Tony and I are happy to announce that our lovely little Eva Faith made her appearance at 12:30 a.m. on Monday, October 11. She was just 31 minutes shy of being a 10-10-10 baby, but the hospital had 10 babies on 10-10-10, so we were fine with not messing up those numbers. :) While part of me wished she had come earlier in the week, I know she came just when I was ready.
With out getting into too many details that would be TMI, let's just say the labor was intense. I was actually having strong contractions all throughout last week. I went to the hospital thinking "this is it!" on Tuesday night (10/5) and had 10 hours of contractions, dilated to 4 cm, and then my labor stopped. By that point, I had only slept a few hours in 24 hours and I really didn't want to stick around the hospital to get induced. So we went home and I continued to have contractions on and off throughout the week. On the way home from church on Sunday, around 4:30, I started having very strong contractions that, once again, stopped at about 7:30. I decided to go get some rest since I had been up with contractions Saturday night. I woke up at 9:15 p.m., puttered around the house, and then the contractions came on really strong, but they weren't any closer together than about 6 minutes. Finally, when I could no longer walk or talk through them, we called the midwife and told her we thought it was time to go to the hospital. She agreed. The ride to the hospital was a little crazy, as the contractions started coming very close together. We arrived at the hospital at 11:30 and I was dilated to 6 cm. About 30 minutes later I had dilated to 9 cm. The midwife broke my water, and we had a baby 30 minutes later! It was intense, but I did it!
Eva is great. She looks so much like Ruth to me, but she has a darker complexion and hair. For comparison sake, the top photo is of Eva and the bottom is of Ruth:
She's eating well and starting to get into a better sleep schedule. After just a few days of her being home, I'm convinced that newborns are easier to care for than 2-year-olds. Ruth really enjoys having a new sister. She loves greeting her in the morning and tries to share her toys, snacks, books and whatnot with her. It's actually very sweet. But Ruth is having a difficult time sorting out her feelings and has been having an overabundance of temper tantrums. Obviously, she has been out of her routine for well over a week now, and I think she's just wishing life would start to feel normal again. Hopefully it will pass within the next couple of weeks. I'm sure it's hard to share your mom and dad when you've had them all to yourself for more than 2 years.
I've been doing well -- just trying to keep up on my sleep. I have been starting to feel a little stir crazy, but I know I need to take it easy. I feel really good all day and then start to feel blue in the evening after dinner. The feelings tend to fade after a couple of hours. I have to say, it's the worst part of having a baby for me. With Ruth, those feelings went away after a couple of weeks. Here's hoping the baby blues fade faster this time around.
I am so grateful to be a mom to such wonderful little girls! Tony and I are very blessed. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts, kind acts, and well-wishes. :)
