Welcome To The World, Harper Quinn!

Our sweet Harper was born at 37 weeks + 5 days on March 24th 2017 at 4:46 AM. She was 5 pounds 4 ounces and 18 inches long and the absolute definition of perfection.  

For about two months before Harper joined us, I fought tooth and nail with my assigned OB, about lots of things, but mostly about the date to schedule my C-section.  My regular Dr. is absolutely wonderful but is unfortunately not an OB, so she is not able to preform a C-section. Pickings are slim in my town as far as OBs go, so I went with the one that I have not had a previous bad experience with.

I had a scheduled C-section with Luke at 39 weeks exactly and it was too early for him.  He had the hardest time mastering breastfeeding and if I could do at again, I would have pushed for a later date to give him as much time as possible in there.

Fast forward to the end of my pregnancy with Harper and I was pushing hard for a scheduled date of April 6th, her actual due date was April 9th.  I met with the OB and we agreed that the 6th was going to work with both of our schedules (LOL).  A couple weeks later, the office called me and said they were changing my date to the 4th, and I responded with a very irritated, "um.. no you're not," that very obviously caught the office girl off guard. After a TON of back and forth and me insisting that because of previous troubles, I did not want to deliver before the 6th, so we landed on the 11th. We called the hospital, booked the date, and a week later I went into labor.

On March 22nd I started having contractions in the afternoon. As the night wore on they got more painful but eventually went away and I was able to go to sleep.  All day the next day, the 23rd, I had contractions. The annoying kind, not Braxton hicks, but not the real thing either. I went about my day as normal, I vacuumed, did some laundry, sat at Charley's house by the fire and played with Luke. I even made a cheesy post on Instagram talking about wishing Luke would stay little forever and vacuuming the floor while I was having Braxton hicks because I refused to come home to a dirty house if I went into actual labor that night.

Insert cheesy caption here. Something about just finishing up vacuuming the floor while having contractions only to find Luke tearing his bagel apart all over the floor, but he's still cute and sweet and growing way too fast.

Zack, Luke, and I headed up to bed at around 9:30, I had been having contractions all day but at around 9 they started to get stronger and I hoped laying down and relaxing would slow them down so I could get some sleep. Zack and Luke fell asleep and I was laying in bed trying to get comfortable but nothing was working. I got up, walked around, paced the hallway, took a shower, and when none of that worked I finished packing my hospital bag and called the OB department. At that point my contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart and about a minute long but I was still concerned that I wasn't in labor, even though I had been having strong contractions for almost 5 hours.  After talking to the nurse I decided I better wake Zack up and head into the hospital. We called Haley to run over and hop in bed with Luke, and we were off. The whole way to the hospital Zack was convinced that it was a false alarm and we would be back home before Luke woke up.

I figured if this was the real thing, I better take one last belly picture!

We got to the hospital at about 1:50AM and got checked in and hooked up to the monitors that told us Harper was doing good and I was, in fact, in active labor. The nurses started my IV and then we decided it was probably a good time to FaceTime my parents, who had just left on vacation a few days ago, to tell them that I was in labor. They were more than a little bummed that they were going to miss it.

Yay! It wasn't a false alarm, we get to meet our baby girl today!

My Dr. got there a while later, followed by my OB, who was maybe a tad irritated with me that I insisted on a scheduled C-section date that was three weeks away, and here I was, in labor. Everyone got ready and we walked back to the OR at about 4:20 AM. I got my spinal, they got me all prepped, and got Zack sat in his chair next to me. The mood was super light and I actually chatted with my Dr and OB while they were getting started about Charley and her plane, kind of funny. And then, all of a sudden, they were holding our perfect baby girl up for us to see. She was pink, healthy, and screaming. We were so excited to finally meet her! Zack went over to be with her and take pictures while she got checked out. The nurse was so great, she talked to me the whole time they were checking Harper out, keeping me updated. I was a little worried that she would have breathing problems since she was early, but she was perfectly fine. A few minutes later Zack was able to bring her over to me while the Drs were putting me back together. It was so amazing getting to hold her for the first time. She was so sweet and calm and just kept sucking on her fingers and looking around. It has to be so overwhelming for new babies!

Happy birthday, Sweet girl!

The sweetest little thing!

We got back to the recovery room at about 6:00am and I was able to nurse Harper, she was a pro. We made some calls and sent texts to let our family know that Harper was here and we were both doing good. Then we all settled in and got a couple hours of sleep before our family started to show up to meet Harper. Luke was not at all sure what to think of his little sister, he was just happy to be able to snuggle with Zack and I. I swear, the moment I saw him walk into the room, it was like he was a year older. There's something about looking at your toddler and realizing how big he is compared to a new baby, I was not ready for that! We had a full day of friends and family visiting and a FaceTime call with my mom and dad. It was a perfect, relaxing day.

Our first picture as a family of FOUR!

Poor Luke is not so sure yet

Walking the hospital halls with my babies

Sweetest little snuggles!

Harper's Birth was perfect. I am not one that has strong feeling towards natural births or c-sections, as long as my babies get here healthy, its fine with me. With that being said, I always hoped to experience labor, and I was lucky enough to get that experience, even though it was relatively short. I do feel like it helped my body prepare for breastfeeding and the fact that I went into labor naturally made me feel better about Harper coming early.

I am so thankful to finally have Harper join our little family!