A New Decade Brings Great Change and Another Prince

As I approach my 30th birthday, I know that something must change. I'm a stay-at-home mom trying to balance being a student in nursing school with working part-time in the evenings and making sure I'm really there for my kids during my "on" hours at home. It's hard because I feel like I'm having issues with side effects from some medications I've been using for a long time. I'm frustrated because it seems like I'm taking meds to deal with the side effects of other meds and I'm just sick of it. I announce to my husband that I'm done with it all. I stop taking everything except my required thyroid medicine and I feel super! It was a great change for me and I feel like I'm finally more aligned with the me I'm meant to be.

A little more than two months later and I start feeling ill. At first, I'm not sure what's going on because I've been feeling so good emotionally and physically since my big pharmaceutical change up. Then it occurs to me that a pregnancy test might be in order. Lo and behold it's a big, fat positive and next thing I know, we're gearing up to welcome baby number three at the same time that I'm beginning my clinicals for nursing school. Oy!

Thankfully the morning sickness abates within a week of the beginning of the semester. If you're going to pick a time during pregnancy to be putting in 40 hours a week for school, I'm going to say that the second trimester is the time for it. I can't imagine dragging myself through all of that during the first or third trimesters when I was truly exhausted! I finish up in December and get to enjoy a relaxing last three months before things get hectic again.

One thing we choose to do differently this time around is NOT finding out the sex of the baby. We reason that because we already have a boy and a girl, this is a prime opportunity to be surprised. We have a girl name prepared (well, sort of...) and a boy name that we agree on. We are all set, except that we still have to wait for baby to make it's appearance. Something I forget every time is how hard it is to wait through those last few weeks when every twinge or flicker of pain makes you wonder if labor is just around the corner!

Katelyn was born at 39 weeks and Trevor at 38 weeks, so by the time I get to 37 weeks, which is medically considered full-term, I am convinced that baby is coming any day. Starting at around 36 weeks, I get to track contractions for about six hours on most days and still no baby! Friends and family are on pins and needles, waiting for news but I've got nothing to share... Finally I make it to 39 weeks and I'm wondering if this baby is going to share it's birthday with someone we already know. From the 13th of March to the 18th, every day (except one) is claimed as a birthday by someone dear to us. 

I know that I'm already dilated to 4 cm and so I'm considering things like castor oil or bumpy car rides to try to move things along. I told myself that if I made it to my due date, I'd have to take matters into my own hands! As luck would have it, March 15th rolls around and labor starts on it's own at 1:00 in the afternoon. By 7:00, the contractions are substantially worse, but I'm still not in horrible pain. We leave at 10:00 pm and for the first time, it's a calm ride to the hospital. We snag the last spot in the parking lot for the emergency room and we walk up to labor and delivery. (no wheelchair for me this time!)

I get checked in and when I find out that I'm still only at about 5 cm, I start walking the halls. I have hubby sneak a chocolate milk for me out of the pantry and by midnight, I'm still not in nearly as much pain as I was the last time I did this and so I begin to worry that I might be up all night, running out of energy just as it's time to deliver...

I ask my nurse if the doctor might consider breaking my water for me so we can just go ahead and check this little task off my to-do list. The doctor comes to the room and takes care of this item for me and when the flood ends, I can tell that things are going to ramp up quite quickly. I try to get in the tub, but the heat is too much and I start to feel like I'm hyperventilating. So I head back out to the room and I decide to finish laboring standing up.

Oddly, it feels like just five, but I'm told it's about 30 minutes of swaying through contractions before this baby is ready to make it's appearance. I tell the nurse I must push and she has me lie down and she calls for the doctor, who is sleeping in the on-call room at the other end of the hall. I can't wait and I tell her as much. She tells my hubby to open the door and call for help from the nurses at the desk. They rush into the room to provide assistance and I hear my nurse say something about only having one glove on! The next thing I know, my body takes over and my third child comes into this world and I hear hubby say, "It's a boy!" Evan Jacob is born on March 16th at 2:13 am. He weighs 7 lbs, 13 oz and is 20 inches long. It's the one day of the week for which we don't already have a known birthday ~ hooray! Unlike his siblings, this little guy has a head of thick, dark brown hair ~ what a surprise!

This time around, I'm bored in the hospital. Hubby is home the majority of the time with the other kids and it's kind of lonely with no visitors... Thankfully, we're discharged in two days and our family is all together again. This time, instead of hiding inside and waiting to adapt to this new version of parenthood, we head to the playground the next day and enjoy watching our kids run around and have fun. What a great start to this fourth decade of my life!