On Thursday afternoon, I started having contractions that were pretty painful and about 15 minutes apart. We went grocery shopping and when we got home, I rested. The contractions continued and by 3, they were about 7 minutes apart. They slowed back down to 15 minutes apart around 4pm and by 5, they were back to 7 minutes apart. Ryan suggested that we leave for the hospital, but I wanted to wait a bit longer because I didn't want to get sent home again. I got up to go the bathroom and had a contraction that didn't seem to go away. Then it felt like I needed to push. We got everyone into the car and the contractions stopped. Which is good because we couldn't find Tess' bottle. About 5 minutes later, we were on our way to drop off the girls and I started to cry. I was freaking out about getting to the hospital in time. Since it was during rush hour, Ryan decided to drive straight to the hospital and called Angela to have her meet us there. We got about 2/3 of the way there and our van started to overheat. I told Ryan that I would just call an ambulance but he insisted that we would make it to the hospital just fine. We drove with the windows down for about 3 miles before the heat was just too much. We arrived at the hospital at 5:57pm. Everyone got out of the car and the car sat in the flow zone overheating. Ryan put the girls in the waiting area while I found a wheelchair. A nice man offered to help and pushed me to the elevators. Ryan met me at this point and the guy offered to watch the girls. Tess was crying because she had fallen down and hit her head on the floor. The man said that his wife was upstairs for an emergency but the man said she would have to wait for him. We got upstairs to Labor and Delivery and I was having contractions every 2 minutes. While they were checking us in, Ryan ran to check on the girls. The nurses were about to put me into triage and I told them that the baby was coming. They immediately put me in a room and when I got up from the wheelchair, I was leaking amniotic fluid. Once I was able to move to the bed, they checked me and I was at 10 cm with a bulging bag of water. Ryan came back and said the girls were fine and Tess had stopped crying. I asked if I had to wait for my doctor and they said that the laborist was on her way because they couldn't reach my doctor. I told them that I needed to push and the nurse took the sheet off me and my water broke and the poor nurse was soaked from her stomach down to her knees. Shortly after, I was able to push and after about 3 tries, Chloe was born at 6:15pm. Ryan received a text from Angela saying she just got the girls, and Ryan sent a text back saying we had had the baby. I asked how the girls were and doing and the nurse thought it was funny that I was concerned about my other kids. Hello? four little girls left alone in a hospital waiting room. That's something to be concerned about. It turned out that my doctor was actually on vacation and had left earlier that day. I'm not sure why she didn't mention that when I saw her on Wednesday afternoon, but it all worked out. Arrowhead Hospital now has a celebratory meal for the new parents. We each enjoyed a filet mignon dinner with steamed veggies, baked potatoes, rice and Ryan had berry cheesecake for dessert while I had chocolate lava cake. They served it with Sparkling Cider but we never got around to drinking it. We are home now and everyone is doing great.
Chloe was born on July 14th, 2016 @ 6:15pm. She weighed 7lbs 3oz and is 20.5 inches long. She is the biggest baby. She sleeps for 3 hours at a time and then will eat and eat and eat. She is such a good little baby. We love her so much.
