Family of Five

On Tuesday Juliette will be four weeks old! The days (and nights) have passed in a mostly-lovely blur--having three kiddos is definitely different than having two!--and we all love having our squishy baby around.

We were incredibly blessed that Steve was able not only to take his scheduled week off (we had set it up to start on our due date) but also got the day of and following Juliette's induction off, too. His scheduler (who I seriously want to bake a cake for or something) moved a few shifts around so he could be at the hospital or at home with us for almost two weeks. I was so thankful to have him there!

The first couple of weeks at home were spent in the newborn haze--we were exhausted but also in love, so night feedings and fussy evenings were outweighed by the hours when our girl would fall asleep on our chests. Is there any better feeling than having a baby fall asleep in your arms? We have been drinking it up.

I was surprised to have a severe case of the baby blues for about the first ten or twelve days. I felt anxious and sad and hopeless, and then angry and frustrated because I didn't want to feel anxious and sad and hopeless when I was home with my brand new little one. I cried--hard--every day, at least once. I was so thankful to have Steve home--he was incredibly sweet and supportive (and reminded me that this was a totally normal hormonal twist) and was always on board to help take care of the big kids.

And we also got a lot of nice family time--lots of snuggling, resting, and the occasional walk up the street. Steve and I watched a lot of George Gently on Netflix during feedings. :) And when we felt brave we ventured out with baby girl--she went to the pumpkin patch with us to choose carving pumpkins, and sat in her stroller dressed as one of those charming squashes while we took the big sibs trick-or-treating for Halloween.

Though they were confused as to why I spent several days in bed once I was home from the hospital, Grace and Charlie both seemed happy to have us home. Gracie has enjoyed snuggling on her sister and feeding her bottles (just like she did with Charlie! How can that have been so long ago!?), and Charlie likes to lay down next to her or put his face up by hers and talk to her about dump trucks. And then he turns to me and says, "Juliette can't answer. Babies are still learning."

Lucky for me my tender heart was mostly healed up by the time Steve went back to work, and I am actually pretty surprised how natural having three feels. I mean, I am still way behind on folding laundry (and okay, pretty much everything else in my life, too) and I have yet to leave the house alone with more than one kid, but we're getting into a good groove at home, and I know that once the kids are feeling secure again and I'm getting more sleep things will even out a little more. We're still working out the kinks, but I'm confident that things will settle into place. *phew!*

My first day home solo with all three!

Juliette herself has been so sweet and so fun. We love that her hungry giggle-cry sounds just like Gracie's did when she was a baby. We love her wide blue eyes and her soft, soft skin and stroking her baby hair. She likes to be held and gets very calm when you cradle her head against your chest, and she can't bring herself to cry when someone is walking her down the stairs--the bouncing is just too soothing. She likes to be held over our shoulders and have her back patted and she still gets hiccups at least once a day, just like she did when she was in my stomach!

She is mostly pretty content, too, so far. She cries ferociously when it is time to be fed, but once her tummy is full she is mostly happy to look around on a blanket, snuggle in our arms, rock in her swing, or fall back to sleep.

I've gotten her onto a pretty consistent schedule--she eats every 2.5 to 3 hours, starting around 7am--with her final evening feeding around 9:30. We feed her a pumped bottle before bed so we can make sure she gets all her tummy desires before we put her down. Some nights she wakes every three hours to be fed in the dark, too, but other nights she won't wake up until sometime between 2 and 4am. Which means I get 4 or 5 consecutive hours of sleep! Hooray! She also eats much faster than her siblings, which is a huge blessing (especially in the middle of the night!). Grace and Charlie both took 40 minutes to an hour to feed for at least the first month, but Juliette rarely takes more than 30 minutes--and that includes a diaper change in the middle and a burping session. Clearly I am a fan of this!

There is something very special and lovable about her. Part of it, I think, is that she feels so much like ours--our whole little family's--and it is nice to have all four of us love her so much. It draws us together even more.

And part of it is her sweet self. When she was in my stomach she was always moving during the day, almost like she was always letting me know she was okay. During Gracie's and Charlie's pregnancies we had at least one incident each when I couldn't feel them moving for a long time--long enough that we prayed and I drank caffeinated stuff to get them bustling around again--but Juliette never let me worry. The moment I even had the slightest bit of apprehension about her being okay she would wiggle or flutter--every single time. So even though she hasn't smiled yet (Steve and I are both so soooo excited for her to smile!) I feel like I know a little piece of her soul already.

I love seeing her in her room! Every single time! 

We are so happy to have this pretty little girl (who has, by the way, been nicknamed Squish because she is just so squishy and yummy--Charlie will say, "Oh, don't cry Squish!" and Gracie heard her squeaking on my lap today from the other room and called, "Oh! Is Squish down here?!"). The wait to get her felt long, but the days since she has come have felt so quick! And she was most definitely worth the wait.

Juliette's First Two Days

After the craziness of delivery was over--our baby was snuggled and our kiddos and families were called--they took me upstairs to a nice little room that was to be ours. They brought me something for dinner (I don't remember what it was) but it was pretty gross, so Steve went down to the cafeteria and retrieved us pizza slices and breadsticks, which tasted like heaven after the liquid diet.

I practiced nursing our girl (and had to fight to get the nurses to bring us formula to supplement her afterward--Walton babies are hungry) and was unfortunately a little cold to the poor lactation consultant who came in to talk to me more about nursing. I am usually very nice, but I guess after labor and delivery I wasn't really in the mood for a lecture about the benefits of breastfeeding. Sorry, lactation consultant. It wasn't your fault!

We had planned to have Steve go home and relieve our patient and wonderful babysitter, Amanda, from kiddo-duty for the night, but the closer it got to the time he was supposed to leave, the more anxious I felt. I was wiped out and in pain, and since they'd changed hospital policy to "rooming-in" (they don't take the babies to the nursery anymore) I was terrified at the prospect of having to take care of our lovely when I couldn't even really walk well yet (pain, epidural numbness in my legs, etc.). So we got in touch with Amanda who so so so sweetly agreed to spend the night at our house so Steve could stay with me. He slept on the couch and helped whenever Juliette needed a feed or a change. It was so comforting to have him there.

He left early in the morning to go home and get the kids up and ready. He fed them breakfast and got them dressed, and then brought them over to meet their new sister for the first time!

Gracie was enamored with Juliette from the first moment, and Charlie was intrigued enough to climb up on the bed and examine her.

I had mentioned to Grace a few times (as I explained what would happen while I stayed at the hospital) that after Juliette was born the nurse would wrap her in a blanket and put a little hat on her. So when Grace arrived to a blanketed but bare-headed baby sister, she wanted to know where the hat was. So I put it on for her perusal before she got to hold baby girl on her own. :)

And Steve took the opportunity to make sure the older two had grown since they last slept in a bassinette.

Once they'd had their fill of sister-watching (or, in Charlie's case, messing with all the buttons in my hospital room) Steve packed the kiddos out and dropped Charlie off at our friend Nicole's house for the day before taking Gracie to school. She had been giving her teacher the baby-countdown every day for the past week or so, so when Grace walked in late to class with her daddy, her teacher asked, "Did your baby sister come?!"

Grace was so excited to tell her that she had, and Steve said that a bunch of Gracie's little girl friends got up from their seats to give her hugs of congratulation! It all sounds pretty adorable to me.

Meanwhile I got to admire the sweet toes of this cute thing.

And snuggle up with her in bed.

When Steve got back I took a shower. It was glorious. And then I got into some real (maternity, but non-hospital) clothes, which also felt divine, and hopped back into bed. And we spent the day hanging out together admiring our baby girl, and resting.

That evening Steve took the kids out for (an unfortunately eventful) dinner at Chipotle and then brought them back to visit again. This time Charlie got to hold Juliette, too.

And then they got kisses and said goodnight and headed home to bed, and it was just me and my pretty baby for the second night. We had dinner together and watched HGTV and then slept as much as the nurses would let us. (Luckily since this was my third time around, I was brave enough to ask the nurses if I could just call them when our girl woke up to eat--so they did most of our checks when we were both awake anyway instead of waking us over and over. So much better!)

I woke up early the next morning. I don't remember if it was the sun, the nurses, a hungry sweet baby girl or the visiting pediatrician. But it was sweet. I love sunlight pouring through windows. I love this girl.

I talked to Steve on the phone and we made plans for the day. He dropped Gracie at school and took Charlie to our friend Karen's house for the morning, while I conspired with the pediatrician and our nurse to get us out as soon as possible. Juliette had her last checks and we were cleared to go home by eleven!

Steve and I took turns holding our lovebug while the other packed, and then a very nice, very old man came to our room with a wheelchair and a cart for all our stuff. He wheeled me to the nurses' station to get Juliette's tracker removed and then wheeled me downstairs to wait for Steve and the shiny black minivan. I held my baby and thought about holding Charlie in the same waiting room, and about taking her home to her very own house.

It felt so good to bring her home. Steve took her on a tour when we came in, and I almost started crying when he showed her her bedroom. I had spent many tired pregnant evenings sitting in a chair by her crib trying to imagine what it would be like to see her in the room we'd made for her. It was heavenly to have her there.

We took a little time to settle in, just the three of us, before Steve retrieved her big siblings. It was so good to be home, and so sweet to have our lovely Juliette there with us at last. It felt like the most delicious sigh of relief to settle into my bed with my sweetheart and our baby girl.

Signs and Wonders and our lovely Juliette Ava.

It's taken me a while to write this down. I've been so emotionally raw since our baby girl came safely into this world that it almost hurt to think about her lovely self being born. I know that may sound strange, but it's true.

The thing is, after the frightening experiences we had during Charlie's birth, I just wasn't sure if my body could take another delivery. My doctors were confident, we were inducing early so she wouldn't be too big, and time and again my prayers had been answered with a soft affirmation that everything would be okay. But still I worried.

The night before she was born, after a long day of preparations for her arrival, I sat on our bed and cried in Steve's arms that I should have spent more time with the kids that day. Read them a story or cuddled them longer. And the unspoken words--just in case--hung in the air between us for only a millisecond before he corrected me, that I shouldn't regret the day we'd had as it was.

Which meant, really, that I didn't need an in case.

I took some Unisom before bed and, aside from getting up a couple times to use the bathroom per usual, I slept really well. We got up early Tuesday morning to get the kids ready, get dressed ourselves, and pack our bags in the car. We had a simple breakfast of Life cereal (I requested that specifically since I knew I wouldn't be able to eat for the rest of the day) with the kiddos, enjoying our last few moments together as a family of four. It was sweet. We said a prayer and ate together, and then at seven our friend Amanda showed up to watch the kids and we kissed them goodbye, got in the car, and headed to the hospital.

We listened to the radio but the music was bad and so were the DJs, so I turned it off. It was still a little dark and the sky was soft with gray clouds, and I looked out the window at Silas Creek Parkway in the dewy half-light of early morning. Then we pulled up to the hospital and handed the valet our keys (so fancy), and slung our backpacks over our shoulders before we went inside.

It was strange and nice to begin the day so calmly--no pain, no wondering if it was "true" labor or that I'd be sent home to try again another day. We just walked into the Women's Center and handed the lady behind the desk our paperwork, and a few signatures later we were headed up the elevator to have a baby.

We waited in the waiting room for a little bit while they got things squared away. A couple of men in one corner were waiting too, watching some sports on TV. One very tired looking guy in a black hoodie was pacing the hall outside, and Steve saw a resident he knew walk past the wall of glass windows. We took that as a good sign. And then a nurse came to get us, and took us back to a delivery room.

I looked around, took it in. It was a little smaller than the room I'd been in with Charlie, and the window faced a different direction. To the left of the door was the little warming bed where our baby girl would be cleaned up and checked out. Strange to think it would be only a matter of hours.

I was still worried. A few hours into the Pitocin (which didn't start until eleven) Steve and I sat together on the hospital bed and he held me and we cried for a couple of minutes, trying not to be scared. But along with another quiet, personal answer to prayer (actually, probably several--I'm not sure how many times I prayed for reassurance and comfort that day) it started to become clear to me that my Heavenly Father was very, very mindful of our safety in that moment.

It started a few days before, when we were out driving and I saw a pair of dachshunds being walked. Maybe that doesn't seem like much of a sign to you, but you probably have your own language with God. He speaks to me in my own, too, and since I grew up with a pair of dachshunds and have always loved them, it has become one of the ways he tells me things will be okay. So anyway, we saw these dachshunds about a week before I went in to deliver, and I told Steve (kind of half-kidding) that it was a good sign.

Then on Monday, as Steve played with the kids in the driveway, a couple walked by our house with a pair of dogs--one of them dachshund. They stopped to let the kids pet the dogs, and I walked outside when I heard Steve chatting to them. Sixteen hours until I checked into the hospital, and there was another dachshund.

When the charge nurse, Meredith, brought us back to our delivery room Steve started talking to her while I went into the bathroom to change into a hospital gown. She looked familiar, and he was trying to figure out whether he had seen her on his OB/GYN rotation in med school. As I climbed into the bed, she started asking about our previous delivery at Forsyth, with Charlie, wondering if Steve knew her from then. She asked who had delivered me and which room we were in, and as I told her about the scary part and how calm the doctor had been a look of recognition crossed her face and she spoke about a particular line that forms on that doctor's forehead when he is worried and focused. And suddenly I had what I am pretty sure is the first flashback of my life, and I saw this woman's face above me as she knelt on the side of my hospital bed, pushing on my stomach to help Dr. Parker deliver Charlie's stuck shoulder.

"You were the one pushing on my stomach," I blurted out, and she smiled and admitted that she had been. And here she was, setting me up to have another baby almost three years later. She remembered us. She had taken care of us, helped get us safely through with our boy. I felt like a part of my brain had been illuminated: this was another promise of safety, another moment meant to give me comfort.

Our nurse, Dee, came in and began setting up for the delivery when Meredith handed me off to her. She started my IV with fluids (she taped it to my wrist really well, which I appreciated--I am not a fan of IVs in my hands) and strapped my belly with a fetal heartbeat monitor for Juliette and another monitor to trace my contractions when they started. She put in orders for the pharmacy to approve my Pitocin and told Steve he could pull a chair up beside my bed.

When the anesthesia residents came in to talk about an epidural, Steve recognized one of them from school rotations, and the other looked between the two of us and said, "My wife and I walked past your house last night."

He was half of the couple walking the dachshund past our house the day before. And I don't think he will ever understand how his taking a walk with his dog at just that time--during the last few minutes when my kids were outside--was a miracle for me.

Once we'd seen the anesthesiologists and had a little visit from my doctor, we settled in and waited. I watched What Not to Wear while Steve played a game on his iPad. I started having contractions but they weren't too bad, and they were so short! With my natural labors with Grace and Charlie, I had 3-5 minute long contractions, with short breaks in between. The Pitocin gave me contractions that lasted only a minute, so for the first few hours I felt like they were nothing much at all.

The attending anesthesiologist came in when my pain picked up a little and attempted an epidural. Steve and Dee were both holding my hands as I curled over a pillow, trying to hold still--it was incredibly painful and it took what felt like a very long time for him to decide that he couldn't find a good placement with the needle where it was. I almost broke down completely when he said he would have to start completely over. The next time I curled in a tighter ball so my back was in a better position, and he got the epidural in place quickly.

And then came more waiting.

"Lunch."

Around noon I requested the best lunch I could come up with on the mandatory "liquid diet"--chicken broth and some generic brand strawberry Jello. :) Steve was getting hungry so I sent him down to the cafeteria to eat some real food (he had pizza and breadsticks). Oh! And the nurse kept me stocked with cups full of hospital ice, which was heavenly. The perfect ice for my ice craving--easily crunchable and just divine. That alone kept me happy for a lot of the day! So silly.

The best ice in the world.

A little after one Dr. Hatch (one of my doctors) came to check on me again. I hadn't progressed much with the Pitocin so she broke my water and we waited some more. The contractions (and pain) began building gradually and the nurse had to first turn down and then turn off my Pitocin as my little body started doing some crazy contracting all on its own. But I didn't progress much over the next few hours. Dr. Hatch checked in to say she was going home, and Dr. Pollard (my favorite doctor) came by to say hello. I had agreed to be part of a research study for epidurals, so I kept thinking I could take a nap but the med student doing the research had to come ask me questions every 15 minutes. By the time she finished with me I realized I was in too much pain to sleep.

And suddenly everything kicked into high gear. I have literally never felt so much pain--right through my epidural!--in labor before. Every contraction was excruciating. It was (if I may geek out on you a little bit) basically what I imagine the Cruciatus curse feels like. I was trying very hard to stay positive and laugh through it but man--I have never hurt like that in my life.

When I told her the pain was building my nurse, Dee, came in to check my progression and said, "I can feel baby's head." I don't think that really registered as reality, but after that it was a blur. Dr. Pollard and another nurse came in, and Dee told me to push on the next contraction.

"Push now?" I was kind of shocked. We'd gone from zero to sixty, and I didn't even feel ready to push yet.

"Now," she said. And everyone was talking and urging me on and my brain was almost hazy with how much everything hurt but I knew if I pushed hard enough I would get my baby girl and the pain would be over. So I used all my energy and a few minutes later our sweet girl was out safely in the world, cord clamped and cut, and she was laid on my chest so I could see her little face and cradle her against me.

First glimpse of lovely Juliette.

Then one of the nurses took our baby girl to the warming table to clean her up and we laughed because our little love was so mad! She was squalling like nobody's business and we wondered if we might have a screamer on our hands (but she hasn't ever shrieked like that since).

We did it!

Her face was a little bruised from the quick delivery (and from being a big baby!) but other than that she was perfect and healthy. We are so lucky. The nurse invited Steve over to put on our bun's first diaper.

He is the tenderest daddy. Our babies are so lucky.

Then the nurse wrapped her up and brought her back to me.

Tired but oh so blessed.

And her sweet daddy waited patiently while I held her. I love watching him with our babies--he is in love from the first second, and he just sat with our girl in his arms and admired her for the longest time.

I don't remember much between that and the time they settled me into our recovery room, except that we both got to hold her, and Steve came to hold me and we had this moment of relief and awe and gratitude that we were both safe, that our baby was beautifully healthy and happy. Another little miracle.

And we are just so, so in love.