Introducing Ridlee Evangeline!

Ridlee Evangeline
Born on 1.5.14
@ 5:15 a.m.
5 lbs. 4 oz.
17.25 inches

And she would come in a snow storm...

Saturday night I went to bed with my usual contractions that I have been having for weeks. Nothing out of the ordinary. At 3:30 ish I got up to go to bathroom like I do usually all night. Felt my usual contractions and thought nothing of it. When I felt about 5 close together I started timing them. They were not really regular, spacing between 5-8 minutes and felt like normal Braxton Hicks. Steven was in the living room rocking Heston since he woke up for some odd reason at 2:30.

At 3:41 I felt one then a gush of warm fluid. I knew immediately my water had broken. I panicked somewhat inside because with all the others, when my water breaks soon I go through transition... FAST! I didn't move and sent Steven a text. He called the midwife immediately. She asked about whether it had any meconium in it. I was still afraid to move so I had to have Steven check. We freaked out when there was some staining of something. (It was later realized it was probably blood.) Midwife didn't want me to move either because at last appointment baby was still high and that she was afraid of prolapsed cord. So I waited until she got there and didn't get up despite me wanting to since the pain of the contractions getting very painful, very quickly. I just hummed and prayed through them.

I had fears since it had just started getting bad weather wise, that she might not make it in time. But she made it 20 minutes later. I had already been checking heart tones with a doppler of my own before she arrived. When she got there she checked and said I was around a 4, thin, but she was still a little high but coming down. I roughed it through another couple of contractions and she dropped low enough I could get up. I was between a 6-7 cm dilated after those contractions. I then got up, went to bathroom, came back out, sat on floor by the bed but leaned against my big yoga ball. All the sudden I was already feeling pressure. The midwife's assistant made it in sometime in those few minutes. I had maybe 5 contractions that felt like transition. I actually surprised myself by continuing to hum and pray and didn't need to yell for once. I was afraid to wake kids, thinking they might get too loud. All the sudden my body took over and it pushed, I just went with it. Steven was wanting to catch but this caught everyone off guard. In one push she came out. She was crying immediately.

I could tell she was small, but boy was she strong. She had some neck control already. She started nursing immediately. Midwife says she is the smallest she has delivered and believes the dates from the second ultrasound may have been more accurate. That would still put her in the 38 week mark instead of almost 39 weeks 6 days. I had no major postpartum complications but the afterbirth pains I felt for a couple of days were as bad as contractions in transition. BAD! I could only take tylenol since I am allergic to NSAID's. Those days were rough. Tylenol didn't do much, so I even went without that for awhile.

Ridlee is doing great! We had a scare on day 2 with increasing temps and fussiness, the first signs that Heston had when he got dehydrated before his NICU stay. We immediately started supplementing nursing with formula and electrolytes. Temps went down and we are still having to supplement until my milk comes in, which takes around 4-5 days for me. But she is doing amazing. She is the least jaundiced out of all of our kiddos at this time. She eats a lot throughout the day, because she is so small and can only hold a little at a time. We have to do a weight check in week, but everything is great. We are all in love. Heston has been so proud of his baby sissy, and so is his other siblings.