Details on Delivery, Etc.

This post may ramble, so forgive me...it's for posterity's sake (in other word's I'm not writing for you), you are just invited to peek in if you want to...this post was not proof-read, please excuse typos and poor grammar.

As I'm writing this, Shena is posting pictures on her computer. If you are reading this note on Facebook and can't see the pictures, click on the link on my profile page to get to the blog, which will have the pictures on it.

A quick summary...Panthers won, we had a baby girl, then the Steelers won. Awesome.

Couldn't ask for a much better day. The labor went fine...very little pain (from what I could tell). The drugs worked, so she wasn't in much pain at all. She started shaking when it was time to deliver the baby, but the nurse said that was because her body was working hard and was getting worn out, even though she couldn't feel it. Shena looked at me once or twice like she wanted to push, but the doctor wasn't in yet, so she was good and waited. He came in, got ready and sat down then the nurse said "You are having a contraction, go ahead and push if you want to." The doctor said, "yeah, give me a good push," and then after about the count of 2 said "oh, whoa! No more pushing, no more pushing!" The baby's head was already out and Shena just about pushed her out onto the floor. Her cord was wrapped around her neck, but he was able to get it off easily. He got his fingers under her armpits and pulled her out. It took her a minute to make any noises, but nobody seemed concerned at all. As the doctor was trying to clamp the cord, Addelyn grabbed the clamp and wouldn't let go. I immediately thought of that new Holiday Inn Express commercial (I'll post a link to it later...connection is too slow here at the hospital). He finally pried it away from her, and handed me the scissors. I cut the cord and she immediately grabbed the clamp again. Her first trait demonstrating itself. She's been pretty quiet...let's hope that trait continues, too.

After the delivery, we called parents first. I then called Lettie, who was watching the kids, and told them all over her speakerphone. I heard lots of yelling, but I think most of it was Lettie. From what I've heard, Cade was more interested in watching the Steelers game than finding out the news (where'd he get that from?). She brought the kids up at about 7:00 and they got to meet their new sister. There was unanimous agreement from all three of them before hand that they wanted a little sister, so they really were excited. I'm sure it was their faith that pulled that one off, because Shena and I were seriously doubting that it was going to be a girl. Up to this point we have been calling this baby "Sera, Sera" (as in "it is what it is). The kids have been calling mom's belly that for 5 months now, and so it was pretty funny to hear all of us trying to remember to refer to Addelyn by her real name. Everyone called her the wrong thing at one point or another while we visited with her. They were all excited to hold her...even Cade, but only after the Steelers game was over. We have had a tradition in our family where the sibling(s) buy a present for the new baby and the baby has a present for each of the sibling(s) when they meet for the first time. I took the kids yesterday to find something for the baby, but we had to make it a unisex gift and I told them that we were only buying one gift, not three, so they all had to agree on something. It came down to a pair of Carolina Panthers onesies and a stuffed duck. Kelson and Analise were pulling for the duck, Cade wanted the onesies. Cade said "Ok. We need to have a vote. Whoever wants the duck, raise your hand." (Kelson and Analise raise their hand). "Whoever wants the onesie, raise their hand." (Cade raises his hand.) "Ok, so two people voted for the duck and one voted for the onesie, so we are going to get the duck, dad." I was proud of him. That is not necessarily like Cade. He doesn't like surprises and he doesn't like to give in when he has an opinion. So the kids bought a duck for the baby and were very proud of it. Addelyn brought wrapped gifts for the kids. They were white boards (pictured in Shena's post) with either a "Cars" or princesses design. The kids were excited to get them, and as you can see in the pictures, Kelson was excited to write a message to Addelyn (I love you Addelyn). He couldn't spell it, but he came up with the message himself. Cute kid.

Regarding whether this was going to be a boy or a girl, we obviously didn't know, but we didn't have any hunches either. When I was pressed, I was guessing a boy, but I was positive that Cade was a girl before he was born. When Cade was baptized in August, I was the one who confirmed him a member of the church (and for those who don't know, this involves giving a priesthood blessing, without specific verbiage...kind of like a prayer). I don't remember, but during the confirmation, Shena said that I mentioned his "brother and sisters." Shena was excited because she thought that meant that is what we were having. With all of the ultrasounds she had, I was surprised that we hadn't accidentally seen some boy or girl parts. I actually thought that I had a week or two ago. During one of the ultrasounds I was positive I saw some boy parts, but I wasn't sure. I couldn't see an umbilical cord in the same shot, so I was a little unsure. I had my fingers crossed because Shena BADLY wanted another little girl. I know she had really bad heartburn the whole pregnancy, and that was similar to her experience with Analise.

They headed home about 7:30 when Addelyn had to go to the nursery for her check up. They had done all the weighing and measuring inside the room, so as we were walking out we realized that we could see her from the Delivery waiting room as they checked her out. The kids went in there and there was another family there waiting for their baby to be born. The kids were excited to show off their new little sister. Kelson said to a grandma who was in there "Yeah, that's my little sister." We watched her for about 5 minutes while the pulled her arms out, checked her mouth took her temperature, etc. Analise kept saying "Pick me up. Me wanna see." They finally headed out the door to go to sleep about 7:45.

As for names, we appreciate all the input and suggestions. I'll make a seperate post on why some were rejected. We tried hard to give this one a name from my mom's side of the family. Cade is named after my dad and Shena's brother. Kelson is named after a family member on Shena's dad's side. Analise was named after Shena's mom's side. So we felt it only fair to use my mom's side this time. We searched the names for something we liked. We found a boy's name realtively easy, because it would be a middle name and we could then pick out another first name, kind of like we did with Kelson, that wasn't necessarily a family name. But the girl's name was harder. Shena and her sisters didn't have middle names, my sister didn't have a middle name and Analise does not have a middle name, so we didn't want to give this one a middle name either. We had to pick just one name that was not only a family name but also one that we really liked. Our first perusal over the names didn't generate anything that caught our eye. We toyed with the idea of just picking a seperate name without any family ties. That is when we opened it up to suggestion from the blog audience. I got a suggestion last week from Teresa Slack that I really liked, Adelaide, and Shena thought she liked it too. But as we got closer to birth day, Shena was having second thoughts. She was afraid that this baby would feel slighted (if it was a girl) that she didn't get a family name when everyone else did. I had looked through the names again on mom's side (on familysearch.org) and had come across a name that was pretty similar, just not necessarily as direct as we would have liked. My mom had a great aunt named Addaline. It was close to Adelaide, but we didn't like the spelling. It looked like a poorly punctuated clerical instruction, not a name. So we played with several different spellings: Adaline, Adeline, Addeline, Addalynne. We were afraid that "Adaline" would get pronounced "Aid-uh-line" instead of how we wanted to pronounce it "Add-uh-lyn" so we kept the two "d's" and changed the "line" to "lyn." There you go. Pronunciation and all...Addelyn. We like it.

The one draw back is, for the time being, she will have the same initials as Analise, but that wasn't enough to get us to pick a different name. Oh well.

After the kids left, I ran back down to the nursery to get a couple better shots of Addelyn. The only pictures I had taken up to that point she was still pretty dirty. They had cleaned her up pretty good in the nursery, so we had to get better pics for the blog.

The original plan was for Shena to get a tubal about an hour after her surgery. The nurse came in and gave her some kind of sodium nitrate to settle her stomach to get her ready for surgery. It's pretty nasty tasting and of course she couldn't have anything else to eat or drink afterwards. About 10 minutes after, the anthesiologist came in and said that there was a change of plans and that they weren't going to be able to do the surgery tonight. Some kind of emergency had tied up the operating room. Shena was a little disappointed that she had to swallow that nasty stuff for nothing, now. They decided to move her to the regular rooms and get her settled for the night. The nurse came in and asked her if she would like something to eat and said about all I have to offer you is a cold sandwich. She hadn't eaten in about 23 hours, so she didn't really care. As the nurse was taking care of a few other things, filling out paperwork and such, the nurse from labor and delivery came running back in the room "You haven't eaten have you? Drink anything? The room opened back up and they want to get you taken care of tonight."

So that is where we stand right now. They got her dressed and ready to take her down to the OR...and we are sitting here waiting for them to come in and tell her whether she has to take that nasty stuff again. It's been over an hour since she took it last time and they might make her do it again. We'll see.