him plus the fact that this breast pump is just NOT as effective as an actual baby means I’m eager to get back and nurse and cuddle and spend some time with Finn. But I really really reallyreallyreally REALLY really really appreciate that E is willing to do this part. He missed a lot of stuff after Linc was born because he had to go to sea (including a nearly idetical trip back to L&D for 24 hours under the lights) and the experience of doing it alone was really hard for me. It sounds silly to say “traumatic”, but the second I heard Finn’s bili levels were high I started feeling anxious and I’ve barely slept since then. I don’t like hanging out in hospitals.

Fingers crossed that 24 hours is all Finn will need and then we’ll just be done forever with the birthing center at our hospital.

I meant to do a really good job documenting this birth, but it turns out that’s hard to do. I felt very distracted and had no desire to pick up my camera at all until several hours after all the birth stuff was over. But I did take a few. I’ll have the official Fresh 48 photos up later this week too.

I never made it in for a pedicure pre-baby. Now I probably never will.

These cups full of crushed iced and water are the BEST part about the hospital. I love that ice.

Me: HONEY QUICK GIVE ME THE CAMERA SO I CAN CHECK THE SETTINGS BECAUSE I’M ABOUT TO HAVE A BABY

All the kids really love holding the baby. It’s adorable.

Thank you to everyone for the well wishes!! We could not be happier to be a family of 6 and hope we will all be back under one roof again soon.

Lincoln Scott Davis
July 23, 2014
12:52 am
9 lbs, 21.5 inches

(Doesn’t that baby look like the baby model that came with the announcement? THAT’S MY ACTUAL BABY.)

Birth story disclaimer: It’s a birth story, read at your own risk. Also looooong.

I made it 6 days past my due date with my “oh you’ll definitely go early” baby, which was the longest 6 days of my life. It was actually more like the longest 3 weeks of my life, since I was thinking I was about to pop ANY SECOND since I hit 38 weeks. Literally every time I left the house I planned in my head what I would do when (not if) my water broke. I had started psyching myself up for having a baby in the car or in my bathroom or at Target because obviously once my water broke the baby would basically fall out, right? I mean, I was huge. There was a ton of water. It was my 3rd baby and things are supposed to go faster.

NOT QUITE. I had an induction scheduled and then canceled because it was “elective” and the maternity floor was too full. Luckily E’s schedule was pushed back a few days (again) so I wasn’t AS panicked but I was still HUGELY PREGNANT. People who are hugely pregnant don’t like to be told they have to remain hugely pregnant indefinitely.

But I did get the one thing I wanted: to experience my water breaking spontaneously, like in a movie. Oh no, my water broke! Must be time to head to the hospital! Look at that adorable little puddle!

LIES! All lies. I don’t recommend it.

On Tuesday morning I woke up to a gush and thought “Oh! So that’s what that feels like!” And then I sat up and water poured out of me like a river and thought “Oh man, this is kind of unpleasant.” And then I shoved the towel I was keeping next to the bed between my legs and tried to waddle to the bathroom, still leaking everywhere but now with contractions on top of it and thought “Nope nope nope nope”. I ended up using every spare towel we had to half-heartedly clean up fluid before taking a shower and just hoping most of it was done draining out. (It wasn’t. I went to the hospital with a hand towel in my pants. I threw it away.) If it had happened in public you wouldn’t be reading this right now because I would have willed the earth to open up and swallow me whole.

Once we got to the hospital nothing happened. I had a non-stress test scheduled for that morning anyway, so they put me on the monitors. I should have stayed home longer so I could eat and walk around and lie on my couch, but again, I was pretty much expecting the baby to FALL OUT so when we got there and I was at 2 cm I was both shocked and disappointed. Since my water was broken (they didn’t even check, the doctor said “Yeah, you had so much water if you said it broke I BELIEVE YOU”) they did want to keep me though. so I tried to get comfortable and just enjoy the last few hours with my inside baby.

It was pretty boring. E and I played cribbage, just like we did when I was in labor with Evan. He beat me every time, just like when I was in labor with Evan. By the afternoon I was still mostly just sitting there, contracting but not super painfully, and they asked if I wanted to start pitocin. I told them that was fine but I would need the matching epidural. The very nice anesthesiologist came and stuck me with needles and then the magic epidural made me feel totally drunk and I was MUCH HAPPIER. It was exactly the right amount of numb, where I can move my legs and feet but feel no pain. I think I updated Facebook and made a bunch of jokes. It’s sort of a blur.

For a while (OMINOUS DUM-DUM-DUM). Now that baby didn’t have a swimming pool to play in, he started playing with the cord instead and every couple of contractions the monitor would register a deceleration in his heart rate. A few times it dipped really low and I got a rush of nurses in to rearrange me and ask me to roll on one side or another. It was sort of stressful on everyone and I started to get pretty worried I’d end up with an emergency c-section, although when I mentioned that to my nurse she said I wasn’t even allowed to THINK that word.

They eventually found a spot on my right side where the baby’s heart was happy but it meant that my epi started to wear off on the left. A lady from anesthesiology came and hung a new bottle and gave me a bump, but warned us lying on one side meant the other side might always get less medicine. My left side hurt more. And more. And more. AND THEN A LOT REALLY A LOT IT REALLY REALLY HURT. Then the baby’s heart rate deceled again and they made me get up on my knees and hang over the bed and I realized I wasn’t numb AT ALL on the left and it was wearing off on the right and my epidural had officially failed and OMG HOW DO PEOPLE EVEN DO THIS WITHOUT MEDS?!?!?!

No, for real, it sucked. Snaps for anyone who does even 5 minutes of natural/pitocin labor.

E fed me a delicious Italian ice to distract me, but when I started to actually cry during a contraction my nurse decided to page anesthesiology again. The first nice doctor who put the epi in came up to check on it. He ripped all the tape off my back to check the needle and was getting ready to give me another bump when I heard him say “The pump isn’t on.”

YOU GUYS. THEY TURNED OFF MY EPIDURAL. The woman who hung up the new bottle NEVER TURNED IT ON, so I hadn’t had any meds in HOURS. And my pitocin was at a 16 (on a scale of 2 being “meh” and 20 being “WARNING: BABY MAY SHOOT OUT LIKE A CANON BALL”). They turned the pump back on. Literally 5 minutes later I was fine again.

I have no sense of time from when the epidural stopped working until I started thinking “Hey, there’s that pushy-feeling! I should get the nurse!” but it was probably around 11:30 pm when the doctor came in to check me. Unfortunately, my giant baby refused to move down into my pelvis AT ALL, so I was at -1 and only 9cm.  It looked like I was still HOURS away from delivering.

Not that much later I was still feeling REALLY REALLY PUSHY. It also sort of hurt and I could feeling the burning ring-of-fire thing people describe so I told the nurse again I was probably about to have a baby. She called the doctor back to check again…and again I was at -1 and not fully dialated. I was the laboring woman who cried wolf, but no matter WHAT the doctor said I know what pushing feels like. I KNOW. So when I got the pushy feeling I might have pushed a little.

Me to nurse: It still feels like I should push.
Nurse: Don’t push yet.
Me to nurse (totally pushing): Ok, I won’t. But it really feels like I want to.
Nurse: If you’re not fully dialated your cervix can get all swollen and labor can be harder.
Me to nurse: Right, of course, I know. I’m not pushing. (MORE PUSHING)

Literally FIVE MINUTES after the doctor said I was at -1 I grabbed my nurse and said very seriously “LOOK, I’M ABOUT TO HAVE THIS BABY. FOR REAL. CHECK ME.” So she called the doctor back.

Guess who was right? I went from a -1 to a +3 in less than 5 minutes. My secret pushing worked (or, you know, just like my other 2 births when I get to the end babies come flying out of me). Luckily my doctor was aware of my short pushing history and everyone moved fast.

Then everyone tried to tell me how to push and I ignored them because y’all, I got this part. Four pushes later I had a baby. Then E said “IT’S A BOY” and my only response was “…..REALLY?!” Then they gave me my baby boy and I was like “Of course you’re a boy, I knew that. I know you!”

I really love that part at the end when you get a baby.

And now I’m going to brag a little bit about maybe the weirdest thing anyone has ever bragged about – they took the baby to weigh him and said “Whoa, NINE POUNDS” and then the doctor (assistant doctor? midwife in training? Whatever, the chick that caught my baby under my doctor’s supervision) said “You didn’t tear at all! No stitches!” I’m pretty proud of my no stitches. I got up to pee like 10 minutes after I gave birth and it didn’t hurt.

E went and got the kids and my mom in the morning so they could meet their new brother. They were both excited…for about 2 minutes. Evan got bored because he didn’t do anything and Caroline just wanted to be the center of attention. She did a lot of dancing.

The next day I entertained myself by taking pictures until we got to go home. For a minute.

Just like his brother, Baby Linc ended up a little bit jaundiced. I dragged him all over creation trying to get blood work done on Saturday only to end up back in the hospital overnight. I’m not going to lie, that really sucked. I had a bad night staring at my baby under the lights (he loved them) and ended up asking the nursery to watch him so I could get a little sleep. It’s easier to mentally beat myself up for not doing MORE to force my newborn to eat and poop when I’m not quite so tired.

But his numbers came up fast and now we’re home for good (fingers crossed).

And that is the LONGEST POST I’VE WRITTEN IN YEARS. If you finished it I probably owe you $14 and a drink for the time it took out of your life. Seriously, I can’t even bring myself to read it again for typos. But I had a baby 6 days ago so my brain is fried anyway. TOTALLY worth it.

THERE IS A BABY IN THIS WEEK’S PICTURES!

His name is Lincoln. He mostly sleeps. Real photos & a short, boringish birth story Monday sometime.

Sunday:

Free tip: if the water is FULL of oyster shells, taking your shoes off is a poor choice.

Skeptical of the lobster rolls. Probably switched at birth.

Couch nap twinsies

Monday:

High jumper

Don’t tell her that’s not a horse.

You can almost see the ball under my giant belly (Last belly appearance!!)

Tuesday:

This is what the sky looked like at 6 am when we went to the hospital because my water broke.

This is what my husband looked like while we waited ALL DAY for my labor to pick up.

This is what I looked like while I was HATING EVERYONE because my epidural stopped working.

Wednesday:

Father of THREE

Beautiful day

There are like 300 versions of this exact photo on my phone

Thursday:

More sleeping

She insisted on coming to pick us up

Pink bouncy seat, Linc don’t care

Friday:

Looking a little yellow

Napping with daddy in his fancy outfit

LOOK AT ME I’M STILL CUTE TOO WHAT’S ON MY FACE

Saturday:

Doing the hokey pokey, because that really is what it’s all about.

These are all gone now.

He loved the lights. I did not love the hospital, but he loved the lights.

We’re home now and I’m going to bed. Hopefully my baby continues to be a champion sleeper for at least one more night so I can recover from the less-than-great nights.

It is 8:32 pm on July 14th. I am 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant, which is 5 days more pregnant than I ever was with Caroline and 5 days less pregnant than I ever was with Evan. That’s a nice balance. Good symmetry. Seems like the perfect time to have a baby.

Unfortunately, my baby does not seem to agree.

I’m not technically overdue yet (TOMORROW), so I know the complaining about STILL being pregnant is annoying. Plenty of people have been much, much more pregnant and I could end up being one of them. (I REALLY REALLY HOPE NOT.) But unfortunately I let myself think “Oh, I am totally having this baby early!”

It’s not entirely my fault. My doctors all said I was in danger of early labor because of my high fluid levels. I’ve had tons more Braxton-Hicks contractions than with any other baby. This baby has been measuring big for two months and I basically LIVE at the hospital between non-stress tests and scans and regular appointments. My children can literally walk into the ER entrance and get themselves to the maternity ward.

But I should not have gotten my hopes up. People warned me. I just did not listen.

WHY DIDN’T I LISTEN????

I swear if it was ONLY my comfort (or uncomfort) level that I was worried about, I wouldn’t mind waiting a little longer to meet my baby. I never went through this end part with Caroline (I was induced unexpectedly after super surprise pre-eclampsia) so I would probably still be anxious, but I would be OK.

Unfortunately, due to E’s work schedule, I’m on a deadline. If I go a week overdue, he won’t be here for the birth. The moment where we finally find out together if baby #3 is a boy or a girl just…won’t happen. I’ll have to send an email he probably won’t get or a Red Cross message that at least 3 other people will read before him or just wait until he’s home again. He won’t be here to hold my hand or cut the cord or change a single diaper. I won’t be able to scream “WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?!?!” as I push out a gigantic baby.

I don’t want this to sound TOO dramatic – he’s not going to be gone for months or years. His current work schedule is crazy and unpredictable but it’s not a deployment. He might be on a submarine under the ocean but he won’t be At Sea for more than a couple weeks at a time. The baby certainly won’t remember that he missed the birth but I know E will be so, so sad about it I won’t even be able to give him a hard time for “abandoning me”. I’m still not exactly EXCITED about it.

It would sort of suck to be in the room with just my nurses and the doctor. My mom – who’s here to watch the kids, in theory – has said she’ll fill in and I have friends who would take the kids if I really needed them to, but I’m not thrilled with that idea either. Mom watching the kids makes me being in the hospital much more relaxing. I don’t have to worry about whether or not they’re being terrors, she has to deal with it and love them because they’re her grandkids. Leaving them with someone else would mean lots of worrying instead of soaking up brand-new baby time.

We knew this was a possibility. As much as we tried to plan this baby around the Navy’s schedule, the testing that E’s doing now was supposed to be done in December. The command actually said “Plan your vacations for July and August, since that’s when we’ll be around”. Every time it got pushed back I thought “Ugh, this could be inconvenient” but until literally THIS WEEK I refused to consider E really truly not being here. Right now things are just slightly difficult – he’s not reachable by phone anymore so I have to call some office and they have to get a guy to run down to the pier and find him and then he has to get someone to cover for him and drive back up here to the hospital. But his boat is still tied to the dock, which is good!

I have a non-stress test in the morning (9 am, so possibly as you are reading this) followed by a regular appointment where I’m going to strongly suggest I am interested in them getting the baby the hell out ASAP. I feel like I’m breaking a bunch of birthing rules by even considering an elective induction. Admitting that on any of the pregnancy message boards will get you called a zillion things, none of which sound like “good mother”. But this isn’t my first time around the baby block and I did have a good experience with my last induction. Plus I have tried every single other possible thing to make labor happen on it’s own*** and nothing is working.

Why couldn’t this baby just COOPERATE, YOU GUYS?

Please send me lots of outside baby thoughts and keep your fingers crossed I’m so close tomorrow the doctor says I’m basically IN labor already and that my husband’s boat stays just broken enough that they stay in port and he’s right there with me when we find out if our Team Green baby is a boy or a girl. And so I can yell “WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?!” as I push out what is probably a truly enormous baby.

I’m scheduling this to post at 7 am on Tuesday. Let’s hope that right now I’m already in the hospital having my baby and posting boring Instagrams of my IV all over social media (soon to be followed by adorable baby pics!)

*** The only things I haven’t tried are castor oil and black/blue cohosh. I’m not sure I can handle the side effects of castor oil and even Googling cohosh makes the internet freak the hell out about safety. But if my OB says “Sorry, one more week before we’ll talk about induction” I see a castor oil lemonade in my future.