Ruby's Birth Story

When we were preparing for Grace's birth, we took a HypnoBirthing class and prepared for a non-medicated delivery. (For those who don't know what HypnoBirthing is, it's actually not hypnosis, but a method of relaxation and other tools for looking at birth not as a painful experience, but one that the body is made for and can handle calmly.) Since Grace was induced, it didn't go quite as planned and I had an epidural. After that experience I was even more convinced that I wanted a non-medicated birth this time around.

Monday morning we went in for a non-stress test to be sure everything was still looking good with baby girl since at that point she was 8 days past her due date. She looked great and the midwife asked if we wanted to have my membranes stripped to try to get things going. After discussing that there wasn't much that could happen medical-intervention-wise as a result of the membrane stripping, we decided to have her go ahead and do it. My parents were flying back to California on Thanksgiving Day (3 days from then) and so we were all anxious for the baby to come before they left. I was dilated to a 3-4 at that point and that was the first I'd been checked this pregnancy. The midwife told us that 50% of women will go into labor within 48 hours, but the other 50% either have nothing happen or feel cramping without any labor inducing effect, so I was prepared for the worst. That night we went to Opryland to look at the incredible light display (another post). I was feeling kind of crampy but nothing consistent and I was trying to not get excited.

Tuesday morning we woke up around 8 (after a not-so-brief hiatus of awakeness around 4 am) and I was still feeling crampy. That morning my wonderful friend from church and doula, Rebekah, knowing that I was going stir crazy waiting for this baby brought over a craft project from Relief Society meeting that I had missed. Throughout the morning as we were working on the project I was feeling more and more contractions that were getting consistent and that required more focus on relaxation. Since I was induced with Grace, I had never experienced starting labor on my own or contractions that weren't insane pitocin ones, so all morning I was hesitant to believe that I was actually in labor so I wouldn't be too disappointed if the contractions stopped. The project took me about 2 hours longer than it should have because of stopping for the contractions, but I finished it. Rebekah was joking later that she should sell those as labor-distracting kits since it did such a great job at that for me. Each time I had a contraction, I would relax my whole body as if I were going to sleep and breathe through the contractions to work with them and the baby. Rebekah left around 1 pm to go home and put her son down for a nap who had been over playing with Grace while we were crafting. At that point Rob put Grace down for her nap and we laid down for a rest. My parents were here hanging out the whole time and my mom was making chocolate angel pie (yum!). By about 2:30 I was feeling like the contractions were getting quite intense and I was feeling like maybe we should think about going to the hospital. We called Rebekah to come back over and then we decided to head to the hospital.

We got to Vanderbilt University Medical Center around 4 and the contractions were pretty strong. I was hoping that we were almost there! We got a little lost finding labor and delivery, which was difficult because we'd have to stop every couple of minutes so I could lean on Rob for a contraction. We finally found where we needed to go, and the ladies at the desk I'm pretty sure didn't think that I was really in labor because I was so relaxed. I just rested my head on my arms on the counter there and let Rob take care of things. I think they scoffed just a little bit when I said yes to the wheel chair to take us to where we actually needed to be. There is just one room at Vandy where they have a tub that you can labor in and it's first come, first serve. I was so happy when that was the room they wheeled me into. They left us there in the room for what seemed like forever, but was only a few minutes in reality...I'm pretty sure they didn't believe that I was actually in labor either. Finally they came in to check me and Rob says everyone looked shocked when I was a 7. So they hooked me up to the monitor for 20 minutes and Rebekah arrived with her bag of tricks. She was amazing! She had food and lotion for massages and funny things to say to keep us entertained. Too bad things went so quickly that we didn't get to use any of it! After the 20 minutes of being monitored and having to lie still, they let me get into the tub and hallelujah is all I have to say about that. Getting into that water was the most amazing feeling of relief - it was sort of like getting an epidural - it was that good. I guess the warm water was relaxing and taking all that weight and pressure off my abdomen really helped. Rob says that when I got into the tub I smiled so big and was telling everyone how much I loved the tub and everyone helping me. Rob was so sweet and dabbed ice on my face the whole time I was in the tub because I was so warm. So I labored in the tub for about an hour or so and when I got out I was completely dilated and effaced and ready to go! So I got back into the bed and Miss Linda, the midwife, broke my water and I started pushing. Because I had so much scar tissue from Grace's birth, Miss Linda was really trying to support those same areas so they wouldn't tear as much again so we went really slowly. I was in what Rebekah calls "labor land" - pretty detached from reality in my relaxed state. I remember everyone telling me that they saw her head and she was almost here for what seemed like forever. I felt like she was never going to just come out and asked if they couldn't just pull the baby out (I found out later it was because Miss Linda was taking such good care to help me not to tear). I pushed for about half hour and finally she came and wow! I felt so good! They plopped Ruby on my belly and Rob cut the cord. Then she nursed for an hour while they stitched me up (fixing the bad job the previous doctor had done!). I loved feeling so alive after she was born and not feeling drugged like the last time - very different from my experience with Grace's birth. With the epidural last time I was very out of it and not feeling very well or very coherent there at the end. This time was so different and it felt so good! Despite the fact that while in labor I said I never wanted to do it again (Rob tells me I said it more than once), I totally prefer a non-medicated birthing experience.

I am so grateful for my amazing husband who was so supportive throughout the whole process. I love both of my girls so much and am so grateful to have them both, however they got here.

My Cup Runneth Over - Happy Thanksgiving

I keep thinking about the Dr. Seuss book, The Grinch, where at the end "the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day." I feel like on Tuesday my heart grew at least three sizes with the incredible experience of welcoming baby Ruby into the world and our family. Before Ruby was born, I had a wonderful husband and little girl that I loved more than I ever thought I could love and now my heart seems to have grown to enormous proportion in adding sweet baby Ruby. My love for all three has multiplied more than my little heart thought possible. I feel so blessed and my cup truly doth runneth over. Bringing Ruby home from the hospital made for the happiest of Thanksgiving Days. We have so much to be grateful for always, but this year, we have a very special reason to be grateful.

Despite all of my worries about timing and when Ruby would come, everything worked out great. While we packed up and left the hospital for home, my parents made a delicious Thanksgiving feast. The house smelled amazing when we walked in the door. We had a delicious dinner and then my parents left to go home to California that afternoon. It was sad to say goodbye, but we were all so happy Ruby came before they left and we could all enjoy Thanksgiving together at home.

Grace loves to hold "baby sister" and asks to do it all the time.

Grandma Lis got some good snuggling in too.

My Dad, the Master Thanksgiving Chef.

The spread. Grace was eating mashed potatoes directly out of the serving bowl...what's a girl to do when she's strapped in with all that delicious food in front of her and no one at the table to help her?

More snuggling. We've done an awful lot of this...what a wonderful life!

Big Sister Grace...and Other Pics

Grace got a gift from Grandpa and Grandma Bunker for being a big sister.
I love the faces in the next few pictures.

Grace's gift is a little puppy in a purse/doctors bag and comes with a lot of little doctor instruments.

Grandpa helping Grace open it.

When the nurse came to check on the baby, Grace got to check on the puppy too.
I love her serious look.

Grandma with baby.

Happy mama...doesn't she look great?!

She likes to sleep a lot. :)

Baby Ruby

We've decided on a name: Ruby Elissa Carter

We had a special experience that helped us decide on the name Ruby and Elissa is Amanda's mom's name.

Mom and baby are both doing great. Ruby nursed for an hour right after she was born while they worked on Amanda, and has slept soundly ever since.

Here are some more pics. Amanda will post more details about the whole story soon for those that are interested.


Grace and Ruby

Grandma Elissa with Ruby


Happy Mommy


Grace had her baby to hold too

This is our AMAZING friend, Rebekah Porter, who also volunteered to be Amanda's doula. She helped a lot! Thank you Rebekah.

This is Miss Linda, our midwife, who also did a fabulous job.

We have a baby!

Our baby finally came today at 6:28. We arrived at the hospital at 4 and Amanda was dilated to a 7.

Then, Amanda labored in their big tub until she was a 9. We then moved to the bed and she was born about 30 minutes later. Amanda was never medicated and she did awesome.

We don't have a name yet, but she was 10 lbs. 2 oz. Here are some pics, we'll post more later.








And yes, that is some strawberry-blond hair.

Still Waiting...

Just in case you might feel like we had the baby weeks ago and you're the only one to not know, have no fear. Today is 41 weeks, 1 day gestation...8 days past the "due date". Still waiting and working on our patience :) If she doesn't come on her own before then, she'll probably be induced Sunday at 42 weeks, but nothing is scheduled yet. Thanks for all the well wishes, we're hoping that we have some good news and cute pictures of her to post soon!

The Girls' Room

With the extra time we've had before baby comes, we have finally finished the girls' room.

Rob sanded and painted Grace's old dresser, bookcase and changing table white.

We bought the paint for the room a few weekends ago and weren't sure when we'd ever have time to paint it and we wanted to have at least that much done before baby, so after a church party late one Friday night we painted. Here's what time we started:

Removing everything from the room after we moved Grace into our bed while we painted.

We finished painting that night around 1:30 am...so exhausting! The paint color is called "neon mint" which sounds so gross so we were worried about the color, but I love how it all turned out!

This toddler bed will turn back into a crib soon when the baby will need it (for now she'll be sleeping in our room).

The quilt I just finished. Hooray!

Now you're all invited to come to Nashville for a princess tea party!

Update

Rob got a call from GE today and they offered him a position in the Home and Business Solutions unit! Hooray! We haven't accepted yet, but this is a great program that Rob is really excited about. Not sure where we'll be, but we can deal with that :)

In other news, our bags are packed and we're ready to go! Insurance-okay day was today so there's nothing holding this baby back except her time line. Let's hope she decides to come soon!

Growing Up

Now if this isn't a little girl who's ready to be a big sister, I don't know what is!

Gracers is getting so big I can hardly stand it! I'm sure she'll seem even bigger with a tiny baby around! She is going to be a fantastic big sister!

GE

Since everyone is interested in Rob's GE interview... He went to New York state to GE's headquarters for a second round interview for an internship for next summer (which would hopefully lead into a full time job offer after he graduates, but who knows). GE has an amazing Leadership Development Program that Rob would really like to do, so we were excited when they asked for a second interview with him. We'll know by Monday if they are going to offer him an internship or not, so keep your fingers crossed! There are two things that aren't so exciting about the internship though. The first is that the farthest west that Rob could be working (and we would be living) is Houston. Otherwise it's all in the South and East Coast. The other thing is that when they give their internship offer it's for a business division (aviation, energy, home and business, etc) and you could be in any of four locations, but you won't know until a month or so before the internship starts...exciting, no? So, that's the scoop with GE. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

When Rob's away, the girls will....be lazy!

First off, I'm giving y'all lots of posts now because I can't promise anything after the baby comes, but I'll try really hard.

Rob left Sunday night for New York state to interview with GE. This is only the second time in our whole marriage that we've been apart (the other being when he drove to TN for this move), and great timing the week the baby's due, right? He'll be back late this evening and I'm happy to report that baby and I are staying put until at least then. It's funny how in the last couple weeks of pregnancy the baby turns into all poky parts...elbows, knees, feet, hands, limbs...what happened to all that fat she's gaining? I could use a little padding here! As much as I'm ready to get all these limbs out of my ribs and bladder and everywhere else, we're staying put at least until Friday (right, baby?).

Grace is recently obsessed with wearing her jammies all the time. We finally got her some long pants/sleeved ones since it has finally started to be cold at night. Here is a photo from yesterday. I thought I took more, but apparently not. Gotta love the princess skirt with the princess jammies, while (of course) we were watching a princess movie (Enchanted). Yesterday, we didn't get real clothes on until 5:30 so we could go to Costco for some gourmet hot dogs that Mommy didn't have to cook or clean up after :) haha. Gotta love the last bit of pregnancy! Today I got her into play clothes for a bit, but at nap time the jammies went back on. Oh well. We're not doing much these days and really, I could care less :)

Also, some good news (probably to no one but myself) - after a 2 week napping hiatus, the naps have returned. HALLELUJAH!!! Let me tell you, those were two really, really hard weeks. I'm so grateful that she's napping again. Let's hope this keeps up after baby comes too!

Back to Square One for a Name...Hooray!

So, maybe name calling worked this time? Baby Stinker is now head down! Hooray! Looks like we'll have to come up with a new name. :) Last night before bed, Rob gave me a blessing that everything would work out and what do you know? God answers prayers. I love being reminded of that. We also tried some other techniques such as: massaging my belly to turn her (and she actually turned a lot while I was doing it), doing some down dogs, visualizing her turning her head down, and we even tried the flashlight on the belly (some say that moving a flashlight down your belly can make the baby follow the light to turn down). Anyway, we tried it all and by this afternoon's ultrasound she was in the proper head down position. I almost cried right there on the table I was so happy!

As a bonus, we got a couple of 3D ultrasound photos of our sweet little girl. The 3D pictures were taken at the end of the session after a lot of poking and prodding and apparently she wasn't too happy with us. She was also moving around a lot, so the pictures are kind of blurry.

Funny little angry eyes pout.

In this next one she's saying "seriously guys, I did what you wanted and turned around, now enough with the poking already" with her little hand over her face.
Thank you so much for all of the prayers that y'all (working on my Southern) sent up for us. I have no doubt that they helped us out too! I'm so grateful for Heavenly Father's great blessings that he gives to us!

I think we have a name...

Are you ready for it?

Stinker

You like? No? I can't imagine why not.

Well it suits her well. This week she decided to flip so now she's breech. Nice, eh? One day during my nap while I was resting I felt her push off my pelvis and flop around like nothing I've ever felt before and she did it a couple of times. So, Stinker is quite the fitting name, right?

Now I need your help...ideas on how to turn the baby. I'm up for pretty much anything. Already I have a chiropractor appointment and some Eastern accupuncture herb stuff that you burn and put on your pinky toe. ( I told you I was up for anything but a c-section.) If she doesn't turn by the end of next week we'll most likely try the external version when the docs try to turn her from the outside, but apparently that's really painful and often doesn't end up in the peaceful, natural birth that we're looking for, so it's a last resort. So, any of you out there who have experience, I'm taking advice :)