Cambridge Emily

As mentioned in prior blog posts, Emily was schedule to be induced on Sunday, 5 April. During her appointment with the midwife the Wednesday before, she made it sound like she didn't think Emily would make it until then. Emily was 3cm dilated and 50% effaced. The midwife actually asked Emily if she wanted to break her water and get labor going. Emily opted not to because she was waiting for her mom to arrive to watch Hadley.  So, we waited anxiously. 

Thursday came and went. Nothing. Friday came and went. Nothing. Saturday, same thing. So it looked like Emily was going to make it to Sunday induction, after all.  Yes and no. 

Around midnight, Emily mentioned she was having some abdominal pains and had to pee frequently. It seemed like I was awoken every fifteen minutes by this.  It didn't appear she was sleeping. However, it appeared she finally did.  It only lasted maybe an hour before she was up again with the pains. So around 2:30am we started tracking her pains to identify them as legit contractions. Sure enough, after a little over an hour she was having contractions every five to seven minutes that were lasting for about a minute. It was about 4am at this point, and I was rocking Hadley back to sleep when Emily came in to let me know she saw blood in her urine, and that her contractions were really intensifying. We woke up Emily's mom and I handed Hadley off to her while we dressed and grabbed our go-bags. 

I want to say it was around 4:30am by the time we got the Providence Pavillion for Women and Children in Everett, and we headed up to triage. They got out all the equipment to monitor Emily and the baby, and the midwife decided to do a quick check of her cervix to see where she was at. To this point the nurse was pretty nonchalant, mostly because Emily was so cool, calm, and collected.  

However, after the cervix check she said, "All right, let's get you out of here and up to your room. Points to you for managing most of your labor at home. You are going to have your baby really soon because you are fully dilated."

Everyone was very surprised that she was that far along based on how well she was managing the pain. They hustled her up to a room and had all the delivery supplies laid out and ready. They transferred her to the bed and got her all setup. The midwife did some tests of her own, and it was confirmed that Emily's water had not yet broken. Emily was given the option of waiting a little longer and get some rest or for the midwife to break it and get to pushing. Emily quickly opted for the latter. 

The anesthesiologist came in and gave her an epidural. Once that started to take effect, they got her all setup with stirrups and had her start pushing with each contraction. Our little baby was being pretty stubborn and only wanted to look up when she needed to look down. The next hour consisted of Emily pushing and the midwife trying to direct the baby to turn around. Unfortunately, it didn't work. It was at that time the midwives switched out, and the new one decided to take a break and put Emily on Pitocin because her contractions had started to fizzle a little, and baby wasn't getting any closer to moving down. It was now 7:30am. 

For the next hour the nurse maneuvered Emily into various positions to try and get the baby to turn around. They also turned down the dosage of the epidural because Emily had lost all feeling and her hands were starting to go numb. With the lower dosage she could feel the pressure of the contraction, and better feel where to direct her pushing.

The midwife came back in and we got prepared to have another go at it. She checked baby's position and was happy to see she had moved down, but she was still facing up. It wasn't the ideal position, but the pushing began again.  At 9:35am, little baby Cambridge (Cambri) Emily was born. She weighed in at 8lbs 2oz, and measured 20" in length. We were both pretty surprised by those results.

Emily did amazing. She powered through it all with tremendous strength. It was incredibly humbling to watch as she progressed through the stages of labor, endured the pains and exhaustion in order to bring our little Cambri into the world. She may not see it from my perspective, actually, I know she doesn't, but she constantly continues to absolutely curb stomp everything that has caused her anxiety and doubt. This occasion was no exception. She did so good, and makes me extremely proud to be her husband. 

After Cambri was born, they moved us up to the 4th floor for the rest of our stay. She pretty much slept the rest of the day, and we had to wake her up to feed every three hours or so. The first night was pretty brutal, because her sleep schedule was flipped, so we were able to get small pockets of sleep, but she was pretty fussy.  They came in around 3:40am to test her for jaundice, and after that we were actually able to get a few hours of sleep. Sometime during the morning, the nurse came in to let us know she passed, and we wouldn't have to worry about putting our baby under the lights this time. It also meant we got to go home soon. 

Even though the active labor portion lasted longer with Cambri than it did with Hadley, we were able to leave the hospital like a full two days earlier. 

I MUST HAVE YOUR SOUL!!!

She was born with this really blond hair that is actually quite long,  My mom called her Guy Fieri.

Some better pictures of that hair.

  

We weren't sure what kind of welcome Hadley would give Cambri, so we entered cautiously. Hadley didn't really know what to think. She still doesn't really know. She did get a little fussy and it almost seemed like she was a little mad at us for bringing home a baby. For all she knew we were replacing her. 

"What is this?"

Meeting Meemaw.

Hadley has slowly warmed up to her. This is her waving to Cambridge.

And this is her making sure mommy doesn't forget her. 

I took Hadley to get some ice cream to try and win back her affection and to make sure she knew we still love her just as much. I think it worked. She's going to be such a great big sister.

We are crazy excited for our growing little family.