It's been a little crazy in the household...

For all of those who loved the belly picture.. It's no more! Gracie Lynne was born on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 6:14 PM. She measured 5 pounds 10.9 ounces, 17 1/2 inches long.

I was not sure what was going on the night before when Fireman went to leave for a fire call.  I was kind of feeling contractions, though at the time I just thought they were Braxton's so I just left them alone.  After a while, I started noticing that they were fairly close and started timing them.  After almost an hour at 2-3 minutes apart I let Fireman know what was going on, I called the doctor, called my mom and then waited for the doctor to call back.  Mom was already in the car and driving out to grab the kids when the doctor called back and let me know to head on in to the hospital. 

We got to the hospital and was taken into Labor and Delivery observation.  Hooked up to a fetal monitor, and after checking other regular things they look at they determined that I was "severely dehydrated and began IV fluids- 4 in total along with nubane (Spelling??).  At about 5 AM they released me with the contractions pretty well gone.  I was told to go to my regularly scheduled doctor's appointment that day at 3:00 PM.  I came home and slept until about noon, getting up, taking a shower and after the shower I noticed I had the contractions back, and more intense.  We decided to head out to the appointment early and called ahead to let them know what was going on.  They took me right back as soon as they could and the doctor confirmed that I dialated and effaced more than what I was at 5 AM and decided that at that point there was no stopping the labor and sent me directly to labor and delivery telling us that we were soon to meet our fourth child. 

We entered labor and delivery and was readied in no time.  After the doctor was done with appointments she decided to break my water and things started progressing.  With this delivery I had a lot of back pain and at one time it was so bad that I ended up turning and kneeling on the bed- which took me from 4-5 cm up to 8-9 cm in no time flat. It ended up being less than 1 hour before I delivered Gracie.

The nurses were great helping me through all of the transition phase; Jeff was sitting next to me lost and not knowing how to help, and I could see my mom was in pain just not knowing how to help and staying back trying to be helpful and not getting in the way of the nurses. 

I just want to say that my mom has been there for every one of the births and she has been a wonderful help.  I am not sure what I would have done without her!  As for dad, as fate would have it, was on vacation for the week and was a good sport with keeping the kids for me.  I am so happy I did not have any in diapers as he is out of the diaper changing stage. 

At this point during labor, I pretty much cannot remember anything except trying to get through the contractions.  I delivered with no epidural and only had Neubane right when I got up to the room after the doctor sent me back over and we knew that delivery was coming. I kept thinking with each contraction that I made it through another contraction and this will soon pass!   I do remember them calling for someone to go get the doctor from another room and them announcing "code pink" - a code that the baby may need other support because I was only 35 weeks and 5 days along in the pregnancy.

Gracie was born at 6:14 PM and I remember having them put her on my stomach and thinking to myself oh my goodness!  She's here! She was beautiful and I remember Jeff cutting the cord somewhat.  They evaluated her and I was shocked when I found out her weight was 5 pounds 10.9 ounces as I was really worried about how much she would weigh.  I was very happy to hear she needed no oxygen and that she was a beautiful color, scoring 9, 9 on the apgar scale.  She was a perfect little baby, just did not quite make it to the 37 week mark. 

We ended up staying in the hospital just over 48 hours because the routine 36 week check for strep b was not done and they had to use antibiotics with my IV to protect her from getting it in case I did have it.  Once she was born, they had to screen her for it and start a regular course of 2 antibiotics until the test results came back negative for her.  She went through numerous blood tests and screens; some mandated through the state.  She also had her billiruben checked as it is typical for a premature baby to have problems with jaundice. 

Also another test that had to happen before being released was a car seat safety check where they had to hook her up to monitor how her vitals are in the car seat for an hour to make sure she could withstand the car ride home.  I am not sure if it is mandatory for all babies to go through this test or if it is only for those preemies or how the protocol for the testing works. 

We came home Friday evening and were very happy to arrive home and start restabilizing our lives after Gracie's birth.  She is truly a remarkable little girl - and we tend to think our miracle baby.  If not for our wonderful OB, I am not quite sure she would have been able to stay this long and be so healthy!  She is fitting into the family wonderfully and each child just adores her.