Introducing...

Olivia Anne! Born at 7:03am on October 31st. Weighing in at 7lbs 11oz. and 20 3/4 inches long.

This is a little over due and these pictures are only from the first 5 days (she will be 2 weeks tomorrow), but it's better late than never!

Well, here's a little summary of what happened (minus most of the gory details)...so if you don't want to know than just scroll down to the pictures but for my journal purposes I wanted it written down somewhere. This pregnancy had been definitely the most difficult of the 4, closer to the end I was having a few problems with swelling and high blood pressure. They were sending me for extra check ups and non-stress tests to make sure everything was still alright. On the 30th I went in for another little check up. My blood pressure was high again (about 160/100), my feet were extremely swollen (what pregnant woman can't say that right??) and I was feeling a little out of breath. The Doctor sent me straight to the hospital to be put on the monitors and possibly be induced!! (WHAT?!? not quite what I was expecting) So, I checked out and called Josh to tell him what we were doing. Zachary was at preschool and Elise was at a play date. I made a few phone calls and arranged for the kids to have extended play dates (with the option of a sleepover), packed my bag VERY quickly and rushed to get Zac from school and drop He and Thomas off. Once we got to the hospital and were hooked up, my blood pressure was the lowest it had been in a month!! I was starving (it was about 4:30pm) so Josh grabbed me a sandwich from the cafeteria but before I could finish the first half the Dr came in and gave us our options. She said we could induce tonight, come back in the morning or on Sunday if we wanted. We weren't sure what to do at first, but since we had already arranged for the kids and shipped them to their friends houses (and due to a mix up Josh didn't have the next week off like we had planned) we might as well try and get this party started and try to get it done before midnight (we didn't want a Halloween baby if we had a choice...). Since my last 2 labors had gone pretty fast we thought we could do it (because it's up to me right?!).



So, they hooked me up to an IV and started the pitocin at about 6:00pm. I hadn't had this before, in the past once they broke my water the labor started and progressed pretty quickly. I had a FANTASTIC nurse that kept asking the Dr to come and do just that but they wouldn't...until 5am on Saturday!! I was finally at 5cm at 5am so they agreed it was "safe" . Well, like in the past once they did that I progressed quickly. I was at an 8 in about 15 minutes. I had decided I wanted to try and go natural with this baby and up to this point had been fine. With how fast I seemed to be progressing we didn't think that there was any time to "re-think" that decision. After about an hour and a half I had made it to about a 9-91/2 and seemed to be stuck. With how the baby was positioned I couldn't progress any more. At this point I had been awake for about 24 hours, I hadn't eaten in about 15 hours and had been having contractions (about every 3-7 minutes) for almost 13 hours. I was unraveling pretty fast so the Dr decided to take things into her own hands (literally!). We didn't realize Olivia was coming face first! The Nurses described it as "she came out with her face pressed against the window"...which is why her face is so bruised! It was quite the ordeal but one little look at her and it was all worth it. She is such a sweet baby! We love having her in our home. She loves to be held (and we love to hold her!). I LOVE LOVE LOVE that sweet, newborn smell!

You can see her little bruised face here.

This is the first time the kids came to see Olivia...you would have thought it was Christmas!

A VERY proud Daddy!!

One of the delivery nurses brought us a hat for our little Halloween baby.

All ready to go...

Just relaxing at home.