Baby Mara!

She is here! Our little Mara Rose was born on Dec. 4, 2011 (her due date!) And I'm so happy to be holding my sweet little girl and to not be pregnant anymore.

It seems like my Braxton Hicks contractions started in the 1st trimester with this pregnancy. Over the months, they got harder and harder. I dreaded going up the stairs or bending down to tie my shoes or pick up something off the ground because I would have a contraction. Not to mention the numerous random times those pesky contractions would occur. I was hoping to go into labor on Black Friday since my sister was visiting but that didn't happen. Sterling (and I) wanted the baby to be born on Dec. 1st since Lauren and Porter both have 1st birthdays. So on the first of December, I went for a walk, cleaned the toy room, vacuumed and mopped, walked some more, jumped on the trampoline and NOTHING happened. In fact, I had very few contractions that day so I gave up and took it easy the next couple of days. Dr. Daskalos said he was willing to induce my labor by giving me a pill thing that helps "rippen" your cervix and then breaking my water (I was already 3.5 cm dilated and 80% efaced.) This is how we induced Caelyn. The week after my due date was going to be crazy busy with Savior of the World performances, school performances, and grandparents coming to town so I decided to go ahead and be induced on Monday, Dec. 5th. On Sat. Dec. 3rd, I got thinking about when I went into labor with Porter that my contractions were more painful in my lower abdomen. Sure enough when I woke up on Sunday, Dec. 4th, I was having several contractions in my lower abdomen. However, they pretty much stopped after an hour or so. That whole day I was in a lot of pain. I felt like I was having one long contraction. By 5:00 p.m. I was frustrated. I didn't know what to do because I was in pain but not contracting regularly. Fortunately, I have a good friend who is a Labor and Delivery nurse and I called her to see what I should do. She recommended that I take a bath. So I did and the pain turned into regular contractions so we decided to go to the hospital.

Once we got to the hospital at 6:30 p.m., no nurses were at the desk so Sterling used the phone on the desk to let them know we were there. He said something to the effect that we wanted to evaluate the progress of my labor. The nurse thought that was really funny. Anyways, by the time they hooked me up to the monitors, I was contracting every 2 minutes. My pain level was at a 6/7 so I wasn't in too bad of shape yet. I thought the on-call doctor would be delivering the baby but Dr. D put in my chart that he wanted to be there. That made me happy; however, he was in Portland so he was going to try and be home in time. After contracting for 1.5 hours at the hospital, I went from 4 cm to 7 cm. During this time I had a head ache so I asked for some Tylenol and the nurse said she would have to clear it with Dr. D. When she asked him, he laughed because here I was in active labor and wanted Tylenol for a head ache. At this point, Dr. D hadn't left Portland so we figured he wouldn't make it, but then my labor slowed down. He got to the hospital a little after 10 and I was only at 8 cm. He broke my water at 10:22 and I knew at this point all "heck" would break loose. And IT DID! Labor is PAINFUL! A little before 11:00, I started throwing up, which sped things up. Right after that I needed to push and there is no stopping a lady who needs to push. They didn't even have time to get my legs in the stir-ups. Dr. D was great though, he just told me to do whatever I need to do. After a few pushes, Mara made her appearance into this world at 10:59 p.m. and she was perfect at 7lb 7oz and 20 inches long with a healthy set of lungs. The nurse was amazed that I did it without pain medication but I had to remind her I had Tylenol. We had a good chuckle over that one. Sad thing is the tylenol didn't even help my head ache.

My recovery has gone pretty well. Since this is my 4th child, my cramps were a bit more intense. Mara has been a good nurser from the beginning but my milk took a little longer than normal to come in which made me and the pediatrician a bit nervous. But my milk is now in and nursing is going great. She now weighs 8lbs at 2weeks old.