Sydney's Birth Story and first few weeks!

Sydney is coming up on 7 weeks already! When did that happen? She's such a doll and we can't imagine life without her. She's almost outgrown her newborn clothes and just about past the newborn acne phase. Today she gave me a real smile which made me melt. We love being a family of 4 and Emma loves being a big sister...for the most part. I do think she misses all the attention sometimes. Whenever Josh hugs me or kisses me, Emma runs up to us and wants to join in. She grabs our legs and says "Hug?" Then giggles like crazy when we have a group hug with her. She's pretty adorable. Anyway, back to Sydney.  We were so worried all summer about having someone to watch Emma while I was in labor. Moving to a new place is tough when you're 5 or 6 months pregnant. But we lucked out with an amazing church ward here and good friends. So many people were willing to help watch Emma if we needed or bring us dinner.

I ended up getting induced anyways, so my mom was able to have a day to fly out here from Idaho to be here when I went to the hospital. I had my 39 week appointment and the doctor was concerned because Sydney hadn't grown for a few weeks. They ordered an ultrasound for the next morning to see what was going on. Josh and Emma came with me to the ultrasound. Afterwards, the doctor said "Well, looks like we're going to induce you today or tomorrow!" We were pretty shocked. She said everything looked good but the baby wasn't growing so there was no reason to wait and she needed to come out. They predicted she was around 5 lbs. 13 oz. I was pretty excited, but not mentally prepared. I'd readied myself for a week late because that's what happened with Emma. I had a really good experience being induced though for the most part. It was nice to have my mom taking care of Emma before going to the hospital.

I went in to the hospital Saturday September 17th at 7 a.m. They got me all hooked up and I.V's all set up. Before the pitocin they wanted to check the baby's position. Every appointment since 34 weeks the baby was always head down. Even the day before. But when they checked, Sydney was breech! Bah! She was so small and just floating around in there. They decided to do some massaging of my belly to push the baby down. It works about 50 % of the time and it wasn't a guarantee but I'd have to have a C- section otherwise. The doctor oiled up my belly and started turning the baby. Sydney went head down so quick it was shocking! The doctor said " That's the easiest one I've ever done!" BUT, little Sydney liked floating around and as soon as she was head down she started floating up again. The doctor and the nurse had to literally hold her head down with their fingers around her neck until they gave me something to get her to stay there and drop. Stressful but kind of funny. I guess I just had a lot of fluid for a tiny baby.

Well it was just normal from there. They gave me pitocin around 11 AM and Josh and I watched a lot of "Reba" , waiting till I needed my epidural. About 7 PM, I felt like I needed to push and called to the nurses. Sure enough, little Syndey was ready! A couple pushes and she was here! It was such an amazing experience, I still cry a little thinking about it. I was able to help pull her out( which was incredible) and then lay her straight on my chest. With Emma, they whisked her away to the NICU right away, but Sydney Lynne was with me from the get-go. She nursed easily and slept easily on my chest.  She was born at 7:47 PM 9/17/16, 6 lbs. 2 oz. and 19 inches.

My mom and Emma came to meet her the next morning. Emma didn't really know how to react and was more interested in jumping on the couches and playing around the hospital room.

Our first family picture

The day I got discharged from the hospital, I was throwing up and felt really sore in my back and my shoulders. It kept getting worse and worse but I thought it was just from leaning over to nurse Sydney and bad posture and maybe something I ate. On my way home I threw up 3 times and went straight to bed. All I could do was lay there in pain. Every time I got up to stand, I was good for a few minutes but then felt nauseous and like I would fall over. I had to lay down to nurse Syndey and everything bright gave me a headache even when I was laying down. Turns out I had a spinal headache. Sometimes, but rarely, the epidural needle punctures the dural sac around the spinal cord. My spinal fluid was leaking and it gave me the worst headache and body soreness I've had in my life. The pain was even worse than child birth and kept getting worse and worse. It might not sound that bad but it really was.  It was so bad I almost made Josh go to the E.R in the middle of the night. But we waited till the next morning and went back to the hospital. They did a blood patch which is where they take some of my own blood and insert it into where the epidural was and patch the hole with my own blood. In 15 minutes I was already feeling better. It was amazing! I hope I never have to go through that again. It makes me think twice about having an epidural, whereas before I always said " Of course I want one! Why wouldn't I?!" But I'm so glad to be feeling fully recovered and able to enjoy my girls:)

Here's some pictures of our two weeks home:

She's such a cutie and we love her!