Welcome, Owen George!

I suppose I should write my third birth story before the details become lost in my sleep-deprived head...

My pregnancy with baby #3 progressed like the other two--in that, it didn't progress.  At 39 weeks, I still was not dilated or effaced.  And his head was still way, way high.  I decided to set an induction date for my due date the following week.

And so on Thursday around 4pm, BK and I headed to my doctor's office to have an EASI-cath put in.  (This is also called a Foley Catheter, and it's the same way I was induced with Spencer.  I highly recommend it!) It was, of course, an uncomfortable procedure, but you know what else is uncomfortable? Being 40 weeks pregnant.  The doctor got it in, and then we headed across the street to the hospital.  My doctor with Spencer let me go home at this point, but for some reason around here, they want to observe you and the baby.

We arrived at the hospital, and they brought me some dinner.  It actually wasn't half-bad. But BK still went to Chick-fil-a a little while later for second-dinner.  My food was going to be cut-off at midnight, so I needed to carb up!  BK and I hung out and watched TV.  It was pretty boring.  He fell asleep around 10:30pm, but I was way too excited to sleep.  I tried, but I just wanted things to get a move on.  I'll spare you the details, but around 2am, the EASI-cath fell out, which meant I was dilated to a 3-4ish.  I tried to get some rest after this, but contractions (although very mild and harmless) started coming pretty regularly.  They woke me up around 5am to shower.  After this, they started pitocin.

The baby immediately did not like the stronger contractions on the pitocin.  (Neither did Landon.  I never had to be on pit with Spence.)  So they dropped it down to a really, really low dose.  They checked me and I was still at a 4.

The doctor came in around 8, and I was still at a 4, maybe a 5.  He broke my water, and the nurses said they would check me again in two hours.  I decided it would probably be at that point that I would want an epidural.  I tried to get up and walk around as much as possible to move things along.

The contractions quickly became unbearable after my water broke.  I could tell he was starting to move down.  I checked the clock, and it was about 9am.  I felt silly calling them back in to check me when they had pretty much just left.  And I really didn't want to be stuck in bed half-paralyzed for very long.

However, I believe it was about 15 minutes later, that I paged them to request my epidural.  It took the anesthesiologist about 45 minutes to get there.  (Of course it did.) And I have never been in so much pain in my life.  I was reduced to tears and gripped the bedrails like there was no tomorrow and just tried not to scream at the top of my lungs.  I could feel him moving down, and I immediately panicked wondering if I had waited too long and wouldn't get the pain relief.  The contractions lasted about a minute and were about 2 minutes apart.

Finally the anesthesiologist showed up.  Unfortunately because the contractions were getting so close together and I was being rather uncooperative (not on purpose, but I could not even think straight because I was in so much pain--even though at this point they had completely turned off the pitocin--so he's telling me to round out my back, and I'm just trying not to pass out....) and fortunately after the THIRD TRY 35 minutes later he got the dang thing in.  And then I was feeling GREAT!!!

After the epidural had time to process, they checked me again, and I was at a 6 almost a 7.  Perfect timing! Over the next 2.5 hours, the baby became very picky about my positions.  His heartrate kept jumping around, and so I'd move into a different position and so on and so forth.  Finally the nurse checked me again and I was at an 8.

Then she said something like "Well, there is another way we can fix this heart problem.  Push during the next contraction and let's see if we can just get him out."

I pushed through two more contractions, and was fully dilated then.  They paged the doctor and had me push a couple more times.  The doctor showed up about 10 minutes later.  Three pushes later, our little baby boy was born at 1:53pm.  He immediately cried and pinked up.

Even though it was my third time experiencing this moment, it never ceases to amaze me what a miracle it truly is.  My first thought about him was that his cry sounded exactly like Spencer's.  And my second thought was being astonished at how big he was, and how much he looked like the other two newborns I've had the privilege of mothering.

We named him Owen George.  My grandfather's name is George, and since he is one of my favorite people, we decided to use that as Owen's middle name.  (All of my boys have family middle names.)  He was 8 lbs 13 oz and 21.5 in at birth.  He was immediately awake and alert.  Soon the rest of the family came to meet him.

Owen has been a calm, mellow baby so far.  My recovery went great until I got mastitis twice, and then I'm currently recovering from a head cold.  So that's been... great.  But besides that, it's been pretty easy. (Thank you, Netflix for raising my older children during the past three weeks...) I've been trying to soak in as much of the newborn-cuddling as I can.  I remember how quickly that stage disappears.  He just turned 3 weeks old today, and he's already so much bigger!  At his two-week appointment he weighed 9lbs 5oz.  (My other two were 8 lb 3 oz at that appointment.) so he's definitely a chunk so far! We just love him to death.

So far having three kids is manageable, but is definitely the hardest and most challenging thing I've done as a mother yet.  The other two are definitely not liking the lack of attention (and yet at the same time LOVING the lack of attention since it means they can make more messes...) and it's hard to even attempt to stay on top of everything.  But I know that it will come back together one day at a time.  It's a good problem to have, really.

And lastly, just for the record, newborn babies are the best.  It is so funny how quickly you forget how MISERABLE pregnancy is and how PAINFUL those last 40 minutes pre-epidural were, and you think to yourself (not completely seriously) "When can I do this again?"  (But seriously, I will need a LONG break to figure out how to regain control over the three that I have...) But I think the reason for that is, that giving birth and bringing a new baby into the family is one of those rare moments in life when you're really living. It's one of those moments where life just grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you to wake you up from the humdrum of your day-to-day life and lets you experience joy in its purest form. And the word "joy" doesn't even do it justice. Falling in love, weddings, babies--these are the rare memories you'll never forget for the rest of your life.  They're priceless really.

Anyway, welcome to our family, Owen.  I'm sorry your older brothers get in your face ALL. DAY. LONG.  Thank you for being so patient.  Thank you for all the snuggles.  I'm so glad you're here!