The Carters: November 2012

Brian and Eila came to visit right after Benji was born.

Grace loves to hold her little brother. She asks to hold him all.the.time. She's very sweet with him and just loves him to death.

Ruby also loves her brother a lot. She, however, is slightly less gentle with him. She's just 2 and it's hard to be soft when you're 2. :)

Emily came to visit us. We had a delightful time hanging out. We went to the farmer's market, Southlake Ranch (from the show Dallas), ate delicious food (I discovered jalapeno jelly and oh.my.goodness. I am obsessed), and just had a great time together.

Ruby loves her Daddy and this is how she greets him sometimes when he comes home.

Grace is hilarious when she talks to Ben. She has the funniest little mama voice that she uses and the funniest terms of endearment for him. Every time she is near him she gets close to his face and tells him how "cutey wooty" he is and that's he's so "chubby wubby" and so on. It's hilarious and slightly annoying :) Don't mind me in the video, I was trying to nap and Grace has had a cold that I don't want him to get.

This is the story of Benjamin's birth, consider yourself warned :)

It's crazy to me that each pregnancy and birth can be so different. With Benjamin, I was borderline diabetic and had to have a special (mostly, haha) sugar-free diet which wasn't a problem with the girls. I was also a bit sicker and felt different with his pregnancy than the girlies. And his labor was totally different. With the girls, I had no signs of labor until I was in labor, with Ben I had all the signs and wonders that normally mean that labor is imminent starting a week before he was due.

This time around we opted to give birth at the Allen Birthing Center. It's a really cool old house that has the regular appointment rooms downstairs and upstairs are two birthing suites. Each suite has a four poster bed and looks like a regular bedroom with a bathroom attached. It is so neat that it's so comfortable like a home and not a hospital. I also love that you end up knowing everyone really well who will be at your birth. I had a great experience with giving birth there.

Rob's mom came the week before I was due and I was sure that I was going to have him before she even got here. I was having a lot of strong contractions, but they just never got consistent, so she made it in time for the birth. For the next week and a half of her visit I would have lots of strong contractions then they'd fade away. My due date came and went (I was seriously surprised that he was hanging in there!). The Tuesday after my due date I was dilated to a 4 and 70% effaced and had my membranes stripped which I thought for sure would put me into labor, but no such luck. When the midwife was checking me she made a funny little surprised sound and told us that his little hand was on top of his head and he was playing "handsy" with her. How long can you walk around at a 4? Apparently at least a week. That Saturday, Rob's mom left without him having been born. It was so heartbreaking. I really don't know how we would have survived that painful 2 weeks of waiting and being uncomfortably pregnant and cranky without her! The girls loved having so much attention and playtime with grandma.

My parents got here that same afternoon that Annette left. Saturday night I had a ton of really strong contractions that I had to stop and breathe through, but they were mostly in the lower part of my abdomen without much in the way of tightening my whole belly. They were weird. Not surprisingly, by the time we went to bed, they had petered out. Sunday morning I woke up with more strong uncomfortable contractions and we opted to not go to Stake Conference because I didn't want to be left alone in case they got stronger. By mid-morning {shocker} they had stopped. By this point I was so frustrated that it didn't seem to matter what the contraction was like or how many there were, they would stop as soon as I started to get excited about them. Little stinker was playing mind games with his mommy! That afternoon I was having scattered really strong contractions. At one point we were Skyping with my brother and his wife when one came on. I motioned to Rob that I was having a contraction and that he should take over talking. He started talking for me teasing my brother and making me laugh harder and harder. Laughing during a contraction that strong was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced! Afterward, I warned him that if he made a habit of being funny during contractions he wouldn't be invited to the birth :)

All Sunday night, I was having more contractions every 10-20 minutes, but they never got very consistent and by the time we went to bed they had pretty much stopped. As soon as I laid down though I was woken up every 10 or so minutes with a crazy contraction. Finally around 1:30 am I had a really strong contraction that made me want to wake Rob up, so he was awoken to me grasping for his hand, which to his groggy self apparently felt like me hitting him :) I was also shaking uncontrollably. It was scary to me that I felt so out of control of my body with the shaking. I learned later that the shaking is caused by a hormone rush. Rob called the midwife and we woke my mom up and headed to the birth center. I found out later that about a mile into the 7 or so mile trip the gas light came on in the car which my sweet, smart husband opted not to tell us about that part until later :) When we got there, the midwife checked me and I was at a 7, which was great, but sadly there wasn't going to be enough time to fill up the big birthing tub. Instead I got into the claw-foot tub to relieve some of the discomfort from the contractions. The tub ended up being too small to be comfortable to me when it was getting really close, so I got out and headed back to the bed where I labored for a bit more and finally Benjamin was born at 3:40 am an hour and half after we got to the birthing center. At one point I was having trouble focusing and being calm so Rob crawled up on the bed with me so I could focus on him to relax. It took every ounce of self control I had to focus on him which resulted in what he likes to refer to as the "death stare" I gave him. Sadly, I never really gained control of my relaxation after being awoken by the crazy shaky contractions, so his birth was a bit more exciting than Ruby's :) I'll just say that I can do better next time!

He had the cord wrapped around his neck, but it wasn't too tight so he came out and then they unwrapped the cord. Amy, the midwife, put him on my chest and I fell in love with him. He looked so small and we were all surprised that he wasn't bigger, but then they weighed him. He was 9 pounds 1 ounce, which looked so small because he was really long, measuring in at 21 3/4 inches. We got all cleaned up and Benji got all checked out, then Rob got into bed too and we took a little nap with our sweet new little baby between us for a couple of hours before my dad brought the girls to meet their new brother. We got home around 9 am that morning. It was so nice to be home and resting in my own bed without anyone poking and prodding me.