Introducing Baby Sofia!

So a strange turn of events occurred on Monday, April 14th, after a routine doctors appointment.  The doctor told me that my samples had come back positive for group B strep virus, which is harmless to adults but, can be potentially very harmful to babies.  I wasn't surprised because I have been positive for it every single time I've had a baby.  So ideally, they like to give you two doses of the antibiotic 4 hours apart, before you give birth.  Now that worked out when I had Lily, but she is the only one.  Both Ava and Will came too quickly to get the antibiotic, and, luckily, they were just fine.  So I wasn't too concerned about it.  But my doctor was.  We were talking about how fast my last two labors were and he just kept getting more and more worried.  I just shrugged it off. Then he wanted to see how far I was dilated and when he saw that I was at a 4 1/2 the doc just lost it. He cursed, left the room and called the maternity ward and just scheduled an  induction for me the very next day!!  I thought he was kidding at first, because after he hung up the phone with the maternity ward, he turned to me and said, "Tomorrow morning, 8 am, maternity ward, knickers off. See you then."
I was baffled. I said, you're kidding, right?  I'm not having a baby tomorrow.  But he was not kidding, he was very serious.  He asked me if I questioned his medical expertise, that's how serious he was.  So I left really confused and still not believing that I was going to be having a baby the next day.  I mean, it was Cory's birthday after all.

So I went home and told Cory and he was in shock too.  So we decided that we wanted more answers as to why this was happening.  So we had to go book in with the maternity ward later that day and we had a really long conversation with the midwife and Dr. McCallum's (my doctor) resident doctor in training.  And I had gone to the maternity ward thinking I would try to talk them out of the scheduled induction, but the more we talked about it the more it sounded pretty awesome.  I wouldn't have to suffer through the last few weeks of pregnancy.  My ultrasound showed that I was actually 39 weeks and not 37, and even if I was 37 weeks the baby was full term and would most likely have no problems, and hey, maybe I'll even get a smallish baby this time around. Plus, they said if I went into spontaneous labor and had the baby before getting the full doses of the antibiotic that it was standard procedure to give the baby antibiotics after the birth and that we would have to stay in the hospital for 7 to 10 days!  Oh my, that sounded terrible!  So that was the real convincing part.  Plus we prayed about it and it just felt right.  So we decided to go for it!

The next day we went in at 8 am as scheduled.  They gave me the first dose of antibiotic.  My doctor came in a half hour later and broke my waters.  Which wasn't bad at all.  Then we just had to wait.  And oh man, it was a long wait!  The labor and delivery rooms over here on universal health care aren't like the ones in America.  There was no TV, and no wifi, or anything whatsoever to entertain.  So Cory and I started walking laps around the hospital grounds.  The hospital here in Kal, is also very small, so we did a lot of laps.  We did that for an hour hoping contractions would start on their own.  So by this time it was 10 am. Still nothing.  We chatted with our lovely midwife.  Her name was Lynne and she was from England.  She was so fantastic.  I couldn't have asked for a better midwife.  Then we filled out some paperwork.  By this point we were getting really bored, just trying to wait til noon to give me the second dose of antibiotic.  Cory and I started playing cards.  The med student who was working with me came in and said, oh man, you guys must be really bored!  Haha!

So at 11 they started me on the drip of synthetic hormones to start contractions, since nothing was happening on it's own due to the waters breaking.  Then at noon, they gave me the second dose of antibiotic and almost immediately, things started happening.  I wonder if I had a mental block stopping all progression until I got the second dose of antibiotics.  But anyway, almost immediately the contractions started and they didn't take long to reach high intensity.  I remember looking at the clock at 12:30 and thinking that it would be over soon.  Well it didn't happen that soon.

Anyway, Lynne was awesome, telling me what to do, giving me a heat pack for my back.  And interestingly enough, they have laughing gas, like they have at the dentist, for mothers in labor.  So, I decided to give it a try.  So I would breathe it in at the beginning of the contraction until it peaked and then the effects would stay til the contraction was over.  I don't know that it really helped with the pain, but it would make me so light headed that I would be thinking about that instead of the pain.  Haha.  It was definitely interesting.

Well finally the time came to push, and once again, Lynne was a fantastic coach.  She was barking orders at me like a drill Sargent and I was actually doing them.  And in a matter of minutes, I was holding a baby!  Cory was cutting the cord and it was all over.

Little baby Sofia Matilda was born at 2:07 pm on April 15th, her dad's 31st birthday, 2014.  She weighed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 19" long.  We could not be happier to welcome her into our family.

Sofie's first moments.  Love at first sight!  :)

 Proud father of four!  Flippin' four!  So funny story, while I'm in labor, just dying, cursing the fact that I've done this to myself again, and how I really am never going to do it again, never, for real this time.  (I always think those things during labor, but it doesn't take me long to forget.)  Cory and the midwife are just casually chatting.  The midwife asks Cory if this is the last one, and Cory, who we all know and love, but doesn't ever voluntarily agree to having more children, says, who knows?  Maybe we'll have one more!  I was dying, I was like, who is this guy?  If you ask him, he probably won't remember saying that (or claim that he doesn't), but I remember it because when the midwife asked him, I was about to shout, yes, absolutely, the very last!

 Happy birthday to Cory and Sofie!  :)

 Later that night, the other kids came to meet Sofie.

Proud big sis, Lily.

 Other proud big sis, Ava.  Look at Will in the back ground.  This was the only day he wasn't himself.  You can tell he is a little confused by what is going on.  Poor guy, it's hard to get ousted.  But he has been such a champ about it.  Just that first night in the hospital, he was quite upset with me.  Loved the baby, but wasn't very impressed with me.  :)

 It was hard to get a pic with Will and Sofie, he just kept wanting to touch her face.  :)

 Definitely a proud brother.

 There goes Will's sneaky little hand again!

 Sofie and I spent one night in the hospital.  Here we are hanging out.

 Love having this snugly little bed buddy.

We headed home the next day around 4 in the afternoon.  Welcome to our family, Sofie! We couldn't be more delighted to have you.