Marley's Birth

Before I tell the birth story, I am going to tell about you about some of my fears and some events leading up to Marley's birth. Some of this might be a repeat, but for journal reasons I want to include it all so I don't forget. 

**warning there won't be pictures until the end of this post and this is a birth story, so the details might be a little graphic**

Well at my first doctor's appointment, I thought I was 9 weeks along. They did an ultrasound to check on the baby, this was the first time I had ever had an ultrasound at the beginning of the pregnancy. You could see the little heartbeat and you could tell a baby was growing. I was really excited until they told me the baby was measuring at 7 weeks. Doctor say what?? They pushed my due date back 2 weeks, I thought I was due October 26th but they pushed it back to November 8th. I was pretty upset. The doctor didn't seem too worried and he even thought that I might be off on my last period information. I had marked it on my calendar so I was about 99.9% sure, and even if I was off it would only be by a day and not 2 weeks. It took me a couple days to accept my new due date. But then the worry of having a big baby set in. Jaxon was born 4 days over due and he weighed 9lbs 4oz, so basically the whole pregnancy I knew Marley would be a big baby, and I reminded my doctor that I have big babies at every appointment.

In the beginning we were planning on finding out the gender. But then we thought it might be kind of cool not to find out. We had a boy and a girl, why not? Both of our families weren't sure they liked that idea, and some of our family members said we should put it in an envelope if we changed our mind or they said to have the envelope sent to them. I went back and forth. Some days I was all about finding out and other days I thought no we should do a surprise. Cory told me that if we weren't going to find out we had to be all in, meaning no envelope and no one else could find out either. And he said he would go along with whatever decision I made, what an awesome husband I have. About a week or so before the ultrasound I decided we should let it be a surprise. This drove our families a little crazy but we were very happy with our choice, and maybe their being bugged that we didn't find out made it that much more fun for us. At the ultrasound, we told the tech we didn't want to know and she was excited for us. She told us she would refer to the baby as a "he" the whole time and she'd turn off the screen when she got to checking the lower part of the body. We let Naomi come to the ultrasound, which she loved. It was so sweet, she held my hand and Cory's hand during the entire thing. When the tech turned off the screen, Cory asked me one last time to make sure I didn't want to find out the gender and I still didn't. The tech said the baby was measuring 8 days ahead of my due date, but she said that is not enough to change the due date. This confused me, I wondered what it would have taken to change that due date. At the end of the ultrasound we asked the tech if she knew the gender and she said yes, but didn't say anymore.

At our next appointment after the ultrasound, the doctor played a joke on us. He was talking about the results of the ultrasound and he said, "the baby looks really healthy, has a healthy heart and a healthy penis..." And our jaws dropped, I seriously thought I might cry. And then the doctor quickly said "just kidding, they didn't put the gender in the results, so I don't know either." We all had a good laugh.

The rest of the pregnancy went fine, sick like normal but no problems. Had fun prepping for a boy or a girl. Got to buy a take home outfit for boy or girl. Went through lots and lots of baby names. We'd make a list of boy names and girl names we liked, and then I'd kind of hate them so we'd make a new list. But what I was really concerned about was the baby's size. At 38 weeks, I had an ultrasound to check the size. The baby looked healthy and the tech said the baby looked to be measuring about 7lbs 15oz, give or take a pound. The tech leaned towards a pound lighter so she said, "well at least you know this baby will be 6 lbs." And I thought, "oh crap, I'm going to have a 9lb baby, maybe 10lbs." The doctor told me at my next appointment he'll let me go up to a week early and that he promises this baby will not be bigger then my biggest baby.

So I was really hoping to have my baby earlier then a week. I was really hoping for a Halloween baby. I walked a ton to try and get things going, but nothing changed. All the walking made me really sore but did nothing to get contractions going.

We got my induction date set for Monday November 4th. I was bummed because I was really hoping for November 1st. I actually went to the hospital on November 1st. I dropped the kids off at my mother-in-law's and met Cory there after he got off work so we could head over to the hospital together. My mother-in-law said even if this baby doesn't come the kids can sleep over and we can have one last night to ourselves. So my contractions and pains had been consistent, but I was stressing a lot because I was worried they were going to send me home. We get to the hospital, they hook me up and the monitoring begins. We watched TV while we just hung out waiting. I was still having contractions, they were strong, but not getting any closer together. The nurse told me I should get up and walk around. So we walked around for 20 minutes and then I get back into the bed and my contractions completely stop. I was so sad, tears were welling up in my eyes and my nurse felt bad for me but not enough to let me stay. We walked back to the car, and I just balled in the parking lot. Cory felt so bad that he picked us up some dinner and a smoothie for me to try and cheer me up. I was pretty emotional off and on for the rest of the weekend. But luckily I knew that I was getting induced Monday, so an end was in sight.

This is me when we got to the hospital Friday night. I don't look too happy because I had a feeling we would get sent home.

The Day Marley was Born

My induction was set for 10am. I called in around 8 and they said to call back at 9. I get Naomi off to school and then I call the hospital back at 9 and they say go ahead and come in at 10. That made me so happy. I spent the night before and that morning prepping the house and everything so that things would go smooth while my mother-in-law stayed with the kids. We drop off Jaxon at my friend's house, because my mother-in-law couldn't get out to Queen Creek yet, and we were off to the hospital.

We got checked in and then they started hooking me up to everything to get things going. They got me started on pitocin and the antibiotic for group b strep. My contractions started but they weren't too strong. I promised Cory that I would get an epidural this time, but I didn't want to get it too soon. So we hung out and watched some movies. My contractions started getting stronger, so I asked for an exercise ball. I sat on that for a while. My nurse told me that when I had to go to the bathroom to call her and she'd come help me. After a while, I needed to go to the bathroom, so I get up to call the nurse and all of a sudden liquid gushes out. The nurse answers my call and asks what I need and I say, "well my nurse said to call when I need to use the bathroom. And I just stood up and I think my water broke." The nurse comes, helps me to the bathroom, and then checks me and confirms that my water did break. Yay, I was happy that it broke on its own. This was probably about 1 or 2.

Here we are happy that my water broke and that the contractions are picking up and I progressed.

My contractions started getting pretty strong, so we decided it was time to get an epidural, it was probably like 3ish. The strongest contraction I had had to this point of course had to be while I was getting my epidural. It was really rough, but I stayed very still. And I was glad that I got my epidural when I did because when my contractions really start to pick up the monitor shows that my contractions are so close and sometimes they just build on each other.

In the beginning of my pregnancy I asked my good friend Karen if she would come to the hospital to take pictures. So after she got off work she headed to the hospital. She got there around 4.

 She captured a moment of Cory talking to the baby.

 Here we are laughing at some joke.

And here is a picture with my nurse who had been with me all day and now her shift was over. Her guess was a boy.

We got the last guesses from everyone. Cory's family thought girl, my family thought boy, I thought girl, Cory thought boy. We had our names picked: Marley for girl or Maddox for boy.

We were watching dancing with the stars. I was at an 8 so we were just waiting. Then the contractions really started to pick up.

 Here I am working through the pain.

Then the pain really started getting bad. I was feeling more pressure then I had ever felt before. I was starting to stress because they checked me only 20 minutes before and I was an 8, my heart rate started racing because I was worried that I was still an 8 and I would have to keep enduring this pain. This nurse came in to check me at 6:19 pm and she said "well the baby's head is right there, this baby is coming."

This news deserved a high five. And it made me so happy, the stress went away and my heart slowed. Then the nurse quickly got everything prepped. We were just waiting on the doctor. She asked the nurse at the desk to go get him. After waiting a few minutes she went to see what was taking him. The nurse at the desk said she left him a message on the phone. This annoyed my nurse because he was just in the doctor's lounge waiting for me, so she told her to go get him.

My doctor came in and it started. After about 3 pushes baby Marley was out. My eyes were closed while I was pushing so as soon as she was out my nurse said open your eyes. I opened my eyes as my doctor held up the baby and said, "it's a..." I looked and it took me second to realize what my baby was. The umbilical cord blocked my view and then I saw and I said out loud "a girl!" 

I was so happy, she was big and beautiful. And she had a good set of lungs. It was so amazing letting it be a surprise. Best surprise of our lives, it made it so special.

Cory got to cut the cord. Then they wrapped her up and handed her to me. I got to hold her for 15 minutes, I felt so lucky, she was so beautiful. Compared to my other 2 kids, she had quite a bit of hair and she didn't look like their clone. She even felt heavy, I was pretty sure she would be my biggest baby.

They finally took her, and cleaned her off. They weighed her and measured her, and I was right she was my biggest baby at 9lbs 9oz. I told my doctor that he was wrong about her being smaller then my last baby. His response was that the ultrasound tech was wrong in how big she thought the baby would be.

Proud Daddy!

So I  told Cory it was time to announce Marley's arrival. Everyone was just waiting to know if the baby was a boy or girl. I told Cory he had to send it in 2 texts. First text would be a picture of her toes and he'd say "it's a..." and the second text would be a picture of her and say "girl! Marley Jo." Cory's family did not like that we sent it in 2 texts, part of the problem was his phone started being funny so it took 15 minutes for him to be able to send the second text. But the texts came in fine with my family. Cory texted a picture to his mom and said it's a girl. It was bedtime so Jaxon and Naomi couldn't come but Cory's mom showed the kids the picture. Naomi thought that Marley was a boy, so she was a little sad. Cory's mom told her it was a girl, which is what Naomi had hoped for, but she wasn't so sure because she said, "but it looks like a boy." She had told Cory that morning that she really wanted a sister and that if it was a brother she would put the baby in a box and send him back, so she was pretty happy when she realized she had a baby sister.

We're so thankful Karen could be there with us, she got a lot of amazing pictures.

We were so excited for the kids to meet their new sister, but we knew it wouldn't be until after school the next day.

Here they are meeting their new baby sister. Naomi was in heaven, Jaxon liked her but I think he liked exploring my hospital room more. Cory's mom and step dad got to hold Marley. My grandma came and visited us.

I don't remember a lot about the hospital stay, we had visitors, I ate yummy hospital food, and we got to spend time with our sweet baby. She was a good sleeper for being a newborn, but we learned that she was a noisy sleeper. We sent her to the nursery so I could get a few hours to sleep.

Here she is in here going home outfit. You can't see it, but there is a ruffle on her bum. She did not like getting ready to go home.

But once she was in her car seat, she was good.

Well we are at the end of the birth story; I hope you made it to this point. It was long, but I think I included every detail that I wanted to remember.

I'm slowly but surely getting caught up. Next will be about her first few days of life and adjustments with the siblings and to being a mom of 3 kids. I love all of my kids!