Our New Family

For the very first posting on our new blog, this is the first photo of our new little family. I think Lydia was only about two hours old! She was a sweet baby right from the start.

Here is the story of Lydia's birth:

Her due date was August 7th, and as the day drew closer, Grant and I were more and more anxious. We were so excited for her to arrive! The doctor thought she might come early, so I had my bags packed a week in advance. Little did I know that Lydia had a mind of her own!

Overdue by a week, I was induced on August 14th. The hospital called at 5:30 in the morning and said they were ready for us. Although excited for the event, we still wanted our sleep! We snoozed for a little while longer and arrived at the hospital around 7:30 a.m. I was hooked up to pitocin to start the contractions, and each hour they bumped up the dosage. The first few increases in dosage were alright, but by about the fourth increase and having had my water broken by the doctor, at that point I was ready for an epidural--movies were no longer able to distract me from the pain. Once the epidural was in place, I felt much better and even slept for a couple hours while Grant continued watching an episode of Modern Marvels: Monster Trucks online. He sure was a good sport to sit there patiently all day with me.

I was progressing pretty quickly, so by about 3:30 p.m. I was told to start pushing. The contractions were strong enough by then that I could feel them through the epidural, but it wasn't too painful. It actually made it easier to know when to push! I even told Grant during the process that I would do this all again. I'm not sure whether it was me or the drugs talking. :) I pushed for about 2 hours with the nurse and Grant coaching me, but Lydia just wasn't coming. She had decended pretty far, but something was preventing her from coming out. The nurse called the doctor, who was actually at another hospital in Orem! So, we waited for about an hour for him to come back to Provo. I decided to use this time to take a break. Even with an epidural, pushing was hard work! I was pretty tired.

When the doctor arrived, he said he wanted to try using forceps to see if that would help the baby out. If that didn't work, a C-Section was highly possible. So, I pushed while he pulled, and we quickly realized why Lydia was having such a hard time---she was posterior, or face up! Fortunately after only a few more pushes, little Lydia Claire greeted us all---yes, all of us. There were three or four nurses in the room, my doctor, and a resident doctor who was observing! It was a full house, and a little bit awkward. It kind of felt like a party, though. Grant got everyone talking about football because our doctor is a big University of Utah fan--he even wears red shoes at work! So Grant asked if he would wear his BYU hat to deliver Lydia so it would be the first thing she saw. Needless to say the doctor politely declined. :)

Anyway, it was a fairly smooth delivery, I've had a great recovery, and little Lydia is such a sweet baby. He second night home from the hospital she slept for 6 hours straight, and she's made a pattern of that ever since. I'm one lucky momma! Grant and I love having her in our home. She brings us so much joy, as well as occasional entertainment with her funny facial expressions. She's a sweety!