The Birth Day

My doctor informed me, some time ago, that he would induce me as early as July 10th, if I wanted. But my sister-in-law was also expecting a baby, and she was due on the 10th. So, for a long time, I couldn't decide what I wanted, because of the timing of everything.Finally, over the weekend of the 10th, I decided to go ahead and schedule my induction for the following week. The problem, was getting a hold of my doctor to do so. Luckily, as I mentioned in the last post, I

happened to run into my doctor at Costco, and he whipped out his cell phone and we scheduled it right then. I wanted to have it done on Wednesday, but that happened to be his day off. He

asked the hospital what the availability was on Thursday, and they said I would be

7th in line and might not make it in. Friday, I would have been 5th. Then he asked about

Tuesday. Turns out I would have been 2nd, which means I would have for sure been in the hospital at 7 am. Maybe I'm a spaz, but I had some appointments on Tuesday evening that I

really wanted to make it to, so I turned it down and said I would take my chances with Thursday. (Those appointments turned out great, by the way, and I was happy that I made it to them).

Wednesday evening, I called the hospital to see if I was still number 7, or if some of the girls had already gone into labor. They hadn't. I was told that depending on when they had room for me, they would call me some time between 10 and 2 and give me an hour notice to come in to the hospital. So, imagine my surprise when the hospital called me at 5 am and asked if I could make it in by 6 am!! I told them I would find a way.

I had, obviously, already arranged for babysitters for Maliya for a couple of days, but they weren't expecting to need to watch her until much later in the day. I felt bad calling anyone at 5 in the morning...we went outside and looked around to see if any of our neighbors had their lights on, and luckily, our next door neighbors did. We had them simply watch Maliya's monitor until

Brian's sister, Camille, could come pick her up.

Then, it was off to the hospital! But, of course, not before taking a picture!

So, we made it to the hospital right at 6, and after being checked in, they started me on the pitocin at about 6:50. Here is me all hooked up to all kinds of things. Gotta love hospitals!

By about 7:30, I was dilated to a 4, and the doctor broke my water. By 11:30, I was dilated to an 8. At about 12:15 I started pushing, and little Rachel was born at 12:21. She had thick, dark, and slightly curly hair. She weighed 8 lbs and 7 oz and was 19 inches long.

With Maliya, once she was born and we were all cleaned up, we were whisked off to our recovery room and nursery, but this time, they left us in the delivery room for a long time. The whole time, Rachel was just so sad, she just kept crying and wouldn't be comforted. When she finally went to the nursery and was put under a heating lamp, tho, she suddenly felt just fine about life.

Turns out she is a fan of the heat!

Brian and I were so happy that we came in at 6, because it ended up being perfect timing. The doctor was able to come in and break my water on his way to the office (which is only a couple blocks from the hospital) and by the time he got off for lunch, I was ready to push! So he dropped in, delivered the baby and went on his way. Then, he came and checked up on us again on his way home from the office. It was great! No waiting for anything!

Maliya came to visit us that evening, but she was mad at us for ditching her all day. She wouldn't let me hold her and kept running away to Aunt Camille. Sad! She showed little to no interest in Rachel, but we attempted our first family picture anyway...

The next day, as soon as they would let us, we checked out of the hospital and came home. It was probably around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, when we got home, and Maliya was napping. This turned out great, because Maliya is such a happy girl when she gets up from sleeping. When she did wake up, Brian went to get her out of the crib, and I put Rachel down in the bouncer seat in the corner, so that Maliya would not see me holding her right off. We played with Maliya for a couple of minutes, when she suddenly noticed that there was a baby laying in the corner! She was so surprised and curious! In the hospital, she kept pushing Rachel away from her, but ever since we came home, she just loves her little sister and always wants to be holding, touching, poking, petting, rocking, etc...her baby sister.