All through this pregnancy, I was pretty convinced that baby number two was going to need to be induced, just like Ben. I scheduled my induction date pretty early on for Thursday, March 28. I wanted to be sure that I could be at work to get everything ready the days leading up to the baby being born, and a few days ahead of spring break so my doctor would be able to deliver.
When I hit 36 weeks, Dr. Blackett measured and I was already dilated to a 2+. She told me that she didn't think that I would make it to my due date. Honestly, I panicked! I was not ready to go early, and had NO PLANS whatsoever in case I did! I frantically started putting together sub plans for the month of March, just in case, and left things on my desk at the end of each day just in case I wasn't there the next day. At my 37 week appointment, I was measuring a 3+ so I thought for sure we would be getting ready for a baby in the next week. But apparently that wasn't baby girl's plan! At 38 weeks, I was still sitting at a 3+, although I was 80% effaced. I'd been having Braxton Hicks contractions since 24 weeks, but nothing intense enough that I was worried I was in labor. At my 39 week appointment I was measuring 3+ and 90% effaced, and Dr. Blackett told me to plan on being induced the next week.
On Monday, March 25, my day was completely normal. I actually took a quick bump selfie in the morning since I hadn't really taken any pictures this whole pregnancy. I went to work, left sub plans on my desk like I'd been doing for a couple weeks, picked up Ben, and made dinner. When Matt got home he wanted to go to Claire's basketball game, so we threw dinner in the fridge and headed over. When we got there, I was getting out of the car and had some really intense shooting pains down my groin into my upper thighs. I had felt these before, but usually they would just sting and then be over. My doctor called them "zingers". This time, they were so intense I couldn't walk. I had to stand there by the car until they were over. It happened again as we were walking in. I had to stop in the parking lot. The thought crossed my mind that this had something to do with being in labor, but I researched it a little bit later and it wasn't, so I didn't think much about it. We watched the game and headed home for a normal night.
We went to bed, and around midnight, I woke up with a contraction. It wasn't crazy intense, so I went to the bathroom and climbed back in bed. Within a couple minutes, my water broke! I jumped out of bed pretty quick, and since I was wearing a pad it didn't seem like much had really come out. But it definitely felt different than wetting the bed. I got cleaned up and debated in the bathroom for a couple minutes if it really was my water breaking. I decided it was and woke Matt up. His first reaction was, "Are you sure?" and I said that I was pretty sure. I decided to call the hospital to see what they suggested, considering I hadn't really had any contractions. The hospital told me to come over, so we started getting our things together. As we were getting ready, I was having some more intense contractions every few minutes.
At that point, I was pretty confident that I was really in labor. We took Ben to Jenny's house and headed to the hospital. I was having contractions the entire way there, definitely more intense than the Braxton Hicks I'd been having before. I had called my mom since she was planning on taking care of Ben while we were in the hospital, and took care of getting a sub for the next couple days. When we got to the hospital, we went up to labor and delivery and they got us straight into a room. It was just after 1:00 AM. Everyone there seemed pretty frazzled with the other women in labor that night- our room wasn't really ready for us and we had several different nurses check in on us within the first little bit, not really knowing who had been in or done what. One of the nurses checked me and I was dilated to a 4+. Another nurse tried to do my IV, but blew the vein, so another nurse had to come in and do it. My contractions at this point were pretty steady and I asked for an epidural right away. In the hustle of everything else going on in the hospital, the anesthesiologist didn't get to my room until about 2:00 AM. I was praying the whole time that I wouldn't have any contractions while he was putting in the epidural because they were pretty intense and I didn't want to mess it up! Everything went normally with the epidural, and he told me that I would start to feel the meds in 10-15 minutes.
By 2:30 AM, I was still feeling every single contraction. I was to the point that they were coming every couple minutes and I was breathing my way through each of them. When my nurse came in, I asked her if I should still be feeling so much, and she said probably not. She decided to check me again, and I was at a 10! I couldn't believe that I had progressed so much in such a short amount of time.
Dr. Blackett got to the hospital around 3:00 AM and we started pushing. My contractions lasted longer than they did with Ben- I was able to push 3 times for 10 seconds during each contraction. Then we would have a break. The breaks felt so long! We were all chatting about random stuff until the next contraction would start. I couldn't feel the contractions at this point, but as soon as the baby's head reached my cervix, I could feel everything down there! Dr. Blackett commented about how much hair the baby had, which was a huge surprise! Matt actually was curious enough after this comment to watch the delivery, which he didn't do with Ben. During the 3rd contraction, I felt her head come out, and I knew that the next contraction would be her shoulders and body and I'd need to push really hard! When you can feel everything happening, it's very motivating to push harder and get the baby out faster!
Baby girl was born at 3:17 AM after only 4 contractions- 3 hours after my water broke at home, and only 2 hours after arriving at the hospital. The doctor handed her to me right away and we got to snuggle her and adore her long hair before the nurses got her cleaned up. She weighed 8 pounds 5 ounces (1 ounce heavier than Ben) and was 20.5 inches long (exactly the same as Ben). She came out and immediately started crying and didn't really stop until we fed her! Matt was able to cut the cord.
After she was all cleaned up, we got a couple hours alone with baby girl to relax before going up to Mother and Baby. Baby girl was pretty alert and calmed down as soon as we fed her!
We got up to Mother and Baby around 5:30 AM. We had nurses coming in and checking on things so we really didn't get any rest that night. We still hadn't picked out a name for baby girl, so I started going through the list of names I had on my phone. Matt and I had talked about the name Andee Blake a few weeks before and both really liked it. I threw out a couple other names to him while we were in the hospital, but we both came back to Andee Blake.
Throughout the morning, we had a bunch of visitors! Randy and Jenny came by first on their way to work. I wasn't quite thinking clearly yet and didn't get any pictures of them with Andee. Jenny said that when Ben woke up, he was confused why he was at their house. When she told him that Matt and I were at the hospital with his baby sister, he asked if we were in a car crash (the only connection he has to hospitals I guess). She showed him the picture of the baby and he proceeded to go around the house showing everyone the picture of his baby sister. My mom picked Ben up from Jenny and once they were ready for the day she brought Ben over to meet his sister. He was so sweet with her! The whole time he was there he kept coming over to check on her and would randomly give her a little kiss or tell her that he loved her. If she made any noise, he would stop what he was doing and look to see what was going on. Ben and my mom brought us a gorgeous flower arrangement.
At some point in the morning, we finally convinced one of the nurses to bathe Andee for us! Baby girl didn't like being cold and naked, but really liked the warm water! We dressed her in some newborn size jammies that were so big on her, and only 1 of the 3 bows I brought actually fit her tiny little head.
Our last visitors of the day were my dad and Laurie. They brought up some jammies and a darling little Easter dress for baby Andee.
Laurie also took a few pictures of us with Andee now that she was all cleaned up.
Things were quiet the rest of the day. Matt and Andee slept while I watched terrible daytime TV and tried to sleep. Too much adrenaline, I guess. Matt decided he wanted to go home and shower, so he left for awhile. He was planning on sleeping at home, but for some reason changed his mind and grabbed a movie from Redbox and a few other things and came back. It was fun to snuggle the baby and just relax that night. We ended up sending Andee to the nursery for the night so we could both get some sleep.
We definitely can't get enough of all her hair!!!
The next morning, we were both ready to go home. Dr. Brown came in and checked on Andee again and gave us the all-clear to head home. Dr. Blackett had checked in on me the night before and told me the same thing. We were able to leave the hospital around noon.
We are absolutely in love with our sweet Andee girl and are so excited for our little family of 4!