She's Here!! (Happy Mama)

The Piscoya kids welcome Samantha Marie born on March 14 at 1:53am. She weighed 9lbs, 3oz. What a joy for Molly to have a little sister, finally! The "girls" are having way too much fun dressing their new "doll!" Ethan loves his baby sister. He calls her "Nee-nee", his word for baby, or "Nam" since he doesn't say "s" on the front of words. He loves to talk to her and give her kisses and shove her pacifier in her mouth a little too hard. We can't wait until they can play together and be best buddies.

The birth went well. I started having contractions on Friday morning and thought the baby would be born on Friday the 13th but as soon as I got up and started my day, the contractions pretty much stopped though I did have some on and off the rest of the afternoon. I finally decided to make arrangements for someone to come watch the kids, since I hadn't asked anyone yet (denial?) so I called Kelly when I got home from group and told her I would probably be going into labor sometime in the next couple of days and she agreed to be on call. I lay d0wn and took a nap and when I woke up the contractions were stronger and getting closer together so I called Kelly and gave her a heads-up. We both laughed at how soon I ended up calling her! I made pancakes for dinner and busied myself with laundry and general cleaning and finally packing the rest of my overnight bag. We left for the Birth Center around 10:30pm and my water broke in the car on the way there. That was a total shock since in all my pregnancies, my water has never broken on its own except when I started pushing Nicholas out. I got right into the soaking tub when I got there and ended up staying in the entire time. I was so relaxed during labor that I almost fell asleep a couple of times. Then of course transition was still horrible and intense even in the warm water. All I could think was how much worse it would be if I wasn't in the water! I only pushed for 5 minutes, my midwife told me later. It was a little disconcerting for the baby's head to be under water before the rest of her was out and I had to ask if that was really okay! When she was all the way out, - I was craning my neck trying to see whether it was a boy or a girl but the cord was in the way and finally Lonny said, very matter-of-factly, "It's a girl!" My jaw dropped and I said, "Are you kidding me??" Anyway, she is beautiful and sweet and a wonderful addition to our family. Now if I could only get some sleep....