At Home with our Ruby

My four Babies!

Our little Doll!

Helping with the Laundry. She's such a good helper.

She finds her thumb every now and then, it's the cutest thing.

Grandma Claudia came to stay for 10 days, she was a HUGE help. We had a blast with her and we are so sad to have her go home. I wish she'd move in.

My mom says this picture looks just like me as a baby. I must have been pretty cute...what happened ; )

The labor and Delivery story (in case you were wondering)

O.k., so early in the morning on the 14th I felt my first contractions, I didn't think much of it but they were a little painful. I told Paul about it and he said he thought I'd have the baby within 24 hours. I had never gone into labor on my own before so I had no idea what to expect. I thought for sure though that I wouldn't have the baby for another few days. I went about the day as usual, you know, did the normal stuff. Went to the dentist, the post office, took kids to school, vacuumed stairs and even cleaned a bathroom and all the while I was having these contractions. They weren't very regular so I assumed it was probably false labor, but, they were hurting pretty good. By 5pm they were starting to get closer together, but still not close enough that I thought I was in labor, but whenever I would have a contraction, I would have to breath through it so I knew something was going on. I decided to call my good friend who is a labor and delivery nurse in California to see if I should go to the hospital or not. My biggest worry was that I would get to the hospital, I would be dilated to a one or two and they would send me home with some pain medicine thinking what a big wimp I was being. Well, my friend told me that sometimes false labor is brought on by dehydration. Oh my goodness I thought to myself, I've had hardly anything to drink today, that's probably it. Then she told me that the contractions could possibly go away if I layed down and rested for a little bit. Huh, I hadn't tried that either. After getting off the phone with her I was convinced I was in false labor and that I just needed to lay down with a big glass of water. Paul had come home from work by this time and asked how close my contraction were. Every 5-45 minutes I told him, still they were totally sporadic. We sat down to watch a movie together to see if the contractions would go away and I had like 3 contractions in 15 minutes. Paul watched me breath through them and immediately ordered the kids to get into the car because he was taking me to the hospital. I kept telling him that they would probably send me home, but he insisted that we go. We dropped the kids off at a friends house and we left for the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 7pm...long story short, our Ruby was born less than an hour and a half later! And guess what? There was no time for drugs!!! It's a good thing Paul told me to get in the car when he did, or we could have had this baby in the car! I did it totally natural, not by choice of course, but looking back on it I'm glad I got to experience it (no really, I'm not kidding) Paul was the best labor coach ever! Surprisingly he was the only one who didn't annoy me during the delivery. Honestly, I felt like everything was pretty bearable up until transition...holy cow, that was a beast! Luckily it didn't last long. I kept asking for an epidural and the nurses kept telling me it was coming. I found out only after the birth that they were lying to me and that the anesthesiologist on call was out to dinner and there was no way he was going to get there on time. Truth is, I'm glad they lied to me. I think holding onto the hope that drugs were coming was the only thing keeping me under control. It wasn't until the Dr. (not mine of course, there was no way he was going to make it on time either) came in and checked me and told me I was a 9 1/2 that I realized I was doing this without drugs. I said to him, "what about the epidural?" He laughed out loud at me and said, "Ha! You can't get drugs, it's too late for that!" I think I wanted to kick him at that point! I started pushing soon after that. Pushing was a beast too! I broke tons of capillaries in my face and shoulders and chest. I must have totally looked like one of those women on TLC, sweat dripping down my face and mopping my brow with a cold wash cloth, I'm sure I was quite a sight to see. I have to say I disagree with anyone who says pushing without an epidural is easier, yeah right! She was the hardest one out of all my kids to push out and she was by far my smallest baby. I have to say though, as soon as she was out and the doctor plopped her on top of me, all the hard painful labor was completely over, just like that. I was so happy and totally in heaven as soon as our little Ruby was born. My recovery was super fast and Ruby has been an angel baby since. There you have it. I'm impressed if any of you really read this whole thing, good for you.

All my kids adore Ruby, they fight over who gets to hold her on a regular basis,( it's getting really old). I can't believe she is already over two weeks old. We feel so happy and blessed to have such a sweet piece of heaven in our home.