My due date was April 20th. At our ultrasound in January our sweet girl was measuring 19 days ahead with a due date of April 1st. They moved my date up since she and I were both measuring so far ahead. My doctor was hesitant to really stick to the new date and wanted to wait as long as I could handle to see if/when I would go into labor on my own. She really wanted to avoid inducing just because she felt that developmentally the baby wouldn't be 40 weeks until closer to the 20th. I also agreed with this and was fine with waiting it out. My only concern was her size. I didn't want a baby bigger than 9lbs. That just seemed scary. Ha ha. On April 2nd I was dilated to a 4 and 70% effaced. We scheduled an ultrasound for the following Monday (the 7th) to check her size and possibly schedule an inducement for the end of that week.
Around 4:15pm or so on Friday, April 4th I started having contractions. They were mild but they continued to come. By 6:30ish they were getting pretty intense and they were coming every 3-4 minutes. We got to the hospital at 7:30. We spent the next 5 hours in triage. It was awful and exhausting. There are new guidelines to cut down on inductions and cesarians. I think that is great and I agree with it 100% but not this night. Ha ha. To be admitted, you have to show you are in active labor. From 8:30-10:30 I walked the halls, did jumping jacks, lunges, jump squats, running, and yoga stretches to help me dilate past the 4 I was still at. At 10:30 there was still no change at all. My contractions were even slowing down. Awesome. The doctor and the nurse gave us the option of going home or staying and walking some more. We chose to stay. I did so many jump squats and crazy yoga stretches that I was sweating. My contractions pretty much stopped and I gave up. It just wasn't meant to be. At 12:30 the doctor came to check me and was stretching my cervix herself to see if there was any progress she could give me. Ha. She said that my bags of water were right there and poking out (or something like that) and that she just felt sorry for me and was going to admit me. I was soooo grateful. We really didn't want to leave without a baby since we had Nate and Scarlett sleeping at our house with our kids. By maybe 3am I was at a 7 and at 4am they broke my water. I could not believe it had dilated that far just while sitting in bed. I was shocked. Mark was asleep when they broke my water and he said he woke up to what sounded like we were being bombed by water balloons. It really was crazy. Water was going everywhere. The dr and nurse were shocked by the amount of fluid. We then proceeded to wait for hours for there to be a change. Nothing. Eventually they started the pitocin and kept gradually increasing it. Still nothing.finally around 10am I was at a 10. I started pushing at 10:20 and at 10:45 we got to meet our Cora-Bleu. I never felt the pressure that let's you know it is time to push. The nurse just said to start pushing with the contractions. I didn't really like this. I felt like we were not ready and that we were just being rushed into getting her out. I also feel it may have contributed to me having a worse tear than I had with Aubree (that was a micro tear). The tear wasn't terrible but it did lead to a less than comfortable recovery. So lesson learned. Next time I will listen to my body.
Cora-Bleu was 8lbs 6ozs and 19 1/2inches long. The pediatrician suggested that she looked like she was 37 maybe 38 weeks gestation because of her skin and how her nipples were developed. He was exactly right. She was 37 weeks and 6 days. I was amazed at how spot on he was since he knew absolutely nothing about her or the whole due date thing. Up until that point, we were all going with April 1st (while I had been at the hospital).
Cora-Bleu was pretty much born on the 3 hour schedule just as Brigham was and she has been a mostly easy baby. She has been napping in her crib and now she is sleeping in her crib at night. For the first week I spent every night sleeping in the rocking chair in her room holding her. That is the only way she would sleep. Then I spent 2 nights sleeping in my bed with her and Mark slept in Brigham's bed. The last 2 nights she has slept in her crib all night (waking up 2 times for feedings). I think she doesn't like being in the dark. I have put on the projector light on the sound machine and she has been fine. So hopefully she keeps it up. This morning we actually ended up sleeping on the couch after her 5am feeding. She wasn't ok with being put back in her crib. Ha ha
When deciding on a name for Cora we never really had any other name that we agreed on. We barely even talked about it. Ha ha Mark suggested that we hyphenate it like we did with Aubree. In the end it came down to Cora-Bleu and Cora-Jane. Jane being the name of the ghost that stays with us. After Brigham got over naming her Delores, he started calling her baby Bleu. That sealed the deal for us. It is just too cute to hear him. We got the name Annabelle by combining all of our sisters' names. Ann is from Krystin Ann, Annie, and Melanie Ann. The ABE is from ElisABEth. The LLE is from Scarlett MicheLLE. All of our sisters get the claim 3 letters of our sweet girls name. Ha ha ha
Brigham and Aubree are completely in love with their little sister and they just can't get enough of her. It is adorable most of the time and slightly annoying some of the time. They hug her and kiss her all the time. It is really really sweet.
Today her umbilical cord came off so it looks like we will have our first real bath tomorrow. Hopefully she loves. It!
