On July 14, 2009 at 1:28 am Melissa Pearl joined our family. After having irregular contractions for almost 24 hours she finally decided to grace us with her presence. I'm still not sure if it was the walking, the step aerobics, doing laundry or taking Rachael to the urgent care facility for stitches that finally did the trick! I guess I better back up and give the whole story.
Sunday night I woke up with contractions 10 minutes apart. I thought this was it. I couldn't sleep so I watched TV (there really is nothing on in the middle of the night) and timed contractions. They were all over the place. When I realized they weren't getting any closer, I went back to bed, but couldn't sleep. Mike stayed home from work on Monday because we both figured any minute they would kick in and we would be off. No such luck. So I went about my normal Monday routine. I did 5 loads of laundry; washed and folded. I did some step aerobics on the wii. After dinner we took a family walk up and down the street. After the walk I relaxed on the couch while the kids played in the back yard. The next thing we know, Rachael is running toward the house and her head is bleeding. Becca had been attempting to throw a rock at a bug, and got Rachael's forehead instead. It was a deep cut so Mike and I scooped her up and headed to the urgent care facility while my mom stayed home to put the kids to bed. After an hour at the clinic and 2 beautiful stitches we headed home and put Rachael to bed. We got ready for bed ourselves only to have my contractions suddenly coming 5 minutes apart and very strong. We hopped back out of bed and headed to the hospital, arriving at about 11:40pm. When the nurse in triage realized that I was at an 8 she called every available nurse to finish checking me in. At one point we had 4 nurses in that room. They wheeled me to a labor/delivery room a few minutes later, they wouldn't let me walk because they didn't want to have a baby in the hallway. That ended up being a smart thing. About 45 minutes later, while walking in the room, my water broke and I almost didn't make it back to the bed, before Melissa was born at 1:28 am.
So far we are doing great adjusting to having a new baby in the house. The kids adore her and fight over who gets to hold her. She's proving to be a good eater and a good sleeping (I got 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep the other night, it felt amazing!) Enjoy the pics of our newest addition, I'll try and add more soon.
