Finley Jennifer

Our sweet little Finley Jennifer made her way into the world on November 26, 2019 at 1:52 pm. She weighed in at 7 pounds 8 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. We are so grateful to have this beautiful little soul join our family.

Here is an account of her birth with lots of pictures we took during our hospital stay :)

BIRTH STORY

Finley's due date was on December 8th, but we wanted to be prepared a bit earlier because Eloise was nearly two weeks early and we weren't sure if our second baby would follow that same course (spoiler alert: she did). After a few unprepared trips to Labor and Delivery when I was 37 weeks pregnant (see this blog for more info), we were finally mostly prepared to have our girl. Babysitting was set up for Eloise, the newborn clothes were washed, and the hospital bag was mostly packed. Both mine and Dustan's moms had already bought plane tickets to come visit one after the other, Dustan's mom first. She was going to be coming on December 3rd with the hope that baby girl wouldn't come late. So just like with Lou, I desperately hoped I wouldn't go past 40 weeks--but honestly, what pregnant woman doesn't hope that?

Dustan and I went to bed on Monday night, quite comfy and relaxed on our new Purple mattress in our new house. At about 2:30 am on Tuesday, November 26th, I woke up very suddenly with the feeling that I had just wet the bed. It wasn't any huge amount, but enough that I quickly jumped out of bed and ran to our toilet, dripping a little on our carpet and tiled bathroom floor. As I sat on the toilet, I yelled at Dustan to wake up. He was obviously very confused and quite shocked when I told him that I think my water had just broke. Again. My water had broke to jumpstart labor with Eloise as well, and apparently the odds of this happening to the same woman for multiple pregnancies was pretty rare. I'll take it though!

There wasn't a huge gush of liquid like I experienced with Lou. As I sat on the toilet, I seriously wondered if my water had actually broken, or if my pregnant self was finally incapable of holding my bladder and I really had just peed myself. But as I got up and started walking around, I was still leaking. This made me feel a bit better, haha. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to go all the way to L&D and realize that your water hadn't actually broken, that you had just wet the bed?!

Anyway. We called our babysitter/wonderful friend and she came in the middle of the night with her baby and slept at our house to keep an eye Eloise. I took a quick shower while Dustan grabbed the last few items to put in our hospital bag. We cut ourselves a giant slice of pumpkin pie and covered it with whipped cream to eat on the drive over. Then we jumped in the car and made our way to Tucsons Northwest hospital, arriving at about 3:45 am.

Because we had already made multiple hospital visits the week before, we were already pre-registered and knew where to go. We were quickly checked in and went to triage to make sure I was actually in labor and my water had broke. I was still only dilated to a three, but my water had indeed broke and I was having inconsistent contractions that I couldn't yet feel.

From there, we were led to our hospital room and got all set up. My nurse came in to give me an IV to get me started on fluids and pitocin and antibiotics for Strep B. My nurse spent a few minutes trying to find a good vein, but seemed to be having some trouble. She stuck me once in the hand, but it didn't quite work right. She called in the head nurse to try. They had me chug a huge cup of water and packed my arms with heat pads. She also stuck me once--this time in the arm--but also wasn't successful. Both admitted that this never happened to them, they hadn't had a hard time getting an IV set up in years. They ended up calling in an anesthesiologist, who finally got an IV in my right hand. He also admitted thought that my veins were very uncooperative, haha. Overall, it took about two hours to get the IV and I had started feeling regular contractions and they started me up on the Strep B antibiotics.

Dustan and I tried to get settled in and began alerting all our families about the situation. He gave me a blessing that all would go well, and soon after he was able to get in a very short nap. About an hour later (it was about 8:30 am at this point), my nurse decided that I wasn't progressing fast enough and started me on a tiny dose of Pitocin. I also ate a very delicious popsicle :)

At 10:00 am, I was checked and I was dilated to a five, so making progress! At this point, my contractions were getting closer together and very painful, so I asked for an epidural. The anesthesiologist made his way back and again had some trouble. It took nearly half an hour to get the epidural in and going. But then I felt amazing! This epidural was much better than the one I had with Lou. That one was way too strong, I couldn't even feel my legs or move them at all. This one, I was numb enough to not feel the pain or contractions, but still was able to move my body. I was able to doze off a little here and there once I got the epidural.

My nurse came back around noon and I was dilated to an eight! Things were going quickly at this point. Again, we let our families know the progress. The nurse again came back around 1:15 pm, and I was dilated to a ten and ready to have a baby! Woohoo!

We got the room all prepped to have a baby and let the on call doctor know. My nurse convinced me to have a mirror put at the base of bed so I could watch my progress and my baby being born (this ended up being pretty cool though also really weird at the same time haha). Then it was 1:30 pm and time to push.

When I started pushing, I fully expected to it to take at least an hour or two if not more for my little babe to be born. Eloise took about four hours of pushing to get out, because she got stuck in my pelvis area. We aren't sure if that was because of the shape of my body or the angle she was trying to come out. We didn't know if this would happen again. I just hoped it would be a little faster.

I'm not sure what was different this time. Maybe it was because the epidural wasn't as strong. Maybe it was because I had already had a baby before and my body knew what it was doing. Maybe it was because our baby was coming out at a different angle. Who knows? It could have been any manner of reasons. But I am so grateful for whatever the reason was, because I only had to push for twenty minutes!!

Our baby girl was born healthy and perfect at 1:52 pm on Tuesday, November 26th. She was immediately placed on my chest while the nurses vigorously rubbed her down and got her breathing and crying. Dustan cut the cord and admired our little girl with me :) We were so in love already!

We got in some good snuggles and tried out breastfeeding while I was stitched up (one small tear). The nurses grabbed baby at this point to get her measurements. Dustan followed baby girl around nonstop the next day while she got all her testing done--though she passed them all with flying colors! And we very much enjoyed the free parents meal!

It took us about a day to officially decide on her name, and we've grown to love it more and more as she's gotten older. We didn't stay in the hospital as long this time, only about a day and a half after she was born. We felt more experienced this time around and wanted to get out of that cramped and uncomfortable hospital room as soon as possible (we just had to wait for Finn to pee before we could leave, haha).

We are so grateful that our Finley Jennifer joined our family. Eloise was so cute with Finley when she met her for the first time (outside of the hospital the next day), and immediately wanted to old her and giggled as Finnley's flailing arms hit her in the face. I can't wait to see their sister relationship grow. We just love adore our new, beautiful girl!