Ada Felice

August was a month of waiting and waddling and mostly wanting to not be pregnant anymore. But we also managed to fit in as much "only child" fun as possible to help ease our ever-growing guilt for replacing our precious baby Rory. I'd blame it on hormones, but Stephen had it even worse than I did, so I guess we were just programmed that way, ok?
There were more trips to the splash pad and puppy store, which is an extra at of love in the August heat. After the puppy store we went to get an ice cream sandwich only to realize that Baked Bear wasn't open for another 45 minutes. Well, I didn't haul my ever-growing bum out of bed and out into the Arizona sun because I thought I WASN'T going to get an ice cream sandwich. So we opted to wait it out in the air conditioning of the Disney store. At this point, I walk in there and you can see the employees eyes recognize me as the mom who never buys anything and yet lets her kid touch everything, so needless to say I'm a favorite of theirs. Rory grabbed every purse she could hold and wheeled a Lightening McQueen suitcase around the store until she peed her pants and had to be emergency ran (by a very pregnant me) to the bathroom around the corner. Once we got there I realized she was still clutching an extremely overpriced Cinderella purse and had nightmarish visions of security busting in on us while I buried her urine soaked undies in the tiny restroom trashcan (because I didn't have any waterproof baggies in my diaper bag!), but we made it back to the store and discreetly stuck the purse back on the shelf with none the wiser. Which also made me wonder how many people steal from the Disney store because overpriced merchandise and lax security seem like a bad combination to me...

One of our other excursions included a trip to DI where I really shine because if you think I am hands off at the Disney Store you would be amazed at my negligence at DI. Rory walks around like she owns that place, and I think she may genuinely believe that she does.

Rory also started a Jazz/Tap/Tumbling Combo class at a real dance studio, and I was so over the moon to officially be a dance mom that I HAD to buy her cookies to celebrate. Since she doesn't actually turn three until October she is definitely the youngest one in the class and boy does it show! So far she prefers watching to dancing, but she loves watching so I'm taking it as a win. I am extremely judgmental about the whole thing and have a hard time not wanting to take over the class, which I know is shocking.

On the last weekend we would be a family of three, Stephen and Rory built an epic fort in her bedroom for a sleepover. We also had pizza and watched a movie, which is Rory's favorite thing to do because she is the coolest, and also a toddler. Stephen was a trooper and actually stayed most the night in the fort and Rory thought it was just the coolest thing ever. 

At my doctor's appointment two to three weeks before my due date he said that the baby was so low she was bound to come any day now. I panicked and tried to keep off my feet as much as I could that week since I didn't have a plan for Rory until my in-laws were able to come. Then I went to the doctor the following week and he said the same thing. Then John and Lucina finally came to see us and I was doing anything to get that baby out of me and still nothing. But boy was Rory excited to be with Grandma and Poppop again!

Here is her fancy "Elsa" braid on the morning of my last doctor's appointment. I figured after the baby comes my desire to fight with a toddler so I can do fancy hair on her may dwindle just a bit. 

So I went to my appointment on Wednesday, August 14, just three days away from my due date. I wasn't having any contractions or anything, but that was the case with Rory too, and so I was going to ask my doctor to do a membrane sweep to get things moving hopefully. When I met with him, he had a really hard time getting to my cervix, but said as far as he could tell I wasn't dilated enough to do the sweep. He measured my stomach and listened to the baby's heartbeat. The heartbeat looked good and he made a comment that my baby was probably going to be a little peanut because I wasn't measuring very big. He said he would see me next week if I hadn't gone into labor by then, and I tried not to be too disappointed. As I was changing back into my clothes, Doctor Bickley came back into the room abruptly with a strange look on his face and he said that my stomach was actually measuring small enough that he was a little concerned and had the nagging feeling that he should check up on the baby and make sure everything was looking ok. When he did the ultrasound he found that the baby was measuring small, my amniotic fluid was low, and the placenta was calcifying. He said the baby was fine, but all those factors meant that she needed to come out sooner rather than later. He put in a call to the hospital for a medically necessary induction and told me that when they had space for me they would call me to come in.
I was a wreck, mostly because I was super pregnant, but I had just been worried through the whole pregnancy and now this was one more thing to freak me out. I was crying so hard I had to go walk around Target until I calmed down so I wouldn't come home and freak Rory out. Stephen was as anxious I was, probably because I called him sobbing several times, and so he came home early from work and sat around with me while I waited to hear from the hospital. John and Lucina took Rory to the aquarium and she had the best day ever with them. Stephen and I had dinner at Chick fil a and even that couldn't calm the two of us down! I finally got a call that night from the hospital that there was no room for me yet, but they would keep me on call. I tried to get as much sleep as I could feeling hopeful that they wouldn't call until the morning.
At 8 am the next morning the hospital called and asked if I could be there within the hour. I finished getting ready and then tried not to morph into a crazed lunatic when Stephen showered at a glacial speed. We woke up Rory to say goodbye and took one last (super attractive) picture as a family of three and then we took off for the hospital.
When we got there we had to check in and the process is much more slow and painful when you're not in labor surprisingly. The lady we were working with was slow and at times rude and I was obviously already super on edge. By the time she told us that we owed $4,500 on this baby (that we hadn't even had yet!) I just lost it. I started to cry with frustration and from all the pent up nerves inside my raging hormonal body, which of course only made things more awkward. My tears seemed to soften her just a little bit, but they didn't make her move any more quickly to get us admitted. In an effort to make me laugh, Stephen showed me that the very first page in our Maternity Ward information packet was a "How to Quit Smoking" article, which did make me laugh because it seemed a little absurd. I then had to explain to mean check in lady exactly why I was laughing which led to an even longer conversation I did not want to have.
Mean Lady: What was that? (In reference to me laughing instead of crying now)
Me: Oh he was just showing me something.
ML: What?
Me: It was an article on how to quit smoking.
ML: I was a smoke since I was 13. Quitting was one of the hardest things I had to do.
Me: I bet.
ML: Did you know if you call those numbers on the infomercials and give them your details you don't have to pay anything and they will send you a free packet of that nicotine gum.
Me: Oh really? That's great.
ML: (gesturing to Stephen) Are you a smoker?
Stephen: Nope, never smoked a day in my life.
ML: (back to me) So he doesn't get it.
Me: (Trying not to make eye contact with Stephen because I know it will make my currently suppressed laughter erupt) Nope.
ML: Now's a good time to try to quit with a little one on the way. Though I guess my son turned out fine...
FINALLY we were all checked in and found a spot where I could avoid eye contact with mean lady. We had to wait for what felt like forever for a nurse to come get us and the whole time I panicked that I wasn't feeling the baby kick enough.

When we got in a room and I got all hooked up to the monitors,I was so relieved to hear the constant strong heartbeat of the baby. It was the first time I felt like I was able to relax during this pregnancy and it made me laugh because it was such a stark contrast with Rory. When I went in in active labor and they kept making me do things to adjust the monitors so they could keep listening to the baby I remember screaming in my brain, "She is FINE! I'm the one in pain! Worry about me!" But sometimes when I need a peaceful moment I think back to the feeling a felt lying in that hospital bed and hearing Ada's steady heartbeat on the monitor telling me, "It's going to be ok, Mom. I'm ok." Whew, that was more sentimental than I usually like to get in these things. Quick tear wipe and back to the breezier details like...
It took three nurses to get to my cervix to see how far I was dilated. My nurse tried to find it, which was not comfortable at all, and then I hear her walk out to the nurse's station and yell, "Who has longer fingers than me?" Nurse 2 had large hands, but still proved to be unsuccessful, and also equally uncomfortable. Finally Nurse 3, who surprisingly did NOT have very large hands, was able to find it because it was sideways or something? I dunno, bleck! I was just glad when the process was over. It then took three tries to get my IV's in my arm so 3 was the number of the day!
Once the IV's were in they started me on Pitocin, which I had had to do with Rory too, so I felt prepared for. They started it around 12:30 in the afternoon. Stephen and I hung out, read our books, watched a little Home Improvement. John brought Stephen lunch so he wouldn't starve and he ate it out of my sight like the wonderful man he is. We watched all the exit movies in hopes that we could be out of there as fast as possible once the baby was here. Around 5:30 pm the contractions were bad enough that I felt ready for an epidural. It was quickly placed and then shortly after I found an Office marathon on TV. Life improved immensely. The nurse put a peanut ball between my legs and put me on my right side. When she came a little later to switch sides I felt annoyed that she was interrupting my show and relieved that my epidural was so strong I couldn't even feel the pressure of my contractions. She went to check if I had dilated any more, but as soon as she lifted my leg my water broke, the baby whooshed right down into place, and it was go time. She called people in to get the room ready for delivery and I heard her telling another nurse to call Dr Bickley. The nurse replied that they had tried but weren't getting him to answer when low and behold the man himself walked right into my room.  He said he was just stopping by to check in because he had figured he would be delivering my baby around midnight that night. That man truly has glorious timing. He assured me that the baby was so low she would be out in two pushes. They put an oxygen mask on my face because the sudden motion of the water breaking had startled her and sent her vitals into alert mode. I went to push, but as stated previously felt absolutely NOTHING below my waste. Dr Bickley tried to tell me when I was having a contraction so I could try to push, but I didn't even have enough feeling to do that. As he kindly put it, "You're just flexing your face." They called the anesthesiologist to turn down the epidural and I regained enough feeling to start actual pushing instead of face flexing. She didn't come out quite as fast as the doctor had thought she would because she was face up. Still, at 6:39pm our sweet Ada Felice finally made her grand entrance and we were so happy to see her!
She was 6 pounds 11 ounces and 19.5 inches long. I have to note that here, because I already can't remember her stats at all.
She came out and she was beautiful and perfect and had that enraged baby screaming face down pat, but no sounds was coming out. The nurse went to hand her to me while rubbing her and patting her back, but she wasn't making any noise still. So instead of giving her to me they rushed her over to the nurses table. It felt like a LONG time to me, but eventually she did cry and it was glorious. I wrote in her baby book that Ada liked to keep me guessing every step of the way. The nurses weighed her and did all their nurse baby things and it was a whole HOUR before I was able to hold her. It was torturous and so unlike Rory's delivery. But while the nurses worked on her Stephen kept a close eye on her and took care of her while I got stitched up.
The hospital was so much better the second time around and we were itching to get out as soon as we could. John was able to come later that night and hold her and he was pretty smitten. My mom and dad flew in the next morning and Lucina came and kept me company when Stephen went to the airport to pick them up. Once they arrived everyone came to the hospital at once and it was amazing to have so much family their together. Rory was so happy to see me and was instantly enamored with Ada. Her favorite part was playing with the buttons on my bed. She got to help me eat my lunch and we found dinosaur train on the TV. She talked about the "hossible" for a long, long time after that.
Stephen and I were able to break out exactly 24 hours after she was born thanks to a lovely nurse who stayed after her shift and we were welcomed home with Oregano's take out and a giant box of Crumbl cookies because nobody gets me like my family (OG's and In-Laws).