Welcoming Adelynn Alora

Yesterday, we were blessed to welcome Adelynn Alora Hornibrook into our family!

She came at 3:42 am and weighed 9 lbs and was 20.5" long.

On Friday, Eric started his paternity leave and stayed home. He got up early with the kids so I could sleep in. Then we all headed to the park.

Later, Eric's parents came and got the kids so that Eric and I could go to the doctor together and have my membranes stripped around 5 pm. Then came the waiting. Literally ... just waiting!

Eric fell asleep around 8 since he had gotten up so early and had taken care of crazy kids all day! I, however, was unable to find sleep. I tried watching shows and then tried just lying there, but sleep never found me. I even got up, cleaned, and watered the plants around 10:30. haha. 

Finally, at 12:15 am, I felt my first contraction. Ow... I woke Eric at 12:30 by asking, "Wanna have a baby?" He's never woken up so quickly! He asked me to talk him through what I was feeling, but I only got a few words out before another contraction came - hard.

I called labor and delivery and informed them we were coming! Once my contractions start, they are frequent and painful. But, luckily, there were no speed bumps or traffic on the way to the hospital. We got there around 1 and by then my contractions required crying. By the time we got to my room, screaming became involved. I was screaming for a few reasons.

Reason #1 - I was in the middle of labor.

Reason #2 - I wanted to kill the midwife.

Explanation on the midwife: I got changed into my gown and in walks this woman who maniacally clasps her hands in front of her and asks in a sickly sweet voice, "who is this baby causing us so much pain?" I simply glared at her until my contraction ended and in a terse voice informed her the baby didn't have a name yet. I laid down as they prepared to give me an IV so I could get an epidural. (I mentioned to Eric on the way to the hospital that I was considering no epidural since they could just break my water and the baby would come fast. His reply? "No, I want an epidural..." He knows me so well. There was no way I could handle labor without one). Which brings us to reason 3...

Reason #3 - They ruptured my veins trying to get the IV in.

Explanation on the IV: They started in my right forearm. It was excruciating as they drew blood which was odd. Then as they added fluids, my arm swelled like a balloon. The vein had ruptured and the fluid was flying into my arm at an alarming rate. Oops. So they switched nurses and switched to my hand - which never works. They got the needle in, again, super painful, and as they drew to make sure they got the vein, some random white liquid filled the vial. What did they puncture?!? Finally, another nurse and a left forearm later, I had a good IV. But this process brings us to reason 4.

Reason #4 - I once again wanted to kill the midwife.

Explanation on the midwife: The midwife, while I was screaming as a vein ruptured during a contraction, put her hand on my chest (bad thing #1), pushed me against the bed (bad thing #2), and informed me I needed to calm down (bad thing #3). Say that again? She's lucky I couldn't talk because something along this would have come out of my mouth, I'm trying to drive a VAN through my VAGINA and you want me to CALM DOWN?!? *sigh* I made it clear that I did not care for her and a resident delivered me.

Luckily, the anesthesiologist is good at what he does. He got my epidural in fast and it kicked in quickly. At that point, I couldn't even feel my contractions and Eric was so happy he requested a selfie :)

 My main nurse came back in and let me know that there was an emergency delivery taking place so now that I was comfortable, they planned to postpone breaking my water and take care of the emergency first. Made sense to me... so Eric and I chatted for a while. 

The resident came in and broke my water and then my nurse came back in with an odd peanut-shaped pillow. She said it would help make sure the baby turned her face down for the delivery (I blame the midwife on this one). She planted the pillow between my legs and told me to holler when I felt the need to push, which she was certain I'd feel through the epidural. I was patient for about 20 minutes at which point I was slightly exasperated and told Eric I was probably ready 20 minutes ago (if only they'd checked me instead of giving me a stupid pillow) and asked him to inform the nurse I needed to push...

She came in, checked, and agreed whole-heartedly that I was ready.

Everyone came in and prepped quickly. 4 contractions and one stitch later, we had a baby!

 

  

We had lots of fun family visitors in the hospital.

Eric's parents brought our kids to visit us in the early afternoon.

They adored her! Aaron wanted her to come home with us immediately. When I told him he would see her again on Monday, he demanded that she come in Gramma's car with him. Both Aaron and Audrey wanted to see and hold her! Aaron snuggled up to Adelynn's face and she tried to eat his nose. He thought it would be a nice thing to do to allow it and has continued to try to give her his nose...

 

 

 

In the evening, Eric's brother, Tyler surprised us with a visit! He called ahead and asked if he could bring us anything. Since this hospital was devoid of strawberry milkshakes, Eric asked if he could grab me one from Burgerville along with some onion rings. When Tyler arrived at Burgerville, he learned the onion rings weren't in season yet, but fried asparagus was. He grabbed some of that with fries and my milkshake and headed out. But then the thought occurred to him, If I'd just had a baby and asked for onion rings but ended up with fried asparagus, I'd be pretty upset... So he stopped by Red Robin and picked up a box larger than my head full of onion rings. Needless to say, I didn't get any pictures of Tyler holding Adelynn because I was a little focused on my onion rings. To my credit, I did save 3 for Eric :)

The rest of our hospital stay was pretty uneventful. Adelynn passed all of her tests, I got no sleep, and we headed home early this evening.

 She's so much chubbier than my other babies! But she's so cute!