Welcome home, Scarlett!

At my last couple OB appointments, I had somewhat high blood pressure.  It wasn't as high as it was when I was pregnant with Katy (and luckily, I didn't feel as yucky as I did then!), but it was high enough.  We weren't quite sure on the due date - it ranged from October 18 to October 26 depending on which ultrasound we looked at.  Anyway, when my blood pressure was 156/110 on Wednesday and they offered to induce on Thursday, I gladly said yes.

We went in at 7 am on Thursday.  I was already dialted a couple centimeters, so I hoped it wasn't going to take too long!  I knew that not much would happen until my water was broken, so they did that around noon (I was at a 3).  Around 1:45 they checked again, and I was only a 5.  Around 2:15 I actually started to feel some contractions (and even with an epidural, they were pretty painful!)....and around 2:30 they got even worse and I started to get worried!  Another nurse came in about 2:45, looked at the monitor, decided to check me and said, "Ok, let's have this baby!"

Dr. Ohrt and Marcia quickly came in and got everything ready.  Dr. Ohrt said to push on the next contraction...but then they got to joking around about Curtis' hair and I actually forgot that I was supposed to push!  Next contraction, I pushed once and she was out :)  She was born at 2:58 pm - 8 lbs 4 oz and 20.5 inches long.  That morning, I guessed that she would be 8 lbs. 6 oz.  I was pretty close!

We had a really tough time deciding on a name, so she was nameless for about a half hour.  We finally decided on Scarlett, but then we had to argue over the middle name for awhile.  Curtis insisted that initials don't matter, but I won that argument.  (No initials of SPF for my little girl!).  We finally settled on Scarlett Joy.

Scarlett nursed great right away and was awake and alert for a couple of hours.  One of the worst parts for me was having to stay in bed for 3 hours until the epidural wore off - I just wanted to get up, take a shower, and then have Lane and Katy come meet their little sister!

My mom and dad stopped by with the kids (and later, Curtis' parents came by also) after supper.  Neither kid was very interested in Scarlett - they were more excited to see mommy and daddy after being gone all day!  Katy was very concerned about my IV - she kept saying, "shot, shot?"  When Curtis tried to get them home for bed, Katy didn't want to leave with him.  She wanted Curtis to stay in the hospital with Scarlett and me to go home :)  Finally, he bribed her with fruit snacks, and she was fine!

We had a good first night and decided to go home Friday afternoon.  I was pretty bored in the hospital and honestly, just wanted to sleep in my own bed!  It helped knowing that Mom was going to watch the kids that night so I wouldn't have to worry about anything but Scarlett.  It was pretty peaceful around here without the older two...

Scarlett had a good first night at home - mostly sleeping in 4-5 hour stretches.  There were a few hours when she just wanted to be held, so I actually didn't go to bed until around 3 am, but really, it wasn't that bad!  It probably helps that I've only been getting about 5 hours of sleep a night the last 4 weeks, so I'm kinda used to being sleep-deprived!

So far, she's been pretty good.  She rarely cries, except when she is getting her diaper changed.  As for the other two kids, well, they're pretty tired from all the activity...Katy is teething and getting over croup...and Lane just came down with croup last night.  That meant that Curtis had a rougher night last night than I did!  Hopefully things will settle down and we'll get back to "normal" (or maybe I should just hope for healthy!).

Scarlett definitely resembles both Lane and Katy, but I think she looks more like Lane with those chubby cheeks!