Ella Rose

The BIG event of June- Baby Ella's arrival!!

We really tried to stay moving and active throughout June- but the last week was really hard. It was hot, my clothes didn't fit, and I was ready for little Ella to be on the outside. At my 37 and 38 weeks appointments I was dilated to 1cm and just about 50% effaced. I wasn't really having a lot of contractions and that was good and bad at the same time. I was so grateful I didn't have a 3 week labor like Bentley but I really wanted to feel something moving. At my 39 weeks appointment my doctor said I was a tight 2 cm and just a little bit more effaced. He gave me the choice to wait another week and see what happens or we could schedule something for Wednesday, June 29th. He made a phone call and we were all set up for Wednesday! yay! The next day we cleaned the house from top to bottom, my mom came up, and we took the family out to see Finding Dory as our last adventure as a family of 5! 

I slept awful that night. I slept for a few hours and was wide awake around 2am. I had plenty of time to watch some shows, get ready, and off we went around 7am. It was the weirdest feeling to know we were going to the hospital and just going to have a baby. I've always gone wondering if it was the real thing and if the contractions were doing their thing. I actually liked this way!

They hooked me all up for 30 minutes or so to check out babies heartbeat and to see if I was having any contractions. I had a few good ones, but nothing painful and nothing too exciting. I had dilated just a little over the last 2 days so they gave me a cervidil (pill that helps with dilating and effacing) and had me go walk around. I started walking around 9am off and on until 1pm. At 1pm they started pitocin and I got the epidural around 2pm. During the epidural I told the nurse that I thought I was feeling some trickling of fluid. While she was putting in the catheter she checked my water and said it was still in tact and we'd just wait for it to break or the Dr. would come in soon to break it.

I was pretty slowly progressing and the nurse told me our plan was to let the pitocin do it's thing, my contractions to do their thing, and for the doctor to come break my water when he had a break. For the next 5 hours we kept waiting for him to come but he kept pushing it back. First it was "when I get a break", then it was "after I'm done at the office", then to "after I get some dinner". The nurse finally asked him if we were just going to see him at delivery. He laughed and said he'd be there soon... ya right. The nurse checked me around 4pm and said that I was about 5 cm dilated so they didn't want to check me again until the Dr. came to break my water. The baby was still pretty high so we probably had a lot of laboring down to do. At around 7 I started feeling uncomfortable. Not too bad, but I was starting to want to switch sides a lot and I was just feeling uneasy. I kept asking my Mom and Kyle if they were really hot because I felt like I was sweating. No matter how they helped me move I just could not get comfortable. I started feeling claustrophobic and just really uncomfortable and pretty irritable. I remember at one point my mom asked me if I wanted a light on and it really irritated me because I didn't care about the light. I didn't care if all the lights were on or off or if they didn't work anymore- I was just uncomfortable haha. The nurses came in, upped my epidural, tried to help me get situated and then said she'd call my Dr. to see if we could get things moving. Around 8:00pm I told her I was definitely feeling pressure. She said the Dr. would be here any minute so we were just going to wait to check me again. At 8:30pm I called her back and told her that I felt A LOT of pressure. She finally checked me and Ella was crowning. She ran out to call the Dr. and he was there within 5 minutes- maybe even less than that. With just 2 pushes and at 8:43pm Little Ella was born! We did skin to skin for an hour right after she was born and then they did all the weighing and checking things out. She was 6lbs15oz and 19 1/2 inches long.

The nurse started to write down things about the labor and asked the Dr. when he broke my water. We were all very confused because he never came in and I never felt a huge gush of water breaking. We are pretty sure that between getting the epidural and the catheter it started a slow leak because it had definitely broken by the time Dr. got there.

We had a good night in the hospital. I got a few hours of sleep and she did pretty well that first night. She was a little noisy but didn't cry much at all. When Kyle went and got breakfast he came back with this sweet crayola art set for me. I love crayola! The girls were pretty jealous when I showed them all my crayons and markers :) At this point in time we hadn't decided on a name yet. We actually had been calling her Oakley since she was born but I just couldn't give that name to the lady that does the Birth Certificates. Around lunch time I text Kyle (while he was out for lunch) and asked him how he felt about Ella. Oakley seemed like a name we were trying to force on her and Ella just seemed like it fit so much more. He agreed and we signed the papers. Ella it is!

My Mom broke the kids later that afternoon to meet their new sister. They weren't nearly as afraid as they were with Bentley. 

Bentley was adorable with her. He was obsessed with her little fingers and toes and sang her supercalifragilsticexpialidocious to put her to sleep. 

That night Lorin and Lisa came by to see us and hung out for a hour or so. Kyle was pretty ansy to leave and sleep in his own bed so we busted out of there at 8:30 the next night. Almost exactly 24 hours after she was born. One of the stipulations from the pediatrician was we had to get her to see a dr. the next day. Since we left so late that night we missed her coming home in the carseat picture so we took one on the way to the Dr. the next day. 

Even though London doesn't look it, she was extatic to wake up to her baby sister at home. They held her all morning until we left for the dr. and then insisted on kisses before we left.

Ella has probably been my most challenging baby. She's very particular about her eating, how she sits, and how she sleeps. I breastfed her for a month until she had stopping gaining weight like she should at her 6 week appointment. She had been a pretty fussy eater for the last 2 weeks but I was able to pump a lot of milk so I thought she was getting plenty. I started pumping her bottles and she started gaining weight. At her 2 month appointment she had went back up to the 20th percentile and the Dr. told me to keep doing what we were doing because her growth was up from the 8th percentile. I pumped for a month and have just decided that formula is doing to be just great for her- I just can't keep up with pumping and 4 kids. Now that we've settled into a normal feeding routine things are getting better, she's just needs lots of attention :) She's lucky we have 5 people that are always willing to hold her. We call London our little "baby whisperer". She can always get Ella to go right to sleep when we need her to. We are happy to have little Ella in our family and I absolutely love having the older kids here to help me. It doesn't feel so much like it's all the little ones vs. the parents. I love having helpers!