the Jorgensens: Welcome, Dalia!

Little Dalia Mei. She looks so much like Mina did as a newborn.

She has a great set of lungs.

So beautiful!

Finally calming down a bit.

I know I'm behind on posts, but what else is new? I want to blog about Dalia's birth before I forget anything interesting or important.

So, this whole pregnancy, I was told by my doctor that I would probably deliver a few days early and that my baby would not be a big baby. This pregnancy went by very quickly and I didn't have any problems. My back hurt a little more than it did with Mina, but I blame that on Mina. Chasing and cleaning up after a toddler constantly would make anybody's back hurt. Basically, there's nothing interesting about the pregnancy. 2 weeks before my due date I was dilated 2 centimeters and 30 % effaced. Judging by that, I thought it would go a little how Mina's birth went, meaning I would have her that night. With Mina, at my doctors appointment on my due date, I was 1 centimeter dilated, but no effacement. I went into labor that night with her and she was born the next morning. But, no luck with Dalia. At the appointment a week later, I was 3 centimeters and 50 % effaced. I thought for sure it would happen soon. Nope. I scheduled an appointment for a week later which would have been 5 days past the due date. That entire week was spent at the mall, the park, cleaning and chasing Mina around the house. Which just goes to show, babies will come when they are ready. There's nothing you can do to hurry it along. Nothing happened and nothing happened. Thursday morning, April 7th, 4 days past due, was different, though. When I woke up at 10:30 (my mom was here to entertain Mina) I started having mild, not painful, contractions. But, they were consistent and they gradually became more frequent and painful in the next few hours. I warned Dru who was sleeping because he works from 7 at night to 7 in the morning. Sure enough, around 2 pm they were getting to where I had to stop whatever I was doing during each contraction. I started timing them with a nifty iPod app. They were consistently 2-3 minutes apart and lasted an average of a minute each. They were still growing on the pain scale. At 3:30 I made Dru call the nurse to see if I should go in (I knew I should). She said to head on over to the hospital. We arrived around 4 and had to check in and fill out some paperwork. We finally made it to the delivery room (I had to stop every 2 minutes for a minute while I had each contraction so it took a little while). I laid down on the delivery bed around 5 and the contractions were still getting more painful with each one. The doctor came to check me a little while later and I was fully effaced and dilated to 6 centimeters. I asked for an epidural probably a little before 6 pm and I was given a spinal block in addition to the epidural. The spinal felt wonderful almost immediately, however it wore off after about 15 minutes and the epidural hadn't made its way all the way up yet. So, once again, I was in tons of pain. The nurse decided to check my progress again since the contractions were so frequent and intense and sure enough I was fully dilated and ready to push. They called the doctor who wasn't the doctor I had seen the entire pregnancy, but it was okay because she was really nice. Anyways, 3 pushes later at 6:35 pm Dalia was out of there and crying. I think because she came out so fast and ended up being 9 pounds 4 ounces huge, I tore a bit, so I had to deal with stitches again. Grr. Oh well. So my doctor was wrong about her being early and wrong about her being an average sized baby. Haha. Not that either is really all that predictable. At least it was a very fast labor and delivery.

We stayed in the hospital until Saturday morning. Mina and my mom didn't get to come until Friday morning because visiting hours were over at 8 which is also Mina's bedtime. It was nice to actually have Dru with me the entire time this time, too. And, Dru got to bring us home from the hospital. He didn't with Mina. I don't want to talk much about the hospital stay because while everyone was genuinely nice, I was annoyed the entire time. Every 5 minutes it seemed as if someone was knocking on the door wanting to take my temperature, give me medicine, take pictures, take the baby, bring the baby back, make sure I knew how to nurse and on and on. I didn't get any rest and I couldn't wait to get home.

Once we got home, Dalia proved to be a good eater and a good sleeper. She still is and there's only been one day that I've been exhausted enough to get a throbbing headache. Mina is excited to have a little sister and is sometimes a little too sweet and helpful. She's learning, though.

Anyways, that's our laboring story.