Birth Day!

Emily Anne Clawson joined our family on December 16th at 3:43pm. Her arrival into the world was quite quick, and thus far has been a pretty smooth transition. I thought it would be much harder having the third child but her personality has been such a blessing that things have been really mellow.

As for her arrival into the world: what a fun story...

I had my 39 week appointment set up for 11:00 that Wed. (I knew it was going to be a quick in and out appointment so Ben came along with me). When we arrived I was informed that the Dr. wanted to check how dilated I was (surprise-Ben wouldn't have come if I knew they were going to do that!) When she did her check she was astounded to find I was 6cm dilated. This made her nervous because we live over half an hour away from the hospital. She worried that if I went into labor on my own I wouldn't be able to make it back to the hospital in time and I would have a freeway baby. So we compromised and agreed on an induction for the next day if the hospital would ok it. The hospital was fine with an induction, but it had to be THAT DAY. So Ben and I were told to head on over and the dr. would meet us at lunchtime to break my water. WHAT?!

At this point it was lunchtime, so I told Ben he could pick anything he wanted to eat. His choice: A hot dog and smoothie from Costco. We went and grabbed that, made some phone calls to get someone to pick him up, told Josh to drive in from work, and headed to the hospital. What a surreal experience to walk into the hospital with nothing happening and know that by the end of the day I would be holding my precious baby! I felt the same way when I was induced with Ben, but I think you forget how LIFE CHANGING it is.

Long story short: Ben and I hung out and watched a movie while we waited for him to be picked up, my Dr. came and broke my water around 1:00ish, Ben was gone by 1:30, Josh was there at 2, and Emily arrived at 3:43. I was able to squeeze and epidural in (I LOVED my anesthesiologist), but labor went so fast that I was pushing before they could do a catheter, etc. (which was fine by me). I think I pushed for about 15 minutes, and boom: there was my 9 pound 4 ounce baby girl with one FULL head of hair. Of course I am madly in love with her-look at how cute she is!