So it turns out I was in fact in labor when I last wrote! Pretty sad that this was my fourth pregnancy and it still wasn't clear. I ended up being completely dilated by the time we got to the hospital. I think I probably went from 7-10cm just during the walk from the hospital ramp to the labor and delivery room because I was having contractions that stopped me in my tracks every 30 seconds. Not fun!We got to the hospital around 11:45pm and Baby Jolie was born at 2:24am. The first hour was spent waiting for my doctor and the anesthesiologist to get done with a c-section down the hall before they could see me. Since I was fully dilated when we arrived I could not get an epidural, but I was able to get an intratheacal shot to help with the pain. We waited another 30 minutes for my water to break, but that never happened so the doctor ended up breaking it for me so that my pain meds would not wear off before the baby was delivered. About 15 minutes later we decided it was time to start pushing, and about 40 minutes after that Jolie finally arrived. I had them set up a mirror so that I could see what was going on 'down there' and it was actually really cool to watch (especially since I wasn't really in any pain at that point). One big downfall of the pain meds though was that they made me extremely nauseous, and so I spent the three hours following my shot going through more than my fair share of vomit bags! It wasn't until after they gave me two different anti-nausea medications that the vomiting finally stopped.
Rather than tucking her chin so that the top of her head would come out first, Jolie actually came out mouth first so she got a little beat up in the birth canal. She came out pretty bruised and swollen, but it just made her look tough! :) Thankfully she's looking much better now.
I'm not a big fan of laying in bed for hours on end so we only stayed in the hospital until Sunday morning. Then we headed home, picked up Kade and Jacey, and went to church! I felt so blessed that everything had gone so well and that we have four healthy kids that there was no other place I wanted to be. God has certainly been good to us!
My parents have been here for almost two weeks and have been such a big help. We've gotten a lot of projects done around the house and they've been such a big help with the kids. They leave Saturday morning and then Paul's parents will be here for the weekend. Paul has one more overnight shift tomorrow and then he starts a week of paternity leave. It will be so nice to have him home for 8 straight days! The kids are going to love having their favorite playmate around 24/7, and I will certainly enjoy not being on my own with four kids quite yet. Speaking of the kids, they are absolutely infatuated with their new baby sister. They are constantly asking to touch her and hold her and feed her (which is kinda hard since I'm nursing). There are definitely no sibling rivalry issues here!
We will be having Jolie's baby dedication at our church on 8/22. Both our parents and my sister and her family will be here for that. Then real life will kick in for us all on the 23rd as Paul goes back to work and all our visitors will be gone. Paul's parents did throw out the idea of taking at least the older two kids back to the farm with them when they leave though so I may have to take them up on that offer to ease my transition a little. I can't imagine having four kids around is going to be too much different than three though. The main difficulty is just going to be me getting enough sleep. I guess I'll have to have an 8pm bedtime for a while until Jolie starts sleeping for longer stretches at night.
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