Thursday, August 16, 2018

Harper’s Birth Story

About ten days before Harper’s due date, my mom flew in to town followed by all of my sisters the next day. They didn’t come down for the birth but we joked that it was a very good possibility while there were in town. They all came down just for a little girls weekend but with me being so pregnant, there wasn’t a ton we could do. We stuck to ice cream and the pool, especially because our AC was having trouble that weekend. As the weekend went on the joke turned into me going into labor just as they had to leave for the airport. Well, that turned out to be more accurate than we could have imagined! 


Yes, doing a handstand less than 24 hours before giving birth is exactly as hard is it looks over on the left 😳😂








Saturday, July 14th, we were in the pool the majority of the day. I could definitely feel that she had dropped but that doesn’t always mean you’ll go into labor soon so I brushed it off. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. 

Sunday, July 15th, I woke up at about 5:30 am with contractions. They weren’t unbearable yet but I knew they would get that way so I got up and started getting ready. I showered, got myself put together and finished packing all the last minute things. Then Adam started waking up so I told him he should probably stay awake because we were going to have to go to the hospital soon! I had been timing my contractions since I woke up and from the beginning they had been about 10-20 seconds long and about two and a half minutes apart. But again, not unbearable. Adam knows me way too well and after he heard that, he knew that we needed to get to the hospital ASAP. 




I went to wake up my mom to let her know and my sisters just in case I didn’t see them before they had to fly out that afternoon. They were all kind of in shock that it was happening like we had joked and it was pretty early still so that didn’t help anything. I am SO grateful they were all there to take care of my boys though. That sure took a lot of stress off of Adam and I. Adam kept telling me to call my midwife and let her know we were on our way. After I finally called her, we headed to the hospital. 




It was about 8 am at this point. We got to the hospital about 10 minutes later and got right in to be checked. I was already dilated to a 6 when we arrived so I assumed I still had hours to go since that was the lowest I had ever been
 dilated when arriving for previous deliveries. My contractions we getting worse at this point. But they still quickly got rolling on all the paperwork and IV’s needed before they could get me an epidural. I was wheeled into my labor and delivery room pretty fast and that’s when my contractions started getting pretty bad. After the epidural fully kicked in, my midwife asked if I wanted to take a little nap first or if I wanted her to just break my water and get the show started. I knew if I didn’t try to get a little snooze in, it would be a while before I was able to. With me only having had about 6 hours of sleep the night before, I chose a nap. Well that only lasted about 20-30 minutes before my water broke. I immediately had Adam page the nurse and my midwife. They both ran in and I was pushing within a couple of minutes. Two pushes later and she was out!














Delivery was super speedy and decently easy. I am so glad my epidural actually worked this time - it did not with Cameron. I was snuggling her for a few minutes before we decided on a name. When we finally decided on the name, Harper Joy, we sent and picture to our family letting them know she had joined us 6 days before her due date! It was about 11:30 am when we texted our family and I assumed my sisters would already be at the airport since their flight was supposed to leave around 12:30. Well to my surprise, their flight was delayed just long enough that they were able to come say hi and meet Harper real quick before they booked it to the airport! They got to meet Harper when she was less than an hour old! After that experience, I really wish they had all been there with Cameron and Daxton too! Having them all there right after she was born was so awesome! But they were literally there long enough to say hi, take a few pictures, and say bye before they were gone again. 














After they left, it was just back to Adam and I taking turns snuggling our baby girl. It was normal adjusting, healing, and doctors and nurses coming in and out of our room for the next day. Then we found out Harper needed to be put under the lights for jaundice. All of our kids have had to so it was nothing new for us. But then I had to be discharged and she had to stay in the nursery for one more night. The next morning when we went back to the hospital, she was good to go! Thank goodness! So we finally got to bring her home on July 18th! 









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