Backtracking...

I really, really need to be better at blogging. I want to print every year into a book and this really is my only way of journaling. I've looked back countless times on posts from when Brent was a baby when I forget about things and I'm always thankful to my former self that I was a good blogger, because it has answered many questions... "When did my other kids crawl", "When was Brent pulling himself up on stuff"..and the list goes on.

Poor Kendall. I haven't even talked about her birth so I'm going to backtrack. I was hoping to have another VBAC with her and I had a C-Section scheduled for Monday, November 4th. It was a really stressful time in my life and I absolutely didn't want a C-Section because I had 3 other kids to take care of. I couldn't imagine being down and out while recovering from surgery- not to mention the other issues that I had with having a C-section with Sophie (not getting to hold a baby right away, the pain, etc.)

My midwife stripped my membranes twice. It hadn't worked. As I approached my C-section date, I grew more sad because I started to accept the fact that I was probably going to have Kendall via C-section. I started feeling contractions Friday night but didn't think much of it. My Mom flew into San Diego on Saturday afternoon and the entire way to the airport I was feeling contractions. I started questioning if it could be "it", but with none of my other pregnancies had I experienced labor. I was induced with Brent, Sophie was a csection, my water broke with Lily with no contractions, and there I was questioning what all these contractions meant. We picked up my mom, stopped and at lunch, and on the way home from San Diego they felt stronger and stronger and I wasn't feeling Kendall move much. By the time we got home my Mom urged us to go into Labor and Delivery to get checked out.

They hooked me up to the monitors and sure enough I was having contractions every 4 minutes but they said I wasn't in "true" labor and they sent me home. Scott wanted to go to the grocery store on the way home from the hospital and I was wobbling around, stopping every few minutes. By the time we got back home at 9:00ish I was hurting pretty badly. We went to bed around 11 and I just laid there, having horrid contractions (listening to scott snore). I got out of bed and started timing them and they were every 2 minutes and got down to 1 1/2 minutes. I was so confused because I had JUST gotten sent home and told I wasn't in labor, yet there I was having contractions less than 2 minutes apart. The pain was so bad and I remember sitting in the recliner at midnight watching mindless television to take my mind off the pain. Just when I thought I couldn't take it any longer, I felt a gush and I knew my water had broken. I woke up Scott and told him it was time. We got in the car and it was just like in the movies!! I was screaming and crying, telling him I wasn't going to make it to the hospital. It was about 12:30 at night and the thickest blanket of fog had covered Menifee and I just knew Scott was going to kill us. He almost ran off the road a few times because there was NO visibility. Talk about stressful.

I made it to the hospital and got the BEST epidural I'd ever had. Before I knew it, Kendall was here- 8 pounds even (they said she was 19 inches, but we think they made a mistake because at her 2 week appointment she was 20 1/2..so who knows how long she was!) She was perfect and beautiful. She wasn't crying though- people started running in the room, she was blue and no one would tell me what was going on. They whisked her away to the nursery and ran some tests on her. In the end, all was fine but it was scary for me. They think it was just such a fast labor that it was traumatic on her. She was also coombs positive- a blood issue between her blood type and mine which made her pretty jaundice. They also think she had some type of infection (as did I) so we both had to stay an extra 2 days because we were both on some heavy duty antibiotics.

In the end everything was perfect and we fell in love hard with this sweet baby. She has made our family complete and the kids couldn't get enough of her.

 

This is when I first got to go see her in the nursery/nicu. It was sad to see her hooked up to oxygen (I was, however, still thankful because I know there are babies that are much worse).

 

Lots of dark hair- she reminded me SO much of Lily

Sunbathing the jaundice away