CareBear is four weeks old!

Caroline, I can't believe you are already 4 weeks old. Time is going by much too fast. Before I forget, I wanted to write your birth story down. A couple of things for you to remember. First, two weeks before you were born Mommy thought she was in labor. I was not. I had to do the walk of shame out of Northside and tell everyone that even though you were my third baby, I could not distinguish between real and false labor. Daddy flew down to Orlando on October 20th (Mommy was 37 weeks pregnant) and was scheduled to fly down again on October 27th. He needed to be down there for a huge project. Here we go........

On Friday October 24th Nate calls home to tell me he has to fly to Orlando on Monday again. When he went on the previous Monday I knew that we would be fine and I encouraged him to go. This time I wasn't so sure. On Saturday we had a fun day hanging out with friends watching football. My contractions really started to pick up and get painful on Saturday night, so I went to bed early in the hopes they would either break my water or go away. I woke up Sunday feeling pretty bad, but I tried to ignore it. We went to Target to get snack for Ben's class for the week (he was Star Student) and then came home and I went straight to bed. Around 4 o'clock I looked in my "What to Expect When You are Expecting" book and realized I had every symptom of the first stage of labor. I knew how important this trip was to Nate so I attempted to downplay everything. I couldn't eat dinner because I felt so naseous. I went to bed early but was up every hour or so with contractions. Around 4 am I woke up to go to the bathroom and then laid down. I knew Nate had to be up at 5 so after what I thought was an hour, I woke him up and asked him to rub my back before his alarm went off. He asked about my contractions and I told him I woke up at 4 and probably have had 7 in the last hour. He looked at the clock and said "Lis it is not even 4:30 yet, if you have already had 7 then they are coming every 4 minutes." I was still embarassed from the false alarm from two weeks ago and I really wanted him to be able to get to Orlando so I told Nate I was fine. He didn't believe me and told me to not look at the clock, just text him everytime I had a contraction. He got in the shower and my contractions continued to be four minutes apart. I still thought that I could hold out until he got back that night. Nate disagreed and told me to call the doctor. Dr. Urlich was on call and called me back promptly. Here is how our conversation went:
Dr.: So you think you are in labor? What is going on?
Me: Well I am having some contrac *pause because I can't talk through the contraction* some contractions.
Dr: How close together are they?
Me: Well about every four minutes.
Dr.: Have you dialated at all?
Me: I was 3 cm dialated at my appointment on Thursday.
Dr.: Is this your first child?
Me: Um, no it's my third.
Dr: Um, yeah I need you to get to Northside as soon as possible.
Me: Ok, I need to get my kids ready and we should be there in two hours.
Dr.: Mrs. Sanders you are in active labor, you need to get here as soon as possible.
Me: Gotcha. We will leave ASAP.
As soon as I hung up, I called Bonnie to come and watch the kids. She had a smartaleck comment along the lines of "Are you sure this time Sanders?". Nate and I headed to Northside. We told no one. I wanted to make sure this was the real deal. We got to Northside right before shift change, around 6:30. They hooked me up to the monitors and started to fill out the paperwork. I was having a particularly painful contraction and had my eyes shut when all of the sudden I hear what I think is singing. I opened one eye and looked at Nate and asked, "Is she singing to me?" She was not. She was just reading the list of belongings I brought to the hospital. Everyone got a good laugh at that. She checked me and I was 5 cm dialated and my contractions were every four minutes lasting a minute. She went to call Ginny and when she came back she said I could get the epidural and Ginny was on her way in to break my water. YEAH! I called my parents, emailed the neighbors, texted friends, and changed my facebook status. My blackberry was fantastic to have during labor. I was able to update everyone at the same time and it really took my mind off the contractions. The epi guy was fantastic. He had a great bedside mannor and made me laugh which was not an easy task. However the epi didn't work. It took forever to take and when it did I still had a hot spot. He was very apologetic and offered to take it out and redo it, but since I was already at 8 cm I opted to just wait it out. It was tough, but luckily things were progressing quickly. Nate kept looking at the monitor and said that there was no break between contractions anymore. I politely informed him that I was aware of that. Since they had maxed out my epidural I could not feel my legs at all. When it was time to push, there was nothing I could do since I could not feel a darn thing from the waist down. Luckily she had a small head and my contractions were strong enough to kind of just push her out on her own. She was born at 11:39 am. She entered the world sunny side up looking at me which was amazing. She came out so alert with her eyes wide open. The first thing I said was, "She's so tiny". I was honestly expecting at least a 9 pound baby based on how big Jack and Ben were. My midwife also pointed out that she did not look to be 12 pounds like I had predicted in her office on Thursday. She ended up being 7 pounds 12 ounces. She scored 9 and 9 on her APGARs and nursed for 30 minutes after her bath.

And that is the story of your birth Caroline. You are such a wonderful baby. You sleep from 10:30 until 4 already. You love to snuggle with Mommy and Daddy. You still sleep with us at night, but you are getting really good at taking naps in your room. Your favorite toy is the mobile. Your brothers think you are the coolest and are so happy that you are more alert during the day. For only being 4 weeks old, you have already seen so much. You have been to football games, a Georgia Florida party, trick or treating, the park, Gymboree, Kroger, birthday party, and a Thanksgiving feast at preschool! We love you!