Charlotte Marie

Finally I have a minute to blog about our new little addition Charlotte. She decided to join us exactly one week early. She was born June 25th at 1:13 pm. She was 7 pounds 6 ounces and 19.5 inches. She made quite the entrance into the world. Her name is Charlotte Marie. You can call her Charlotte or Ce Ce or Lotte and those are the only approved nick names. We call her Charlotte or CeCe and my mom calls her Lotte. 

 Labor and delivery was pretty easy for me. I started contracting at about 2:30 in the morning but I wanted to make sure that it wasn't false labor so I walked around our apartment for an hour. At 3:30 they were a little closer together about 3 minutes apart but they weren't getting any worse and I was still able to walk through them so I decided to try and watch a movie to see if maybe they would go away. They started getting a little worse and so I tried to walk around again, tried to eat a little bit, drink some but they were about 2.5 minutes apart and starting to take my breath away. I decided I would wait until about 5 AM and call my sisters to see what they thought about it, if it was real or false labor. at about 4:50 the contractions were making me cry a little bit and I had to hold onto a chair or the couch until they passed. I was trying to make it until 6 so Clair could get his normal amounts of sleep in but at about 5:30 I broke and went and got him up. Finally my sisters called back and it was decided that yes I was actually in labor not fake labor.

We drove fairly quickly to the American Fork Hospital (we live in Orem) and went right up to labor and delivery. When they hooked me up to the machine and saw my contractions were now 2 minutes apart, and learned that I had dilated from a 2 to 6.5 in four days they got me into a room and I had my epidural by 7 AM. Thank you Dr. John Bonica the inventor of the epidural. They broke my water and there was meconium in it so they were just a little concerned. After they gave me the epidural my dilating came to a stand still. We let it play out for a couple hours with no movement So they hung pitocin. I told them that drugs work really really well on me so be prepared to have a baby. Our doctor got called into surgery so at about 10 they hung the pitocin and by 11 i was completely dilated. I didn't actually start pushing until about noon.

Once I started pushing I only pushed for an hour and I was so glad I had an epidural. My doctor told me to stop pushing towards the end because the cord was wrapped pretty good around her neck but the little turkey that she is she kicked herself the rest of the way out. She wasn't as pink as they wanted so they took her and Clair away pretty quick down to the nursery where they pumped her stomach (to get the meconium out) pumped her full of fluids, hooked her up to a breathing machine to get all the meconium out of her lungs and her poor little hip was out of place so they put that back in. The poor kid. I didn't get to see her for a couple of hours after she was born and when I did it was through the nursery window where she was trying to get the CPAP oxygen machine off her little face. Once she was out of the woods they let us keep her in our room for the night and we even got to go home the next day. Thank goodness that hospital room was SUPER uncomfortable.

As soon as we got home and Clair and myself were a little more relaxed I think she felt a little better because she started to fuss less. She is a trooper she eats great. really really well, maybe a little too well. and She sleeps for about 5 hours at night I get up and feed her and then she'll sleep another 3 or 4. so far so good its been just about 2 weeks even though I feel like its been a month.

I'll get the hospital pictures up ASAP. but for a now here are a few of our pictures from our phones and some of her newborn pics that I love. Tanner and Shannon, my cousins, took her newborn pictures and let me just say they are AMAZING!

Still at the hospital

She loves her tummy. and LOVES her dad

two of her newborn pics. Clair says yes there is a child under the giant flower. she posed amazingly well and would fuss until the click of the camera. She's her mothers child.