Trevor and Emily

I wish I could say this was an original idea, but I stole it from a friend of mine. She had a photographer come and take pictures when her daughter came to the hospital to meet her new baby brother for the first time. The pictures were adorable, and I decided that I really wanted to do the same when our baby #3 arrived. My neighbor and friend, Natalie, is just starting out with photography and she was totally willing and excited to take the photos. She was so wonderful to work with! She asked me for examples of what I was looking for and even did a lot of research on her own to come up with great ideas for the photo shoot. I highly recommend taking family photos this way! Yes, I was exhausted and I didn't look my best, and the pictures were taken in a hospital room, but it is so special to have this beautiful family experience captured in high-quality photos! I also love our matching-outfits, styled-hair, beautiful-scenery, perfect-poses family pictures, but they don't get me teary-eyed like these ones.

The original plan was to have Natalie take the photos the day Capri was born, when the kids first came to meet her. But since baby Capri was born in the evening, we decided to have Natalie come the next day when Trevor brought the kids for a visit. So technically this wasn't their first time seeing their baby sister, but I think Natalie captured that feeling anyway. I limited myself to 25 pictures...and it was hard! Enjoy!

Finally, the birth story of baby 3! I typed pretty much every detail so that I have it for my own records, so feel free to skim the bolded type, especially if you want to avoid the nitty-gritty stuff. :)

I was really hoping my body would go into labor on it's own this time, but not enough to wait for weeks after my due date. Knowing I would be anxious to be done with my pregnancy, I scheduled an induction for the day after my due date, Tuesday November 5th. And sure enough, baby was content to stay inside until then. I can't remember if I called the hospital or if they called me, but at about 7 am on the 5th, I had a conversation with a nurse in labor and delivery saying that they were full at the moment, but they would call me back. I was tortured mentally for the next two hours while I got myself ready and tidied the house, remembering how my induction had been moved back by two days with Benson. I was a frustrated, miserable mess when that happened, and I was terrified, bordering on angry that it was going to happen again. They called again at 9, and I asked the nurse to give it to me straight. I did NOT want to get my hopes up if it wasn't likely that they would have me come in that day. She chuckled and said she would likely be calling me back within the hour to tell me to come in. {sigh of relief} We finished getting ready and got a few things done (Trevor installed the keypad for our garage door opener!), and called my mom to come over and babysit so we could leave as soon as they called again. They called at 9:40 and told us to be there by 10:30. We got to the hospital and got down to business! They started the pitocin right away and I got busy blogging while I waited for it to kick in. Dr. Watabe came over to the hospital on his lunch break and broke my water. Trevor had left to get himself some lunch (and to get me some beautiful flowers, which honestly made me so happy while I was in the hospital! They smelled so good the entire time!), and my doctor kindly waited a few minutes until Trevor got back so they could meet. After I finished blogging, I whipped out a book and did some reading, and I focused on relaxing and breathing as the contractions got a little more intense. The contractions really seemed to be irregular, both in timing and intensity. After having a few really painful ones (interspersed with less painful ones), I decided to ask for an epidural. The nurse anesthetist was busy for a while, but I was fine to wait, since the contractions weren't getting regularly more intense. I think he came in around 3 pm. Let me tell you though, that epidural made me SO happy. It was heaven to be numb from my waist down. I couldn't feel any of the aches and pains of pregnancy, and I could feel my body relaxing and melting into my hospital bed. I probably told the nurse and Trevor about 10 times how amazing it felt! And, interestingly, the contractions immediately became more regular and more intense (I couldn't feel them, but I was watching the monitor before and after the epidural). I think my body needed the epidural to relax! I believe I was dilated to a 4 when I got the epidural. The nurse came and checked me again at 5 pm, and I was disappointed to find out that I was only dilated to a 6, even after a few hours of steady, intense contractions. She noticed that she had forgotten to put in a catheter when they did the epidural, so she took care of that, and my next contraction was super painful! I pressed the "more epidural medicine" button, and Dr. Watabe (who had just come in after his day of work at the office) guessed that I would be ready to push in a few minutes. I was a little doubtful, but he checked me again and sure enough, I was dilated to a 10! I pushed through 3 or 4 contractions, and a beautiful baby GIRL came out at 5:31, face up and gurgling! Both Trevor and the doctor announced "It's a girl!" right as she came out. I wasn't surprised (I had a feeling it was a girl all along), but I was so happy and so relieved to finally have her out! They put her on me immediately, before cutting the cord, and I cried and cried for joy. It really is an amazing feeling having your warm, brand-new baby snuggled up to your chest. She was covered in the white cheesy stuff that all newborns have, and she gurgled and cried a little while I held her. I could tell that she weighed a little less than Cassie and Benson, and I was right- she weighed in at 7 lbs, 15.7 oz, which we rounded up to 8 lbs. She kept trying to open her eyes. It was adorable to watch her opening and closing, opening and closing; she wanted to see what was going on but it was just too bright to keep her eyes open! We sat and held her and gazed at her for a while, but we were a little rushed because they wanted to move me to the mom and baby floor and I needed to order dinner. I ate dinner in peace and quiet after the nurses left to clean up the baby and Trevor left to move all our stuff to the new room. When a nurse came in to take me to my new room, she noticed that no one had turned off my epidural, so I had been getting numbing medicine for an extra 45 minutes after delivering! Needless to say, I couldn't move anything below my waist, so they gave up trying to get me into a wheelchair, and wheeled me to my new room on a bed instead. My parents brought the kids for a quick visit before bedtime, and they arrived in time to watch the baby's bath through the nursery windows. Then everyone came into my room and the kids opened their "big sibling" presents while we talked and cooed over the baby.
After everyone left, sometime around 9:30 pm, I realized that I was still numb and that I hadn't gone to the bathroom since the nurse put in my catheter during labor (they removed it as soon as I started pushing). My nurses did an ultrasound-type-thing and found that my bladder was very, very full, and tried in vain to place a catheter. They found a more experienced nurse, who was able to place the catheter, and it's a good thing. My bladder had about 5 times the fluid of a regular "full" bladder. My bladder control may never be the same again. :/ But lucky me, I didn't have to get out of bed to go to the bathroom that night. I just slept and fed the baby. I was numb until at least 1 am, and I got a pretty good sleep that night. I savored the next few days in the hospital with just the two of us. Of course Trevor visited with the kids, and we had a photographer come take pictures of the whole family in the hospital the day after the birth (awesome experience! next blog post), but mostly I got to relax and heal and adore my new baby girl.
We decided on a middle name months ago (I wanted to name a girl after my maternal grandmother), but it took us a full day to decide on her first name. We named her Capri Leora.

Now, for some pictures!

Baby Capri moments after being born, on an overjoyed mama