And then there were four...

Disclaimer: This entry is taking the place of her journal, so feel free to skim and just look at the pictures!


Everyone has a labor story. One of my favorite things to do when I meet new moms is to hear their birthing stories. There's always lots of empathy, usually a little bit of laughter and always an "awwww... so happy for you" moment. What amazes me, is that each pregnancy and each delivery is so different. There is no cookie cutter experience where you can walk into the hospital and know that after "x" amount of labor, and "x" amount of pushing, your new little bundle will arrive. With Reagan I had issues with amniotic fluid. When they tried to break my water it wouldn't break (I had abt. a teaspoon of fluid), but after that, it was a pretty classic 12 hour labor and delivery with a heavenly epidural somewhere in the middle, and only an hour of pushing. Josiah was way longer than I anticipated, (I was hoping it would go quicker, since it was my second), but after 14 hours and a wonderful epidural somewhere along the way, he was born with only 10 or so pushes. Madelyn was way quicker than I expected, and I didn't have time for an epidural at all!

And here is little Chloe's story...

The night before she was born her Auntie Emily flew up to take care of her brothers and sisters. Heavenly, to be able to have everything planned and arranged ahead of time! The double bonus was she was the extra motivation I needed to come up with a name! Yes, even the night before delivery I was wavering on what to call little Chloe. But I finally figured out my problem! I'm married to man with absolutely no facial expression. So when I ask him about a name, I'm looking for, "Yay! I love it!" or "No way!", What I usually get is, "Hmmm..it's alright." So I'm constantly second guessing myself on whether it's cute or not. Emily was the perfect amount of decisiveness and excitement, so I was amazed at how quickly we all settled on the name "Chloe". The next issue was the middle name. Since all of the other kids have some sort of family name hidden in their name, we wanted Chloe to follow suit. We all agreed on, "Chloe Rowan", until my sister made one last swoop through the list of names. When she came across, "Madison", a name both my Great Grandfather and Great Uncle had, it just seemed to fit. And ironically, it was the name Reagan was originally going to have until Brad finally let me have my way!

We left for the hospital at about 4:45 am, after a night of NO SLEEP! We made the unfortunate mistake of telling Reagan we were going to leave in the middle of the night, so every 30 minutes she would start crying or come up with some ridiculous request like, "I need a tissue!" just to make sure she wasn't missing out on anything, and we were still home. Not a fun way to start the day.

We arrived at the hospital, and were greeted by our labor and delivery nurse, Yolanda. She was a graduate from NW University, the same college that Brad and I went to, so it was fun swapping stories, and finding people that we all mutually knew. I started by telling Yolanda that my third pregnancy went super fast and I wasn't able to get an epidural, so I wanted to get one as soon as possible! She checked me and informed me that I was already 4 cm dilated, and that she would start my IV. Yay! Or so I thought... it took over 2 HOURS for them to get my IV in! After several nurses, countless pokes, and lots of bruising they managed to get it in. The whole time I was panicking thinking, "Oh great, this is going to be just like Madelyn and I'm going to have this baby without an epidural!!!" With Madelyn once I hit 5, things went crazy fast, not so with this one.

Somewhere along the way, Yolanda asked me if a student could come in and observe. She asked me if I preferred a male or female. I assumed they were going to come in ask me a few questions then leave, so I told them either was fine. But our male student came in, and stayed with us for the next ten hours until delivery! Now normally I thought it would bother me to have some strange guy in the room with us, but after a few hours my only concern was, "Get this baby out"! And as it turns out, he proved to be very useful. Once I got my epidural, it only worked on one side! After I finally convinced our nurse that it wasn't working, and I could feel absolutely everything, they called the anesthesiologist back. But by that time they were worried Chloe was dropping, so they cranked up the pain medicine in the epidural, and gave me a bonus shot full of some kind of pain meds in the IV. Now, I'm the type of person that could care less if I'm up and walking around right after delivery, especially if that means I don't have to feel a thing during labor. So I had no qualms that I was literally numb from the ribcage down and truthfully was thinking about taking a nap...

But what's a labor story without a little drama? Apparently, Chloe was in distress every time I had a really hard contraction, and her heart rate dropped really low. Yolanda was concerned that the umbilical cord was tangled up somewhere, so she finally called my doctor to ask advice. Dr. Whittman told her to put some amniotic fluid back up inside, so that Chloe could have a little more room to move. That didn't bring about the results they wanted, so the next step was to try flopping me back and forth with every contraction, so that I could help Chloe move around a little better. The only problem? Try moving an almost 200 pound mama that can't feel anything from the chest down! Yeah, it does wonders for your self esteem when they need THREE other people to flop you back and forth! I was actually thankful for our male observer at this point! Especially when my legs kept falling off the table and they told me, "We're going to need your help too!" Oh brother. Oh well, eventually the medicine wore off, and about an hour later I began to feel really hard contractions again. After a quick check, and an even quicker call to my doctor, little Chloe Madison Fox was welcomed into our family...

Our first glimpse of Chloe.
Born January 29th, at 2:57pm

I thought she looked like she would weigh 6 pounds,
she was sooo tiny!
I was surprised she weighed 8lbs, 4oz.
and was 21 3/4 inches long!

Love my little redhead! We were wondering where the red hair came from. When I asked my parents if we had any red hair in the family, I found out it's on both sides of my parents family, and then Brad informed me that he thought his grandmother had red hair also. So strange how you far back you can take things from your gene pool.

The rest of the welcoming crew!

She already has Daddy wrapped around her little finger...
exactly where he should be. =0)

The whole family

Big sissy Reagan

Perfect little toes!

I wish I could remember our male students name. He was actually really sweet. He had never seen a natural childbirth, his wife had delivered their child by C-section. Later when I asked him jokingly if it scared him off from wanting any more kids, he said, "No! It was just... just...amazing! I want to tell my wife to try it natural next time!" Hmmm... wonder how that one will go over!

Chloe loved her bath! Usually all my kids have screamed their little heads off when it was bathtime, but at Evergreen they keep them swaddled in a blanket, which I thought was super smart. It must remind them of being back in the womb because Chloe almost fell asleep!

~Chloe Madison Fox~