all about hazel...

i obviously have a lot to post, but we will start from where we left off...with the sweet little one!
Hazel has been such a sweet baby...especially considering her VERY busy first 3 weeks of life, but she seems to prefer a fast pace life!

she was due on the 24th, but scheduled for an induction on the 23rd so i could be home with the other 2 for christmas, but she decided that the 22nd would be her birthday! i was so happy! i DID NOT want to be induced! i thought that she would have come a lot earlier since i had been having contractions since the day after thanksgiving...almost literally all day everyday! the Monday she was born they were finally painful! i don't think i had ever been more excited to feel a little pain! I woke up sometime around 5am when they started, but went back to sleep. i didn't want to get too excited...i had a regular ob appointment that day at 11:30 am.

I got up a few hours later and headed out to finish some last minute Christmas shopping and eat a BIG lunch, but brought my bag just in case! (i was starving when i was in labor with Elijah and was not going to have that again!)

when i got to the clinic (which is also inside the hospital) my doctor was in a c-section, so i saw the nurse practitioner. i told her that the contractions had been 3-7 minutes apart since they started around 5am, and she basically told me that i was not in labor and that i would have the baby tomorrow when i got induced. i had been a 2 for the 3 weeks prior, but since i was a 3 then she sent me to maternal-fetal monitoring--i think just to humor me. she said that usually when someone is having true labor contractions that they have shortness of breath...and that i just seemed to happy/smiley! she just didn't understand how happy i was that i was thinking i didn't have to be induced! anyway...get hooked up to the monitor for 20 minutes...just as i said every 6 minutes apart. they called down and she told me to go walk around for an hour and that my doctor should be back by then.

so i went walking...and climbing stairs! which then sent my contractions coming every 2 minutes! went back upstairs to see the doctor around 1:30ish...i was a 5! the doctor whips out her cell phone and calls down to labor and delivery and says she's sending me down...they didn't have any open rooms then! they had lots of inductions that day because no one wanted to be in the hospital for Christmas. The new labor and delivery floor was supposed to be open that week, but wasn't so they said they had been over scheduled.

I ended up waiting in the labor and delivery waiting room for over an hour! The doctor had warned them that they had better be quick about finding me a room, and that she was willing to deliver the baby in the waiting room, but that they might not want to clean it up...finally got a room at about 3. Doctor broke my water around 3:30 and i was a 6. She said she had another c-section and then another surgery and asked me to give her about 4 hours! right...Elijah came within the hour of my water breaking, but i said that i would try...

then between all the needle sticks for iv's and blood work i made good use of my time and transfered phone numbers from my old phone to my new phone...at 5:10 i was an 8. orum decided to run downstairs and grab some food and the nurse had just brought me some water and left. a few seconds later...i had a REALLY long REALLY painful contraction...and started to rethink my decision to not have an epidural...TOO LATE! baby was crowning and i was alone!

i had been calling orum when i was having the big contraction and he was in a dead spot.i started pressing the button to call the nurse, and it wasn't working! i started to freak out a little and then decided to just start yelling for help! my room was the one right by the desk...so luckily my nurse heard me and people started running in like crazy! luckily, Orum was one of them...he got the text just as he was paying and sprinted upstairs...a few seconds later and he would have missed it all! my doctor ran in right after she came out, but luckily there was some resident in the hall who ran in for the delivery. hazel didn't even wait to be pushed out...she just made her own way out! (all of that happened in 10 minutes...she was born at 5:20pm!)
I was SO happy that it was a girl! i was really wanting another little girl, but didn't have a feeling either way like i did with Renee and Elijah. as happy as i was, Renee may have been MORE excited! i was very relieved that i didn't have to call Renee and tell her that it was a brother!

we came home on Christmas eve, and then the real adventure began...

in case you are wondering...her middle name is a-lo-sha. it was orum's mother's middle name too. Renee loves that she and her sister both have a French name. she has French twice and week at school and it's currently all the rage!