A series of portraits of the kids.

A series of portraits of the kids.

A series of portraits of the kids.

A series of portraits of the kids.

A series of portraits of the kids.

A series of portraits of the kids.

Tummy time isn’t so bad when you have big brothers to keep you company.

Because of our history of greeting our babies early (Simon at 34 weeks gestation and Ian at 36), I don’t think that anyone ever really expected me to actually make it all the way to the C-section that we had scheduled for the morning of December 30. And indeed our beautiful baby girl, not to be outdone by her big brothers, arrived just a little bit early as well.

I had had a regular checkup with my midwife, Carol, on Tuesday, December 27. My blood pressure was a little high, but nothing to be overly concerned about. Carol noted that the baby was in the posterior position (head down but “sunny side up”). She sent me home with instructions to take it easy and well-wishes for the last few days. As I was leaving she asked me how big I thought this baby was going to be. I could tell that she was a little amused at the size of my belly (seriously *huge*). I guessed 7 or 8 pounds (thinking even a 7-pound baby was big, since I only had my preemies as comparison). Carol guessed “in the 8s.”

The rest of the day passed rather uneventfully. I remember feeling unusually tired (even for me) and hoping that the next couple of days would pass quickly. I was also concerned with what we would do for Ian to make his 2nd birthday (the next day, December 28) special for him in the midst of waiting for this baby. We never really did come up with a good plan.

I woke up with a terrible backache at about 1:00am on the 28th. At first, I figured I had simply been sleeping in a funny position and tried to get comfortable enough to go back to sleep. After an hour, I was still in enough pain to shake off some of the grog and start wondering if something was going on. I vaguely remembered something about back pain being a possible sign of labor. At about 2:30am, it dawned on me that I was also having contractions and that I had been having them for a while. In my half-asleep state I hadn’t put it all together. I woke Jason up and asked him to come sit with me while I timed the contractions. After another hour of contractions five minutes apart, we decided it was time to call Carol. She told me that it was indeed past time to come in (for various reasons they don’t want you going into labor if you have a planned C-section).

We called my mom and asked her to come and then called Rebecca and asked her to come over and sleep with the boys until my mom arrived. Only when Jason and I were in the van and actually on the way to the hospital did it occur to me that, if this were to turn out to be a false alarm, then we had just asked my mom to drive an hour in the middle of the night for naught.

Jason and I are very different when it comes to how we process things. All the way to the hospital I couldn’t stop talking—about how cool I thought it was to actually be going to the hospital at 4:00am, about how excited and ready I was to have this baby, about how strange it was to actually be feeling contractions, about how it was a little troubling to me that “poor Ian” might have to share his birthday, about how I hoped my mom didn’t worry too much as she was driving, and on and on. Jason wanted to listen to music and soak in the experience in relative silence.

We arrived at St. E’s shortly after 4:00am, found a prime parking spot, and headed up to Labor and Delivery—just like we knew what we were doing. On the elevator ride up to the fourth floor, we both agreed that more than anything, we really wanted to have this baby that day—we really didn’t want to have to go home and wait two more days. We checked in and got all settled in a room and I was hooked up to a monitor. Clara’s heart rate and my heart rate were both high—hers settled down after about half an hour but mine never really did. By that time, the contractions were about four minutes apart and very uncomfortable, if not exactly painful. They started an IV and within forty-five minutes or so had called my doctor and scheduled a C-section for 6:30 am.

Besides getting a small taste of labor, I learned a little more about the whole C-section process this time. For example, the anesthesiologist explained the reason that women sometimes throw up on the table is because their blood pressure drops quickly once they receive the spinal. When it came time, she warned me that my blood pressure was about to drop—and sure enough it did. (And I did throw up. Lovely.) Though things happened quickly that morning, this felt like our least-rushed delivery. I was so much more prepared and present as we went in, and I felt that I was able to soak in a lot more of the details that I had simply missed in the past.

During the first part of the delivery (while they were still getting everything set), I felt terrible (this was the throwing up part), and I was so afraid that I was going to feel that bad throughout the whole experience. But thankfully, the nausea and whatever else subsided almost as suddenly as it had come and I was left once again feeling happy and excited and so, so ready to meet our little girl.

Clara Mei was born at 6:53 am. I had a decent view of the nurses working on her, cleaning her up and checking her out initially. Jason let me know that she looked like Ian (and boy did she, especially in those first few moments). As it turned out, both my guess and Carol’s were way off—our (big!) little girl ended up weighing 9 pounds, 5 ounces. Jason’s guess of 8 pounds, 14 ounces was the closest. She was 20 3/4 inches long.

And the best part of the birth experience was that this time I got to hold her (with a lot of help from Jason) right away, while I was still on the table in the delivery room, in fact.

There is, of course, a lot more to her story, but that’s about as much as I can remember about her actual entrance into the world. We are absolutely smitten with her and are so deeply thankful that she has finally joined our family.