Create & Nurture: Wedding Fun and Gabriel's Birth

My little sister Brianne gets married this Friday! Ahh!!!

This is her and I at her Bachelorette party a couple days ago.

Isn't she cute? :)

On Saturday her and mom are both leaving- she to Texas, Mom to Florida. Mom has been staying with us since mid-April to help with wedding planning and preparation and to see Bri graduate. It was good timing too, because Dave has traveled more with his new job in the past month than he ever has and probably will have to for the rest of the year. I'm super glad to have had mom here to help with the boys and for company!

Just a quick word about Brianne's fiance Zac- he is amazing! I'm so glad my sis has found someone as sweet and fun as him and I'm really sad that they're going to live all the way in Texas. :'( They live in Austin so I guess I'll just have to make a trip out there and go see Jen Hatmaker while I'm at it.

I must say, adjusting to life with three little boys has been a whirlwind! We have had so much change this year it's insane. With the baby, Dave changing jobs, my photography stuff (I did the Lowell Expo this year!) and Bri's wedding plus wrangling the boys constantly, well, life has been busy! But you know, I have to say I'm enjoying it. I really don't feel like I missed a beat with Gabe being born. It was kinda like, hey buddy welcome to the world, now come along for the ride! He is such a cool and easy-going baby it makes me believe I could do this a few more times. We won't, hopefully haha, but still. ;)

I suppose this is where I should tell about how his birth went! That's what people love hearing about, right? At least I do. :) There's not really a whole lot to tell, but here goes.

I was nine days overdue. I felt a lot of peace during that time, of course I was anxious but being my third baby I knew the sleep I was about to lose so I took advantage of a full night's sleep as long as I could haha. I went in for a non-stress test at eight days overdue and they noticed a slight drop in his heart rate after one of the contractions and it worried them that he might not tolerate contractions well. They said he was most likely fine, but told me the risks, told me what they would do if they were me and then let me make my own decision. I loved my nurse because she really took the time to educate me on why exactly it worried them and told me the options I had, then gave me the freedom to choose what I wanted to do. She explained that I could wait it out, but the longer I waited the higher the risk so I said let's just induce. I wanted desperately to avoid it but knew it was the right thing to do for me. So I went home, called Dave's mom to stay with the boys, grabbed my packed bags and husband and we were off to the hospital.

Once we got there it took awhile to get settled in. We were in the room hanging out for a bit then my nurse came and started my IV. Once I felt the rush of fluid into my chest I immediately starting coughing and it only got worse. I asked my nurse if that was normal and she said it probably had nothing to do with the IV, that maybe I was getting a cold. I said no, I was fine a minute ago. It got to the point where I said I can't labor coughing like this. So she stopped the IV and put in a different kind of saline and I immediately stopped coughing. I forgot to get the name of the other saline she used but I guess I was allergic to it. Considering that was the only hiccup of the day and it was quickly solved, I'd say we had a great birth experience.

They started pitocin around 2:45pm. My contractions started around 4:15pm and he was born at 6:45pm. Yea, I have fast labors. It got intense real fast, and when I was 9 centimeters dilated I got an epidural. Ya'll, I've had a natural birth. It has it's benefits, but the way I see it, if I don't HAVE to feel the baby coming out then I will take advantage of that. Ha! Because the epidural takes about 20 minutes to take (or so they say), they had to give me an intrathecal shot into my spine so that I would get some relief, otherwise I would have had the baby before it kicked in. So he gave me the shot, laid me on my back and it took effect immediately. Then my nurse checked me and yep, I was complete! Time to push! I think I pushed maybe three times and Gabriel was born!

I don't know exactly why, but Gabe was the only birth that made me cry. I think with Zach I was just super exhausted and loopy and in pain, so when he was born I just felt relief. With Julian, his birth was so scary and intense and hectic that again, it was pure relief. But with Gabe, I got to experience a completely natural labor save for the pushing phase, so I had all those oxytocin hormones but tolerable pain so instead of relief that the pain was over I just felt- joy. Pure joy at meeting my perfect baby boy! Dave had cried when Julian was born but not with Gabe- he was in his element making sure I was taken care of and a lot less stressed because I wasn't screaming (at the end, anyway). Hah.

The next week was filled with craziness- Gabe had a cyst in his abdomen that needed checking up on (he is ok). He had a weird breathing thing that a lot of overdue babies have that had to be monitored and it had to improve before we could be released. He also had a tongue tie which not only made nursing extremely painful but gave us an immediate errand after we were discharged to get it clipped. A couple days after we got home I bit into a tootsie roll and broke a filling in my wisdom tooth and had to have it pulled at 5 days postpartum. Then Zach got the stomach flu. Then Julian got sick with a high fever of 103.5 for a few days. Not only was it hard for me to adjust to Julian not being my baby anymore, I couldn't even snuggle him like he needed me to and I desperately wanted to because I didn't want to be a conduit between him and the baby for whatever bad virus he had. This all happened in the first week of Gabriel's life. So yea- it was hard but amazing how we all just made it through and life went on! I have to say, Julian was such a good boy adjusting to the new baby. I mean, he's a monster most of the time because he's two ;), but he didn't seem to have an adjusting phase where he was worse than normal. And he really is so sweet, and he loves Gabe. He'll go up to Gabe and smile, then Gabe will smile back, and he'll yell "He's CUUUUUTE!!" Haha it's so stinking cute and funny it just melts my heart.

I'm trying to enjoy every minute of this season. Gabe is quite possibly my last baby, and I'm relishing in his babyhood. I kiss every little chub and roll as much as I can, and I'm looking ahead now at what the rest of my life will look like as a mom of three boys. I really do feel like my family is complete.

Now, like a good blogger, I'll leave you with some pictures!!

Waiting for baby...