Welcome to the World!

We are so pleased to announce the arrival of Emery Danielle on Monday, April 21st at 9:31 am!
Emery weighed in at a whopping 7 lbs. 12 ounces and measured 21" long. She seems so little to us as she is about 2 pounds lighter than her brothers were at birth.

So how did it all happen you ask? Ok, maybe you didn't ask, but I am going to share it with you anyway. On April 21st at 12:20 am Rylan woke us up with some minor crying. Phil ran upstairs (or went as quickly as a very tired man can) to check on him. After settling Rylan back to sleep, Phil dragged his tired body into the bedroom with visions of his head hitting the pillow. After glancing at the clock (12:30 am) his wife sat upright, declared, "I think my water just broke!" and rushed to the bathroom. Phil's thoughts? "I guess I'm not sleeping tonight!"

After quickly realizing my waters ruptured and were still rupturing, but I wasn't having regular contractions, I called the doctor. We were quickly told to head to the hospital. I am pretty sure this was the point were I started talking a mile a minute with a brief moment of quiet while I contracted. Poor Phil was still trying to look and feel wide awake! We ran around the house grabbing bags, cameras, waking my mom, and trying not to wake the boys. After changing my clothes twice (my waters are still rupturing!) we are finally in the car and off! Wait! Phil doesn't have his glasses on! Back up the street, park with lights pointed at the neighbors bedroom window (sorry!), run in, grab glasses, and go! At this point we realize my contractions still aren't fast and furious like they were with the boys after my water broke so we are calm, chatting, and smiling. We even manage to take a few pictures in the car on the way to the hospital.

So now we are at the hospital and calmly checking in with a pause once in a while when I contract. The receptionist is talking about George Carlin (is she really!?) and my pants are getting wetter by the minute. This is so different from when I was in labor with Rylan. Finally, we are moved to a triage room where the nurse is about to check me, but I inform her my waters already ruptured and that is why we are here. She doesn't even let me sit down, but takes us straight to a labor and delivery room. Alrighty! Now this is getting real. We are going to have our baby today! It is 1:30 am and I am nervous, excited, a little sad (I like being pregnant!) and so surprised at how different this labor is from my other two. Must be a girl we say laughing.
Once I am hooked up to the monitors, we can see that baby is doing well, I am contracting every 5-7 minutes. Nothing major and normally I wouldn't be at the hospital if not for the waters. After a quick check I am determined to be at 4 cm. I'm a little disappointed. We go over all my history with the nurse, get my IV for the antibiotics they want me to have and then we are left to rest. My nurses are great, I am able to rest between contractions, but I can tell it is going to be a while.

The doctor on call comes to check me at about 4 am. They are concerned that once I hit 6 cm I am going to go really fast just like I did with Rylan. They want me to be comfortable and ready in case it is super quick. My contractions feel more intense, but only 7 minutes apart. Dr. does a quick check and I am only 4-5cm. I try not to be disappointed! The talk of Pitocin begins to swirl around the room. We decide to get an epidural so I can rest between contractions. We have been up a long time and are feeling very tired.

6am and about 30 minutes sleep. I am told they are going to start Pitocin very slowly. Again, they are worried that once I hit 6cm I am going to fly through labor. My contractions are still happening, but still not increasing in frequency. So weird and so different from my last labor! At 7 am the Pitocin is increased slightly, but not dramatically. They want the doctor on call to start her shift because they still think I am going to do this thing fast. Has anyone noticed it has been 7 hours since my water broke? I am not sure what they mean by fast at this point.

8am and the doctor on call is going to be here at any time. They start ramping up my Pitocin and now I am contracting about every 3 1/2 minutes. Woo hoo! We are finally getting somewhere! The doctor comes in, talks to me a bit (I like her!) and walks out of the room. We lay down to rest as we are getting closer, but I am feeling a lot of pressure. Phil goes to get the nurse who comes to check me. She feels no cervix and lets the doctor know. Dr. Tu tells me she is going to change clothes and not to push. The nurse tells me not to push. Each contraction brings a lot of pressure. I know my baby is ready to meet us. I try to pretend that I am fine with not pushing. We have two nurses, me and Phil sitting around waiting for the doctor. One asks where she went, the other says to changer her clothes, but that it was 20 minutes ago. Finally, we have a doctor and we can push. Now it seems like we wait forever for a contraction for me to push with. We are all literally sitting around chatting. This is so weird! Finally, I contract, push, and have some progress. This happens a couple of more times. We have a head with black hair on it! Then we have a head out with a cord wrapped twice around the neck. We have a blue face and a doctor who is no longer talking, but concentrating with a furrowed brow. I can't push because it pulls the cord tighter. Dr. Tu is trying to cut through the cord. Finally, the blue baby is free, rushed to the nurse and looking very blue. We have a daughter! We are a little freaked out because we haven't heard her cry yet. I am overwhelmed and start to cry. Finally, after what felt like 10 minutes, but was really more like 15 seconds, we hear our baby cry. We celebrate, a little confused, as we are both so surprised that we have a girl. And she looks so tiny to us! Now Dr. Tu is serious again and says to start the Pitocin. The nurse gets serious, jumps/runs to turn my IV up again. I am bleeding quite a bit. She is not talking again, brow is furrowed, and she is attending to me. Finally, things are under control and everyone relaxes a bit.

Emery Danielle is placed on my chest. She is so precious and small! She opens her eyes, takes a look at us, "Not bad," she must think because she is content. We are in awe! After 9 interesting hours we are parents for the third time. What a blessing!