Elizabeth Ruth

As you can tell I am doing some major catch-up on my blog, and this would be a main reason as to why I have not done any blogging. On February 4th at 6:03pm Elizabeth Ruth was born, weighing 7lbs 5 oz, and was 21 inches long. She was the longest baby I have had, but lost out on biggest by 2 oz, Isaac was 7lb 6oz.  My original due date was February 1st, but after the first ultrasound at 10 weeks they moved it back to the 7th. However as the pregnancy progressed and more ultrasounds were taken the date would appear  to change to the 2nd or 3rd. Naturally that meant that I was expecting a baby anytime that first week of February. However, I was experiencing a ton of prelabor contractions. There were multiple times during the 3 weeks before she was born that I thought I was going into labor, but no luck, the contractions would just stop. No matter the amount of cleaning, packing, or exercising kept  those contractions consistent.
On another note, throughout this pregnancy there was some concern that I might have what's called cholestasis. I found out the day after Isaac was born that I had it with him, and once you have it, there is a huge risk that you would get it again. The major symptom is being really itching. Because of that the doctors would continually ask how itchy I was, and unfortunately I got really itchy again with this pregnancy. Naturally they did the appropriate tests,  but to our surprise it appeared that I did not have cholestasis. However, one of the OBs would ask every time she saw me how the itching was doing and wanted me to be retested. The main concern is that it can cause great harm to the baby and because of that they need to do nonstress stress a couple times a week and they generally induce early. Well, since it came up negative the first time, and I am no fan of induction I would refuse the retest, that is until about 38 weeks when I decided to just let her do the test again.  When I came back for my 39 week visit, 3 days before my due date, the doctor checked me and saw I was at about 3.5 cm and that the blood work came back as positive for cholestasis. Needless to say, he didn't want to take any chances, asked me how long it would take me to get the hospital and scheduled an induction for that afternoon.  I ran home grabbed Michael, took my kids to the Soelbergs and we got checked in at about noon. At about 1pm they started a slow drip of pitocin. I then spent the next few hours talking to Michael, eating gummy bears, jello, and broth, sat on the birthing ball, watched a few episodes of Castle and waited until about 4pm when the doctor came back in. I was at a 6 about now and the baby was down far enough that he decided to break my water. At this point I was handling the contractions really well. They weren't that painful, I could breath through them and move on. Once they broke my water I was finished! I have never felt contractions so hard and so fast. Right when I breathed through one hard contraction another would come without any warning  or any time to regroup. After about 20 minutes of this I couldn't do it anymore without an epidural. We quickly called in the nurse and she checked me, I was at 7cm, and to my surprise she still called in the anesthesiologist. He came in around 5:30-5:45, and put in the epidural. It wasn't 5 to 10 minutes later that I felt major pressure and was ready to push. I went from a 7/8 to a 10 in 5 minutes!! Wow. Well, I pushed about 3 times and out came our beautiful daughter with the same dark hair as her older sister. Now because they had just given me the epidural I didn't feel the main affects until after Lizzie was born. I then experienced about 2 hours of the "shakes." That was kind of a scary feeling, but thankfully that went away and I suffered no other major side effects.
After only one day in the hospital they sent me home, whopee, I hate hospitals! My parents were kind enough to drive back down here, only having been away about 6 weeks, to spend 2 weeks here to help out. We were so grateful, especially Emma and Isaac or should I say me, that they were willing to help clean, cook, and entertain.
Now we have been so happy to have her as part of our family for the last 9 weeks. She might just live a long life, if her brother and sister don't completely hug and kiss her to death. She is already full of smiles and is sleeping really well at night. While she does like to be held during the day when she is awake, I can't complain. Life is a bit crazy with 3 kids around the house and know that as the years go by it will only get busier. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

The first of many kisses. We know that Isaac really loves Lizzie, because we gives her his "blankie" at various times during the day. 

First bath