The Mighty Johann Has Arrived!

 But his name isn't Johann.  It's Oskar John.  And he is perfect and beautiful and darling and tiny and wonderful in every way.

 We almost didn't make it to the hospital in time.  I've always mocked people who had babies by the side of the road.  Surely they can tell they're in labor before it gets to the critical point?  Nope--sometimes you can't.  You really, really can't.

I woke up at 5:00 am on Sunday morning when I felt the baby move and then a pinch type feeling and then the familiar gush of my water breaking.  I got up, hoping for some contractions.  Fortunately, Kayli lives in Switzerland so she's awake at 5:00 am.  She kept me company for an hour (well, her and Jethro and Brett who were trying to help me come up with a name for the baby) while I had intermittent, light contractions.  As soon as my kids woke up, I hung up the phone, stood up, and the contractions went away.

Being a responsible high-risk patient, I called my doctor and we agreed I'd head to the hospital about 1:00 pm, after my mom came and picked up the kids.  Then I packed the kids' suitcase and took a shower--that kind of thing.

At ll:00 am I started having incredibly painful, long, painful, right-on-top-of-each-other contractions.  I crawled to the bathroom, knocked on the door, and told Timothy that he had to take me to the hospital right then.  I wanted to be at the hospital in case of something going wrong with contractions that strong, even though I still thought I was only at a 3 or a 4 by then.  Ha.

It took 5 minutes for my 1st counselor to get to my house (thank you again, Sue!!!!), 5 minutes to get to the hospital (Timothy exceeded the speed limit the whole time, except during a doozy of a contraction when he slowed down so I wouldn't get so bumped about), 10 minutes or so to walk to labor and delivery (I had to stop and hug a wall to get through a contraction), and then another 10 minutes to get into a gown (seriously, changing into a gown is hard when there is amniotic fluid everywhere and you are experiencing constant killer contractions--it was nothing like Cowen's delivery with contractions that never got closer than 5 minutes apart).

When the nurse checked me I was at a 9.  Oops.  The nurse asked if I planned on coming in late.  What???  Who would do that?  By the time they called my doctor who lived in SLC the nurses were discussing options.  Call one of the on-call docs who would immediately give me a c-section (not fans of VBACS after two c-sections), try to have me pant through contractions and wait for Dr. Z (my doc), or do a nurse delivery.  The nurses were awesome.  They waited for Dr. Z while planning a nurse delivery as a last resort to help me avoid a c-section.

At least I didn't have a choice on the epidural.  At that point I would have taken one if I'd had the chance.  But I didn't.  The minute Dr. Z walked in they put me on the table with a delivery bar.  By then, the contractions had slowed way down.  Dr. Z said that was normal--that after really intense active labor there is often a latent first phase where your body reboots for the second phase.  Who knew?  I didn't.  So we waited for contractions and when they came I pushed and I screamed.  A lot.  I didn't scream with Cowen.  It hurt, but this time round it hurt worse or something.  Or I've gotten wimpier??  But I did a whole lot of banshee screaming.  My sister Megan said she was sorry she missed that as she wanted to compare my screaming to Lindsay's and see who was tougher.  Ha.

It took three contractions and Oskar was born.  Seven pounds even, 20 1/2 inches long, plenty of red hair.  Absolutely perfect in every way.

My only regret was that Timothy wasn't there the whole time.  After I was gowned, I crouched by the side of the bed during contractions and Timothy pushed on my back, which helped a ton.  Then the nurses sent him to get me registered.  It's not their fault; Megan explained to me that until a person is in the computer system the nurses can't do anything.  I just really missed Tim while he was gone.  He's a very soothing person.  When he came back, he held my hands during contractions and then helped me stand up in between the contractions.  He was very wonderful.

Oskar is so tiny!

 And so sweet.

 I love funny newborn faces.

I wish I knew enough about photography to really show off how cute he is and the color of his hair.  He is very red--like my girls.  With Eli it took us several days to decide what color his hair was and even then we weren't 100% sure.  But Oskar is red--no question.  I think he looks just like the boy version of Miriam and Harriet.  Maybe all my babies resemble each other so he just looks like a Tim and Andrea baby.  Regardless, he's handsome!