Today at 4:02pm my sweet, sweet Sophie Ann turned 3 years old! I can't believe that she is 3!!!! She is so big and so grown up and now she is such a good big sister. All she wants to do is love on and give Jonah kisses.
My sweet little love seems to have grown up overnight, she is coming into her own with her own little quirks, sayings, and personality shining through. Each day she amazes us with something new that she says or does, our sweet little love.
This morning we started the birthday off with a bang, she got dressed in her Princess Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty) costume complete with wand, and her light up "I'm 3 years old today" button and made our way downstairs where she found a Sophie-sized Princess castle balloon tied to her chair, she was so stoked! Then we moved onto the playroom where Daddy had stashed all her presents and then she was really excited, I think initially she was more excited about the balloons all over the floor, but once she started ripping into the presents she was equally as excited about those too! She is really into cars and farms and imaginative play these days so we got her a Little People Farm and Garage with a few extra Little People and cars....she played all morning.
For her birthday breakfast she chose french toast and then she had a birthday doughnut, she thought it was great that we stuck candles in it, she didn't stop smiling all morning. Later in the afternoon, we headed outside to enjoy the fresh air. Since it was a beautiful 69 degrees here in the Carolinas we even brought Jonah out with us, Neal brought the baby swing outside and Jonah happily swung back and forth for over two hours while we had birthday lunch, birthday cake and Sophie and Neal played in the leaves! She had no idea that she was getting a birthday cake today, let alone the cake that we surprised her with, a little mini Cinderella. The look on her face when she saw the cake was priceless.
It has been a wonderful day sharing lots of love, smiles and laughter with my family. God was smiling down on us and blessed us/Jonah with the gift of lots of sleep today so that I could devote much of time to my first little angel and sharing in the celebration of her birth.
Happy Birthday Sweet Girl, we love you so much!
A self portrait with Daddy
Eagerly awaiting the surprise Mommy and Daddy claim to have.
She played in the leaves for over an hour shouting 'It's My Birthday' at the top of her lungs, it was great!
Picking up where I left off with the first post.....around 2pm we made it outside for a walk, I think we made two passes up and down our street before the contractions were coming too hard and strong for me to walk anymore, not to mention the baby was now pushing down on the nerves in my legs making them almost numb. We headed back inside around 2:30pm and decided that it was time to start setting up the birthing pool. It took some time to get the pool blown up and then filled with some nice hot water. At around 4pm the pool was all set and I was very eager to get in as the contractions were pretty intense at this point. I labored in the pool with some really good, long contractions that seemed to come harder and stronger with each new change of position. Neal was a fabulous support, physically and emotionally. 6:30pm rolled around and I started feeling the need to push with my great big contractions. Up until this point everything had been bearable, the contractions were certainly not pleasant and they hurt, a lot, but pushing while having a contraction was a whole new ball game. Since, Sophie was born in the hospital and I had an epidural, my body had never really felt the pain of labor before since the epidural masked it all and it was a pain that was clearly overwhelming. I was sick with the pain that each contraction brought and was throwing up and pushing all in one, I actually missed several good contractions/opportunities to push because I was too busy throwing up. My energy was depleting fast and I ended up dozing off in between contractions only to be awoken by the midwives and Neal reminding my of the work that needed to be done. I can remember feeling so drained and that I really had nothing left to give to get this baby out and I could hear Neal praying in my ear that this baby would come quickly. I changed positions and locations a lot. I started off in the pool changing from sitting to standing to squatting, then moved to the bathroom, because I thought I needed to go, but I was not having my baby on the toilet so we got out of there quickly! Then I moved onto the birthing stool (a U-shaped stool that puts you low to the ground in a supported squatting position) then onto laying down on my side on the floor, where some good progress was made, my hips started hurting so I moved back to a squatting position only this time Neal was my support, he sat on our love seat and I squatted in between his legs. This was the last position change, I have no idea how long I pushed in this position, but that is how and where Jonah Michael Slimick entered the world at 8:59pm surrounded by love and the Glory of God on our living room floor (which was well protected with chux pads which are these awesomely absorbent little plastic backed pads.....think puppy training pads except a lot softer and for humans!) All in all I pushed for 2.5 hours with a grand total of 16 hours in labor.
The midwife stayed overnight and by 7am the next morning she determined everything looked good and gave us some final instructions and was on her way. She will be back on Thursday the 5th and the 12th to check in. Around 1pm Jonah's doctor came by to give him the once over, everything looked great. Sophie came to visit her new baby brother at 6pm and she was over the moon excited she could have cared less to see Neal or I it was all about the baby! She was so ready to get up on the bed and hold and him love on him. It was sad to see her go and she wanted to stay, but I was way too tired and still too weak to be anything but a log in the bed. Neal and I decided that she would stay one more night with my parents to give me just a little more time to recoop and get mobile. She will be back with us tomorrow probably after her nap sometime in the afternoon and we will get our first taste of being a family of four!
Labor has begun! Contractions started around 4:50am this morning no real pattern just some good strong sporadic ones. Things started changing on this past Friday, my body was giving me some signs that labor was around the corner and I had dilated a bit more to about 5cm.
The contractions this morning were strong, but bearable and I was able to get a little more sleep until around 6am when Sophie woke up. We continued about our morning routine with contractions still coming but not really regularly, while Neal made waffles, I decided I should call the midwife and let her know what was going on. I called her at around 7 am, left a message and by the time she called back at 7:18am my first bag of water had broken, only a small trickle at this point. Talked to midwife for a bit and we both decided we would give it a little bit more time before she headed out our way. So we continued about the morning, at this point we were still thinking we might try and head to church, however when I got up from the breakfast table there was a huge flood, my second bag of water broke at 7:45am and I could not get to the bathroom fast enough! I called midwife back and let her know what was going on and she said that she was going to get things rolling on her end, get her ducks in a row and head on over. We called Neal's mom to come down and help keep Sophie occupied for a bit while we got our ducks in a row and while we waited for my parents to get out of church to let them know what was happening and so they could take Sophie up to their house. The midwife and her assistant arrived within minutes of each other around 9 or 9:15am, midwife listened to baby's heart beat and said everything was good. They ran out to grab some breakfast, while Neal and I wrapped up a few lose ends around the house, I got a shower, my parent's arrived and we said goodbye to Sophie and headed out to Harris Teeter to do some grocery shopping since we were way low on food and I wanted some specific things while I labored. While walking around the grocery store my contractions were now about 2 minutes apart. That was a very speedy grocery trip, but I/we got what we wanted.
When we got back from the store I had my snack that I was craving (Havarti cheese, Kashi crackers and cherry tomatoes), midwife checked the baby's heart rate again (140 beats per min) and then I had her check me. At around 1pm, maybe a little before, I was around 5-6 cms but she was able to stretch my cervix to 7 and she could clearly feel the baby's head. That is where we stand right about now. We are going to head outside on this overcast, but pretty fall day and take a walk just to keep me moving and help my body do it's thing. I will do my very best to post updates as things happen and progress so check back periodically and see if I have posted anything new! Please keep us in your prayers as we journey through this miraculous event!
Watching my sweet girl walk away was a little sad.
A self portrait with Daddy
Eagerly awaiting the surprise Mommy and Daddy claim to have.
She played in the leaves for over an hour shouting 'It's My Birthday' at the top of her lungs, it was great!
