Last spring I found out that I was pregnant the day after I ran the SLC 1/2 marathon. I had a feeling that I was the day before the race but didn't want to take a test and ruin my run. To be honest, I cried when I saw the positive sign. I had finally started to love running and knew that I wouldn't do it much longer. I had wanted baby #3 for a long time so that was such a weird feeling. This pregnancy wasn't planned but it obviously was a great surprise. With my other two, it was SO easy to give up diet coke. This one was SO SO hard. I don't know what my problem was. Maybe that is why I got enormous so quickly. When I had 3 months left to go, I looked as if I was days away from delivery.
All of our birthdays are on even numbers. When I was able to choose the date of the c-section, the earliest my doctor would schedule was the 19th of December. I couldn't do it. I needed another even number so I chose the 20th instead. I was SO huge and SO uncomfortable that one day seemed huge but my weirdness couldn't settle on the 19th.
The C-Section was scheduled for December 20th 2012 at 7:00am. I was to arrive at the hospital at 6am.
The night before (on the 19th) we asked my mom to sleep over so that she could be there with the kids when they woke up since we would be at the hospital and delivering while they were eating breakfast. She come over around 5pm and ate dinner with us. My niece Sierra needed help with a paper that she had to write. She came by too for some help from our two writing experts, Grandma Judy and Greg.
The kids went to bed around 8pm and the rest of us were up. I was getting everything in order for the hospital and the other three were working on the paper. (Stop reading now if you don't want to hear the yucky part) At about 10:30 pm I went potty and discovered that I THOUGHT I had maybe lost my mucus plug. This is no big deal and can happen weeks before delivery. I told the rest of the group and Sierra joked and requested that I not let my water break in bed since she would be sleeping with me. We had rearranged sleep buddies so that everyone would have a bed.
We all went to bed around 11:45pm. At 1:05 am (Dec 20th) I got up to go potty. About two steps away from the toilet, I felt a huge gush of water. Again, sleepy and not experiencing my water breaking with the other two, I thought maybe I just peed a little (seriously). I went potty changed underoo's and before I got back in bed, gush #2. I knew then my water had broken. We had JUST fallen asleep. I went into Alexa's room to tell Greg and he didn't believe me. He told me to call my doctor to see if we should come right then or just wait until my schedule time to arrive since we were just a few short hours away anyhow. They said to come right in. I woke up Judy to let her know we were heading out and she just started laughing. So funny!
This all happened so fast, we checked in at Labor and Delivery in the hospital by 1:30am. We were taken back to our suite (it was huge) and I started getting worked up. I had the monitors strapped on and 200 questions asked and input into the computer system. My contractions were about 3 minutes apart the entire time I was monitored.
I seriously had painful contractions immediately. I had continuous gushes of water all the way to the hospital in Greg's truck (I was sitting on several towels thank goodness) and I was already having some painful contractions. In our room, Greg was trying SO hard not to laugh because I was was in so much pain and he kept thinking to himself that I chose to wait an extra day and could have avoided all of the pain! :)
The nurse kept asking if I was OK and I was trying to be tough. Her plan was to just let me progress until the original scheduled c-section time. But when she checked my water it was green with meconium and because of my pain she decided she had better call my doctor. Dr. England is the best. She called him at 3am and he was there at 3:30. He walked me over to the operating room and I was prepped. I received my spinal and it hurt like crazy. I never even felt the shot with the other two pregnancies. I was so much weaker this time around. I didn't get as nauseous like I did with the other two pregnancies but I sure felt the pressure of them squeezing her out of my belly more.
{Gracie's First Photo}
They made the first cut at 3:50-ish and she was born at 4:01am. They first pulled just her head out. I'm sure it was like a scene out of the movies a head just sticking out of my belly and nothing else. Gracie Yelped right away and the called the delivery time. From there they had to push and push her down and out. The nursery team took her over to the table and quickly started checking her out. They were checking for any complications from the meconium but soon determined that all was well! There were 3 nurses and they were so funny taking bets on her weight. They kept commenting on how big her head was and weighed her twice because they thought she would weigh a lot more than she did.
With in less than 5 minutes, they handed her over to Greg and took off. We weren't expecting that. With our other two, they let us see and Greg hold the baby for just a minute then they took her away and brought her back to us in the recovery room. Here they let her come back with us to the delivery suite. Greg carried her into the room while I was wheeled over in my bed. Then they just left us with her. It was so crazy to us. In AZ, we had constant supervision for the first few hours. I don't think we saw our nurse again for at least an hour. In the delivery suite I fed Gracie and she took to nursing immediately. She must have been starving.
After a few hours the took us to the postpartum unit. We were exhausted since we had only 1 hour of sleep, if that. We asked the nurse to take the baby for a bit while we slept and I had them bathe her.
{Gracie & Mom}
Her Grandma Lynn (Greg's mom) was the first visitor at about 9am that morning. Gracie was awake the entire 45 minutes she was holding her. My mom got Gavin and Alexa off to school and then came to visit. The kids came after school and were immediately in heaven.
They want you to feed the baby every 3 hours but she never wanted to wake up at night so I let her go about 4.5 hours the first night and Greg FREAKED out when I told him. I think he is now thanking me because she is such a great sleeper at night!
I could have come home on the 23rd but wanted to stay an extra day. I liked being pampered in there too much and it was just so crazy with Christmas madness that it made it easier on us all.
My family had a morning Christmas party on the 24th. Greg and the kids came to pick Gracie and me up on their way home from Grandma Judy's. It was nice to come home to a clean and organized house (thanks mom and Greg).
Gracie went into the doctor for her 2 week postpartum visit and was doing great. Just 1oz away from her birth weight. They didn't schedule another until 2 months. My other two had jaundice so I was used to going
once a week for the first 4 weeks so it was nice to not have to do that.
At about 5 weeks Gracie was looking really skinny, Greg had me take her in for a weight check. I did and she was nearly 10 lbs. The doctor laughed at me for bringing her in and told me to have Greg chill out. He was funny! After that check though, she seemed to plump up really quickly. She is now so cute and chubby. Nothing like Gavin was but we do like us some baby rolls!
I took her into her 2 month check last week. She had to have 3 shots. BOO! She was NOT happy! She is long and chunky though. We love that! And her head... NOT BIG. Only the 30%-ile. Those crazy delivery nurses.
Gracie is SUCH a happy baby. She seems to have an uncomfortable tummy but she really doesn't scream and cry too much about it. Just gets uncomfortable then it passes. She has been an awesome sleeper since birth. She is now sleeping, on a pretty consistent basis, from about 8:30pm - 4:45am. I will take that for sure! The other two were sleeping through the night at about 12-15 weeks. She has been sleeping more than 6 hours since about 4 weeks old. And this long 8 hour stretch since about 8 weeks old. She must know that I can't function on just a few hours of sleep.
I have been a crazy person about keeping her away from germs since it is RSV season but somehow I was talked into going to Disneyland with Greg's family when she was 6 weeks old. Who else thinks I'm crazy? It was actually great. She is so little that she just slept the entire time. She and I flew while the rest of the crew drove. It was really so much fun!
Alexa and Gavin adore their baby sister. Alexa is such a big helper with everything EXCEPT throwing dirty diapers away. She thinks that she'll be contaminated or something. Dork. Gavin just loves her. He gives her a million kisses a day like he was born to kiss her. They both want to hold her constantly and the fight to be the one who gets to sit by her, put her binky in her mouth in the car and help bathe her. She really loves them too. She started smiling at around 5 weeks. She is so alert and wonders where her brother and sister are at all times. She loves to smile at them when they sing to her.
Gracie looks like Greg, a lot. His family is happy to have one that looks like a Chazen. Greg didn't think that she liked him at first but he has totally won her over. She gets frantic sometimes when he walks away and flips her head back and forth looking for him when she hears his voice. I love it! She doesn't laugh yet, really but has had a few small chuckles with him. He thinks this is the best! I know he is just waiting for the day that he can flip her through the air like he does the other two. He is such a great daddy!
Luckily Gracie takes a bottle. I give her one a day at 8pm, just before bed time. It works out great for date night. I just leave her with Grandma after her 4pm feeding and she'll take her bottle so we can go out. It is fabulous.
We sure love this baby!!!!
