Camille Patrice

She came!  And she even came pretty early (11 days), making her my favorite child ever!

And can I say-- I am REALLY enjoying not being pregnant.  I always say I do pregnancy pretty well, but these last few weeks were killing me.  Between this awful cold that left me feeling like I was suffocating all the time, and the fact that I was carrying all out front which was really uncomfortable (although from the front, if I wore black, looked pretty fabulous!)...  Yeah, I was feeling very done.

And that Sunday was a particularly long day.  Sunday, the 8th, Craig was speaking in a different ward, so I got to do church with four kids all by my very pregnant self, and then stand for an hour teaching Sunday school.  It was exhausting.  The only saving grace was that they had food in Relief Society, which was especially lucky since I'd only found time to drink a glass of orange juice before church that morning!

So that was a long morning.  As soon as we were all home, we fed the kids a quick lunch and drove to Culpeper to have an early birthday celebration for Kendra (more on that in some other post to come).  I actually fell asleep in the car I was so tired.  We arrived, Kendra opened presents, and I promptly took a nap.  It was a little embarrassing, because I ended up sleeping for nearly two hours!  I would have felt bad, except I felt so wonderfully refreshed, I couldn't even muster any guilt over something I clearly needed so much.  And, as it turned out, that was the last sleep I'd get for a while, so it was an even better thing than I knew at the time!

We got back that night, put the kids to bed, and began planning our week, which looked to be pretty busy.  Sure, I had a few contractions here and there throughout the entire day, but that had been happening for weeks.  It wasn't anything to get excited about.

As we were going to bed, around 11pm, Colton woke up, so I warmed up a bottle of milk for him and balanced him on my tummy while he drank it.  That might have been a mistake, because right as he was finishing up, something leaked.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of that and was left wondering, What just happened?  Craig went to bed, and I put a towel on the floor next to me just in case.  I read in bed to see if anything else happened.  Twenty minutes later, I coughed, and water gushed out again.  Oh, dear, I thought.  This was definitely not a bladder problem.

But here's the thing: I wasn't having ANY contractions.  So I didn't know what to do.  Or if there was anything to be done at all. 

So, true to form, I just kept reading.  Around midnight, Ryder woke up and I sent Craig to see what he needed.  Craig took care of him (I think he'd lost his blankie?) and climbed back into bed.  Then he looked around and asked me, "Why is the bathroom light on?"

"Oh, well, I think something's happening.  I think my water broke,"  I admitted.

"Wait-- WHAT???" was his response, "So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know..."

"Well, don't you think you should text Tierney?"

"Oh, yeah, that's probably a good idea..."  So I texted Tierney.  Her next two responses were great:  "Wow."  And then, "Ok."  There were a few minutes of waiting, then she wrote again, "Can you try and rest?"  I told her I would try, but to keep her ringer on (duh).  While we texted, Craig called in sick for school and called his parents to let them know what was going on in case we needed them.  With every baby we've had some sort of game plan for child care while I'm in labor, and our plans never seem to work out, so this time we hadn't bothered planning anything at all.  And that turned out to be just fine.  You really never know with labor!

We made up the bed (that's a home birth thing-- put on a fitted sheet, cover it with a shower curtain, and then put another set of sheets on top), and laid back down.  But of course, we couldn't sleep.  We just laid there getting excited to have a baby!  Eventually the contractions started.  They were ten minutes apart.  Then when they were five minutes apart at 1:15, we told Tierney to come on over. 
She arrived before 2, bringing an assistant with her who we hadn't met before.  (This was pretty confusing to poor Craig, who headed outside to help carry stuff in, only to discover that it wasn't Tierney sitting in the car!  He thought maybe it was the girl across the street, and worried he must look kind of creepy heading out to see her, so he just turned around and went back to the house.  Fortunately the assistant (Tabita? I think?) realized what had happened and hollered out to Craig that Tierney would be there in a moment, so then Craig invited her in.  Weird!)

Tierney got everything set up while I laid in bed contracting.  Once she'd listened to the baby's heart and declared everything satisfactory, I asked if I could get in the shower. 

In the past (with Kendra, Ryder, and Colton) getting in the shower was my golden ticket to a speedy delivery.  As soon as I was done showering, my water would break and I'd start pushing.  So I was anxious to move things along.

But each baby likes to come in its own way, and this time, the shower didn't do a thing for speeding up labor.  I had contractions, but nothing bigger or closer together.  And finally I realized my trick wasn't going to work and climbed out.

But the problem was then I didn't quite know what to do!  So I just tried whatever I could think of.  I sat on the toilet for a while (usually with some more gushes of water).  For a while I sat on the bed with Craig and we chatted with Tierney and Tabita, sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed.  Eventually, Craig asked if I wanted to try walking around, so I agreed to do that and we headed to the living room so I could pace.  Everyone got comfortable on the couch and I walked the circle that our kids usually enjoy running (Craig offered to chase me like he does with them, but at three in the morning it didn't feel as funny as it should have).  I climbed up and down the stairs, and that almost always produced a good strong contraction.  (According to my favorite birth book, stairs are great for opening up the pelvic floor, so that's a perfect labor exercise.)

And in between contractions, we just waited.  We talked about church history-- it turns out that Tierney is from the town next to Palmyra, so there was lots to discuss there.  At one point I asked Tierney to check me, and braced myself in case the news was bad.  She checked and said I was at a 7 or 8.  She swept her fingers around feeling the baby's head, but didn't say anything about that at the time.  Later she admitted that it felt like an awfully big head, but she figured there was no point in worrying me about it.  The baby would have to come out no matter what size her head was!

I went back to climbing up and down the stairs.  At one point I looked at Craig (he'd followed me upstairs and we were standing alone in our room) and said "I don't want to do this any more."  He asked me if I was okay with Tabita being there-- he was worried her presence was making me uncomfortable.  But I assured him she was fine.  I was just tired.  And sick of the contractions.  I wanted it over already.  A little later, at the foot of the stairs, one contraction hit really hard and I declared that that had been a 9.  I just knew I had to be getting close, but labor is such a guessing game with stuff like that.  Who really knows?  I tried to be all zen during the contractions and murmur to my baby, "Come and meet your mommy.  It's time to come now.  Open up..." but I'll admit that mostly I just felt grumpy, tired, and in pain.

I really don't enjoy being in pain.

The night wore on, and I wandered up the stairs and leaned against the bathroom counter for another contraction, but this time it switched to a pushing contraction.  Everyone else was still in the living room, so I said, "Tierney?  Craig?  I think I'm pushing..." and they all rushed up to me.  (Later on, Tierney would laugh about this.  She said most women when they're ready to push sound like a wounded moose.  She couldn't believe how calmly and quietly I asked for their help.)  Tierney walked me to the bed and asked which side was mine and where I wanted to be.  I ended up across the whole thing, as the next contraction came and I could push in earnest. 

One push, and Craig announced he could see her face.  "Does she have any hair?"  I asked.

Two more pushes and relief flooded over me.  "She's out," I sighed, "Can I see her?" and Tierney passed her under to me. 

And she was beautiful.  And FAT.  And perfect.

Very first picture

Look at those fat arms!!!

She'd been born with the caul still on her, which Craig said had made her face look really weird.  But that was gone by the time I got her.  Tierney said that with my water leaking, but the caul so intact, the break must have been high up, which would explain the very sporadic gushes of water.

Camille squawked once, and then proceeded to look around calmly, taking it all in while we stared back at her and tried to memorize everything.  I tried to nurse her pretty fast, but she wasn't interested (it was three or four hours before she finally decided she was ready to eat).  I had a very small tear, which Tierney stitched up, but mostly we just sat around enjoying looking at our new baby.  After an hour or so of monitoring me, Tierney got to work measuring the baby.  She weighed in at a hefty 9 lbs 10 oz, and measured 21.5 inches long.  Her head circumference was 14 or 15 inches, which makes no sense to me at all.  How did she fit?  But she did, so I guess that's the only important thing.  She had the arms of a wrestler, but legs that looked more like regular newborn legs.  And approximately five chins.  We think somewhere underneath them all she's got a neck, too, but that's mostly just a rumor at this point.  And I think she has more hair than any of my other newborns combined.

Weighing her with a fish scale: a quintessential home birth tool!

I got to cut her umbilical cord-- I'd  never done that before!

Measuring that huge head

By 6am, Tierney was finished and had cleaned everything (including me) up, so she and Tabita headed out.

This gave me time for a quick nap before the other kids woke up (yup, they'd slept through it all!).  Craig got up with them and got them breakfast before announcing that he had a surprise for them.  He videotaped their responses, and that was precious to see.  They all came into the room to meet their sister with a sense of awe.  Ryder excitedly told me we should name her Lucy, since this is a girls' name.  (Apparently he got the name from The Lego Movie.  Perfect!)  But we told him we'd decided to name her Camille Patrice.  Colton looked at her, and then laid his head down on my leg and just rested there thinking about it all.

Craig's parents arrived a little later and proceeded to play with the kids and pick up food for us all so I could stay in bed and rest.  I was so thankful for that long nap I'd taken at their house the day before!  And even more thankful for their willingness to drop everything and come help as soon as we needed it.

And mostly, I was thankful for my brand new little baby.  My perfect little Camille, and her perfect little birth.

More pictures to come!  So many more pictures to come...!