Our 3rd bundle of joy (not counting our angel baby) arrived on September 4, 2021, making her just over two months old. J was born without any major complications at 3:10pm at our local hospital here in Lewis County, WA. I was admitted for a scheduled induction the day before as my nurse midwife had concerns due to several risk factors during this pregnancy (advanced maternal age, breakthrough covid case in August, etc.). Hard to believe it’s been that long since she was born and even longer since I last updated the blog. I’m hoping to get a post of more substance up shortly.

Like my previous labor experiences, things took awhile to get going, then once they did, they rapidly progressed. (I went from nothing happening to fully dilated/ready to push in less than two hours.) Having birthed Z and T without pain management, I decided that with this delivery, I had nothing left to prove so asked for an epidural which didn’t really take effect before I needed to push (again, things happened QUICKLY) but they gave me a faster acting pain medication that took the edge off.

The most exciting thing that happened during all of this was that Eric nearly passed out while the anesthesiologist was administering the epidural. Several folks that we’ve told this story to have assumed that his near fainting episode had to do with my getting the epidural but really it was because he had low blood sugar from not eating lunch and then from everything happening so quickly. Fortunately, he rallied after some Gatorade and snacks and was able to be by my side when J was born. He even got to cut the umbilical cord!

We were able to go home about 24 hours after delivery, where J’s grandparents and older brother and sister doted on her. Z and T love their baby sister dearly, and T is very good at letting me know when J is crying and whether or not she needs to eat or have a diaper change. We’ve all transitioned pretty comfortably to a family of five and love getting to know one another better.