HE'S HERE!!!!

Disclaimer:  For those of you who don't like birth stories (espcially easy ones) ...you may just want to skip all this labor-y talk and just scroll ahead to some cute baby photos.  This post is for future-me who is going to want to remember details.   

After weeks of being THOROUGHLY pleasant to live with and 2 days overdue, Henry decided to make his grand appearance into the world!  In my defense, both of my girls were early (Molly 8 days and Sadie 13), so any bit of waiting seemed like torture.... especially after spending14 hours in the hospital last week and being sent home with no baby.   

This was me last week all smiles and ready to go meet my little man with contractions 5 minutes apart.   

  I was not in the mood to take a coming home with no baby shot.  My doctor had left the hospital after being there all night without even seeing me or explaining that my contractions had decreased.  He saw me in the office two days later and told me that there were no changes and the baby didn't look like he was going to come on his own without induction.  Visualize whale with grimace and perma-frown.  Got it?  Now imagine living that that for a week.  My husband deserves a medal.   

I went with the coping mechanism that I must not be pregnant at all and decided to go about life as normally as possible on Wednesday (the day after my official due date).  Trip to consignment shop, a lovely visit to the DMV, planting about 50 bulbs with the girls (me as digger of holes, Sadie as sprinkler of miracle grow, and Molly as bulb puter-inner) and then out to dinner at Outback.  Bloomin' onion? Yes, please.  Because really... when am I going to have the excuse again.  The day ended ordinarily with bath time and snuggles, story, and songs and being so thankful to spend the day with my girls.

At 11:00, I collapsed, exhausted in bed.  I remember taking out my contacts, turning off the light, looking at the clock at 11:04 and feeling the most jolting of contractions that lasted for about a minute.  Oh.  The contractions I felt last week felt NOTHING like this one.  No wonder the doctor had sent me home.  I turned on the lights, put my contacts back in, went through my take-to-hospital bag for the 47th time, and after another contraction at 11:09 and one at 11:14, I woke up Justin.

11:22 I called my doctor.
11:30 I called my mom to come over and sleep here with the girls.
11:40 we were on our way to the hospital.
11:45 my doctor called back and told me to go the hospital.  (I'm glad I left before he told me to.)
11:48 I was muttering not so kindly about how slow the car was in front of us.
11:55 we were buzzed into the hospital front doors.
11:57 we were on the labor and delivery floor.
11:58 I was begging not to be put into triage and instead be put into a delivery room.  Apparently with a history of girl-who-cried-wolf, they weren't going to believe me, even when my contractions were less than 2 minutes apart.

This was the conversation that went down with the triage nurse:

Me:  I am IN LABOR.
Nurse:  Well, I guess I can check you before I put you on the monitors.
Me:  Yes.  Do that.
Nurse:  Oh.  Well, I don't feel your cervix at all.  You're fully dilated.
Me:  I figured.  Can I go to a room NOW????

12:02 Admitted to room.

They wheeled the triage bed right into labor and delivery and asked me to try to climb onto the delivery bed when a contraction stopped.  At this point, they weren't going to.  I clawed my way on oh-so gracefully.  There were about 5 nurses in the room clamoring and scrambling about quickly trying to prepare for a birth minus a doctor who was clearly not going to make an appearance before the baby did.

The next few minutes were a blur.  Intense pain mixed with PLEADING for them to let me push and them not letting me because they weren't ready for him.  (C'mon...who needs gloves!?!?!  Just catch the baby, will you?)  Two pushes later, Henry made his grand entrance at 12:10.  Ready or not.  He came.

7 lb. 11 oz. 19 1/2 inches

The doctor showed up about a half an hour later.  I asked him if he was going to give me a medal for making it to the hospital in time and having no pain meds.  Apparently not.  All you get is a baby and a disapproving head shake. 

It was interesting that the most mayhem occured after he was born.  They gave me an IV, took my blood, had me sign a consent form for them to deliver the baby, took my blood pressure...  better late than never, I guess?  It was annoying.  I just wanted to snuggle my baby.  They also found that there was a "true knot" in his umbilical cord.

"Is that okay?" I asked.
"Well....he's here and he's fine." was the answer.
Apparently its common in about 1 in 100 pregnancies.  I'm so thankful I didn't know about it.  I would have been so stressed and probably been induced if I had felt any sort of decreased fetal movement.  I'm great with odds and pregnancies.  sheesh!

Because Henry was born after midnight, I was supposed to stay until Saturday.  Um, no thank you.  There was really no reason to stay any longer than I had to.  As nice as it is to send the baby to the nursery to sleep, I hate the constant blood pressure checks, people coming in and out when you're trying to nurse, and especially knowing my girls were home waiting for us.  I didn't tear, had little pain, Henry was eating great, had no problems with his bilirubin count, and we saw all the doctors we needed to.  By 3:30 on Friday, we were free to go!

My absolute favorite moment was getting to see my girls meet their baby brother for the first time.  It was magical.  I was wondering if I would have that "done" feeling... like once we were all together I would finally feel like my family was complete.

Yes.  Definitely yes.

Its nice to be together finally and to know I can stop building my family and just enjoy my family.

And let me tell you... this kid.  *sigh*  I am so in love with him.

      

     Welcome to our family, Henry Timothy Benson!  You were worth the wait. 

         

Make room for Henry...

I've never had to opportunity to properly "nest."  We got the call for Josiah on a Friday and picked him up the following Monday, leaving me barely enough time to google "How to take care of newborn," (no seriously....I did that) let alone make a space that I deemed worthy to bring that sweet baby home into.  48 hours...that was all the time I had to gather all the necessary items to dress, feed, bathe, and get a crib together for our son.  (And thanks to my dear friend, Chrissy who kept my head from spinning and her sister-in-law, we were lavished with all we needed very quickly.)  

By the time I could catch my breath before Molly came, this disaster struck...

The air conditioner in the attic had been leaking for months without us knowing leaving a lovely multi-colored mold that leaked into our upstairs bedroom and into downstairs living room below.   

We were out of the house for 4 months while we lived with my very gracious and generous parents until the mold was eradicated, leaving me with the desire to nest with no tree.
  
Finally, by the time Sadie was born, I managed to at least have a girly bird theme in place.  But have you ever tried to get a nursery done when babies share a room?  When Molly was sleeping in it, I couldn't exactly work in there.  And when she wasn't, she wanted to "help" me paint, leaving my girls' tree mural undone before it was painted over completely.  *sniffle*

 

oh poor tree :(  You never did get all of your flowers finished. 

When we found out I was pregnant with baby #3, we knew we needed to expand our house.  With only two bedrooms upstairs, we needed more room.  We planned and saved and found a builder who understood the challenges of working on a 150+ year old home with a lot of "character." (And by "character," I mean no floor was level, no two window sills were the same level from the ceiling, and the house has been pieced together with about 5 additions.)  We thought that it would be a good plan to put a third bedroom upstairs, but when that proved to be too costly, our next plan was to put our new bedroom in our former living room downstairs and build another living room onto the house.  The girls would get our old room, which was the bigger of the two upstairs, and their room would be turned into the new nursery.  I am SO happy with how it turned out and I'll have to share lots of pictures of ALL the new rooms, but for now...onto Henry's room!  

The pictures are coming...but the story is worth reading so please bear with me...  

After living with my parents for 3 months (again...thank you, Mom and Dad!) while the addition was completed, I did a lot of pinning and planning for a baby boy nursery.  Honestly, if it were up to me, I would have done something with woodland creatures or pirates (have you SEEN baby boy pirate bedding?!?  SOOOO cute!)  But, Justin wanted to celebrate the impending arrival of his boy with his beloved Phillies.  I figured since this was his last shot to have a boy and the nursery that HE always wanted, I would embrace it (even if it would set our little man up for a lifetime full of disappointment and heartache as a future Phillies fan.)  We like to build character, I guess.  

After having moved back into the house for about 2 months, the room that would soon be Henry's was a MESS.  If you've ever had the pleasure of moving or nesting a whole house, you know what a huge undertaking it is.  Things get shoved and stuffed into the sacrificial room while all the others get pieced together.  Poor Henry.  I'm glad he wasn't around to see how his room used to look like a scene from "Hoarders."

Getting the room ready was completely overwhelming.  For me, my goal was to make the walls look pretty, shove some boxes into closets and if need be, put piles just out of frame before taking pictures.  

Nesting.  Check.  

I was not prepared for my OCD husband who did not think that was such a good plan.  Mr. must-do-things-the-RIGHT-way had his own agenda and wanted to go through every single box until every single thing was put into its proper and eternal resting place.  Ugh!  (Hello?!  I have a DUE DATE here!)

I was not prepared how far he was going to take his plan.  

Just when almost everything was cleared from the room, and I was finally able to start painting the mural I was so excited about, Justin says to me, "I think we should go through all the boxes of clothes we have in the attic and decide what to do with them."  

"Ummm....NOW???  No.  Absolutely not.  You mean ALL the boys and girls clothes we own from size newborn to 3T?  All 17 bins of them?  No.  I'm PAINTING! Can't you see I'm NESTING HERE?!?!?"   

Truth be told, when we found out I was having a boy, I wasn't disappointed, I was TERRIFIED.  Of this.  Of clothes bins.  Of not only purging my girls' stuff, but having to face the bins marked "boy."  These were Josiah's things.  And they were not just clothes.  They represented a time in my life was so special and sacred because it was the first time I got to embrace my role as a mommy.  Every time I saw them, I got this empty feeling in my gut knowing something had been ripped away from me.  I had passed most of them onto my nephews, but for some reason, so many had been cycled back to me and found their way into my attic.  Where they, as far as I was concerned, could stay FOREVER. 

There was nothing I wanted done with them.  I couldn't throw them away because, honestly, the clothes were adorable.  We never had a shower for Josiah, and we were given a clothes allowance from DYFS, so every stitch of clothing for our boy was hand-picked and exactly what we wanted to dress our son in.  I didn't want to consign them because that would mean having to look at them and physically hand them over to be sold for no where near what they were worth to me.  They were fine in the attic, where I knew they were there and I didn't have to look at them.  Justin didn't think so.  Mr. Practical wanted them put away somewhere.  

In the end, I'm glad I lost.  

When the bins came out, the tears started flowing.  Justin dug through them, as I painted and he would ask me...  keep, consign, or throw away.  The memories flooded back to me like they were yesterday.  The way Josiah's new baby skin smelled, how his fuzzy hair felt, how tiny his hands used to be.  

Consign.  Consign.  Consign.  Get rid of them as fast as I could, I thought.  We could at least trade them in for store credit to get different clothes for Henry.     

    

Half way through the first bin, I was already emotionally exhausted.  "How can you DO this?"  I asked Justin.  "Doesn't this just depress you??"  His answer surprised me.  

"No," he said.  "Seeing these makes me really happy."  

Happy.  It was a strange emotion to attach to clothes that, to me,  represented the absence of our son and my death as a mommy of boys, who was now (thanks to this very painful activity) in the process of being forced to be resurrected.  I continued to paint, mulling over the word.  Happy.  Could seeing these clothes ever bring back that emotion like they once did?  They did for Justin.  I guess maybe they could for me too?  By the time the first bin was empty and piles lay on the floor, a strange new idea had begun to form.  

I can be happy that Josiah was here without being sad that he isn't. 

Strange.  I never realized those emotions could co-exist before that moment.  As we started the second bin, and then the third, and the forth, the consigning pile got smaller as the "keep" pile grew.  I remembered him in the lion sleeper in the sun when he had jaundice, and the mommy's All Star one with Justin's huge hat when he snuggled with his daddy, and how I took pictures of him wearing the one with the little doggie paws when he met his Aunt Robin for the first time. 

        

    

And as the pile grew, so did a new idea.  Maybe I didn't have 48 hours to nest for a son.  Maybe I had four and a half years.  Maybe they weren't Josiah's clothes.  Maybe they were always meant to be for Henry.  Because after all, had I received what I had really prayed most earnestly for, Henry would never have existed.  Our house of five would have had no vacancy. 

In the end, most of the clothes are in drawers now, waiting for our son to wear them.  I thought I was just getting a room ready, and God had other plans.  

It is the emptying and filling of rooms, and wombs, and drawers and attics that REALLY is the thing that makes a girl ready to be a Mama.  And knowing that God orchestrates it all in His perfect timing and in His perfect way that makes her into a Mama who is ready to teach her children the most important and difficult life lesson:  God is good.  

And He makes all things beautiful in his time...

(even if the five-year-in-the-making finished nursery did end up being a Phillies theme.)

**Just so you know, no pile was moved out of frame while taking these photos!  Thank you, Mr. do-things-the-RIGHT-way!  :) **

 

I have plans.  When Henry comes home, I'm going to sit in this chair and sing him this song and tell him how good God is to me. 

        

 

The quest for the aquisition of 3

Justin and I were just itty bitties when I remember having the conversation about our future family plans.  I remember driving around with that newly licensed 17 year old boy discussing our dream jobs, where we wanted to live, and how many kids we each wanted.  (What can I say?...we were always very mature and goal-oriented I suppose.)  The answer for the number of kids for both of us was three.  Always three.  I grew up with two sisters, he grew up with two brothers (and a much-older sister who was off to college before he was in kindergarten).  The family of 5 dynamic was something we were both comfortable with and understood how it worked.  And if you know us at all... you know we stick to our plans.

1999 I believe?  This was us on a missions trip to the Czech Republic between our junior and senior year of high school.  We had been dating for 2 1/2 years at this point.  *sigh* young love. 

 

While the dream education, dream marriage, dream jobs, dream house, dream town all fell into place by God's grace and what seemed like His perfect timing, it was our quest for our three children that lead us down a road of joy, heartbreak, victory, sorrow, and an understanding of God's Greatness and Goodness- far beyond what we could ever imagine.  

If we had the three I had prayed for so fervently for, my family would look so incredibly different than it does now- and I'm glad God has taught me to trust in His plans and not my own when it comes to building a family.  After seven pregnancies, two foster sons, and two beautiful girls of our own, we're almost there.  The finish line (and in some ways the starting line) seems ever so close, and I just wanted to take a minute to exhale, to thank God for bringing us through the completion of our family, and praise God for allowing my heart to heal so completely before we prepare to meet our son for the first time.  

Josiah came when I was 5 months pregnant.  

     The call for Nino came when I was 7 months pregnant with Molly.  

By 8 1/2 months we were down to one again...  

  And then quickly up to 2...

Those two were brother and sister for almost 2 years

And then God saw fit to have us parent just one again for a little while...  

Until her sister came...

 

And got to stay...

We've gone from 1 to 2, 

to 1, 

to 2, 

to 1,

to 2...  

And now we're finally moving in the right direction.   

And it feels good.  And I'm ready.  Hear that little man?  I'm READY!!!!  Please come soon!!!!


And also coming soon....  the reveal of our new baby's nursery!!!  And how God prepared both my heart and my home to get me ready to be a mommy of a boy again.   

And sorry for the blog neglect.  I've been a tad busy.  But I feel the need to process and this is how I do that :)