My Adventures: Introducing Hope

Hope is our baby number 5. She is so patient with this super chaotic family she came to join. She pretty much lets anyone hold, carry, and love on her. She still doesn't sleep through the night but is making gains towards getting there. She does have 2 teeth that popped through just after Thanksgiving. She uses them to bite her food and every now and again mom if I don't take the cues that she is done eating soon enough. Overall though, she is a very happy very chill baby. She is definitely our kid that was without a schedule the longest, eaten the most variety of foods by 6M, cries the least when tired, rarely gets grumpy when she doesn't need some thing, rolled back to front watching football on New Years Eve, and is just the perfect kiddo for us. I am so blessed to have her in our family.

Hope was born on July 21, 2022 at I think 2:45 in the morning. I don't remember the exact time or the details in the exact order because well she is now 6 1/2 months and I am just writing it down. She was an uncomplicated vaginal delivery, although two doctors did have to be present because they were concerned about her size and if she would deliver fine, but she did. I started labor on the 20th after losing my mucus plug sometime in the night. It took most of the day to really get the contractions going though most of the day I felt kind of funny. I was actually scheduled to be induced because I was over due by a day and I only had my mom for so long. However, the hospital called and said they didn't have room so I couldn't come in that night. Lo and behold Hope was ready to come room or not. We went to the hospital at about 11:00PM. I was at an 8 I believe and wanted an epidural. The anesthesiologist was in a c-section at the moment so I got the pleasure of waiting. However, he did come when he was done and on the second attempt he got the epidural in and I was out of pain by about 1:00. Once the epidural was all kicked in I had a little chance to breathe and enjoy for a bit but then they checked me again and I was at a 10, so the doc had time and for the first time I actually pushed a baby down. On all my other deliveries they just kind of waited for the baby to work its way down, but not this time. This time we pushed. We did probably like 3 sets of 3 pushes each. Then took a little break to kind of let Hope do some on her own. Then I probably did like another 3 sets of 3. Then the doc put on her like baby delivery clothes and got the room at all setup and the second doctor in and we did pushes to get the baby out. It took a couple of sets but out she came. I was given my beautiful 9 lb. 2 oz baby and I was like "Wow, I can tell you are big for a baby, but you are still so small." I couldn't believe she was here. I fed her, at some point got the epidural out, and all the things, and then fell asleep. When I woke up they moved us to the mother baby unit where our old nurse informed our new nurse we needed sleep we were not the people who stayed up late or pulled all nighters. It was pretty funny because she was right though since having Hope we consistently stay up later than we have previous to this time. The hospital stay was good and we enjoyed having our kids come meet their sister. Uncle Jack and Oma also came to welcome her too. I loved my time in the hospital for probably the first time ever. I loved that no one except Hope needed me and I could just love and cuddle and take my sweet time feeding her guilt free. It was such a treasured time because since coming home we have had to share each other with everyone else. I am so grateful for the bonding time we got in the hospital.