Family of Five

Elizabeth Kim Weller is here! She was just too excited to wait around for a 12/12/12 birthday and instead came on her actual due date (12/11/12). A few pictures first, then the labor story.

7 pounds, 10 ounces. Perfect as can be.

Sweet little yawn.

Our three kids!

Home at last!

We loaded into the van and headed down to my doctor appointment on Monday afternoon the kids and I were packed to just stay at my mom's until baby came, since I delivered in Richfield and we didn't want to do an hour drive with me in full blown labor. At the appointment my doctor told me I had progressed a bit, but there was a good chance I would make it until 12/12/12, which we both thought would be awesome. So we had dinner together and sent Steve back to Ephraim with the plan that he would teach one more day of school and then come back Tuesday evening to wait for baby. Elizabeth had her own plans. Around 9ish I started noticing that I was having contractions. They were very mild so it was hard for me to tell exactly how far apart they were or how long they were lasting. When I finally went to lay down at 10:30ish, I discovered that they were 10-13 minutes apart, but still not very intense. Over the next couple hours, they started getting more intense, so I messaged Steve and told him he should probably head back down. In the hour it took him to get back to Monroe, my contractions were suddenly much more intense and 4-6 minutes apart, so we headed for the hospital as soon as he arrived (after I took a quick shower and got a priesthood blessing from Steve and my dad). Checked in the hospital at 3:00 am, decided to hold out for an hour on the epidural in case the contractions went away on their own, and by 4:00 I was already dilated to 7 cm. My past epidurals have both left a small area on my left side un-numb, but this time, I felt nothing at all. I got the epidural just in time because the contractions were getting pretty hard, and I was so happy to hear "the drug man" coming down the hall with his magical cart! Anyway, my doctor got there just after 5:15 and ruptured my water. We chatted, she checked on another patient, then came back at 6:00. Two contractions later, Elizabeth was here. I was so happy that the epidural worked because when I delivered Abby I was so exhausted by the time I was supposed to push, but this time I didn't feel that way at all. And now we are home and learning to adjust to each other. So this may be the last blog for a while. :)