Taryn Grace Passey

Let's see if I can even almost finish this to post before everything falls apart. Baby stuff has exploded all over the Passey household. Taryn Grace Passey was born 6 days ago, March 10th, at 10:13 p.m. We are so so glad she is finally here. She is beautiful and such a good baby so far. Who knows how she will be after the newborn sleepiness wear off, but I will soak in all the good naturedness I can while it lasts.

On Thursday morning was my 39 weeks appointment and I was trying to just not be depressed that I actually had to go there. It's my first 39 week appt I have ever made it to. The midwife was going to check me and said she could strip my membranes if I wanted her to. I thought about being strong and saying no thanks, but she checked me and I was 3-4 cm dilated and 60% effaced and very soft and she said she didn't have to but could very easily do it. In a weak moment of misery and pain and impatience I said "yes! do it!". So she did and THEN mentioned that with her own pregnancies both times they did that contractions started within a couple of hours. I wasn't completely prepared for that and I didn't know what my body might do since I have never had that done before. And within 20 minutes I had my first contraction that felt real finally, and they kept going every 10 minutes or so for the rest of the day. So THEN I didn't wanted to get my hopes up that this would actually work and I didn't want to make Trav come home and then have nothing happen. I wanted to go to Costco, but Trav told me not to, so I went home and cleaned. Of course this had been the one day that week that I left the kitchen and the rest of the house a mess. (Not that my house is always clean, but the week before during my "energy spurt" and hopefulness of having a baby one day soon, I had been really making the extra effort to keep it all cleaned up so it wouldn't be a mess if I were to go into labor). Anyway, so I cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed and the contractions stayed about the same so I went ahead and went to Costco.

Anyway, I am going to shorten the story because who really wants to know all these details!....Trav came home a little early just to take Noah to piano, but it wasn't until right after dinner that I started to feel confident that contractions were getting stronger and not going to go away. We took the kids to our friends' house to sleep there, called Labor and Delivery and the triage nurse told me to stay home another hour and time the contractions and call and report and we would go from there. So I am the obedient patient and listened to her, but we did leave before the hour was up and called when we were almost there. At that point the nurse told me it was up to me--either come in or stay home for awhile longer. I told her we were coming and would be there in 5 or 10 minutes. By the time we got to the hospital, I had to make Trav stop driving for a contraction in the parking lot, and then we had to stop 4 times on the way up to the unit. Then they put us in the triage room to see if they would keep us--we really could have done without this step I think. We got to the hospital probably at 9:20 or 9:25, the triage took a little while and then she had me walk around the hall and to our Delivery room, and I would stop for contractions and at one point thought I would throw up and the nurse grabbed an empty box of gloves for me. Then we got to my room and they were set up to do labs and and IV. My nurse had them set up the delivery table, I had a couple of contractions and climbed into the bed, then my water broke, and chaos erupted in the room because this baby was coming OUT. It totally threw us all off guard, except that my nurse could kind of tell when we got to the room--she said I had "the look" and to tell her if I felt the urge to push.

My nurse delivered the head while the midwife was rushing in and trying to get gloves on, and then she delivered the shoulders. I had such simple little requests this time around, like I really wanted to just hold her immediately and for them not to clamp the cord immediately, and then no episiotomy and epidural. But things went so fast and I was too far to say much so it didn't go exactly like that. As I heard them saying to clamp the cord, both Trav and I spoke up and said "no!" but I guess they had to because there was meconium and so they clamped and took the baby to the warmer to make sure she didn't aspirate any and was okay. But I did get to hold her soon after. I really can't complain, it was such a relief to go so fast and so smoothly. It was my best delivery by far. I had studied a hypnobirthing book, and was able to use a few things in there that really really helped. And I am sure that's the reason it was so fast too, just knowing the right places to relax and not fighting it and panicking.

Anyway, that was way more description than I meant to give. But it was such a beautiful and wonderful experience and I am so happy to have my little girl finally here. It took us a couple of day to agree on a name--but with some working together and compromising I think it's beautiful and it suits her.

My poor swollen little girl...

First bath She pretty much slept for 3 days straight and struggled to open her eyes once in awhile..

Love chubby babies...

This was such a fun moment when all of the boys finally got to meet their little sister. They still can't get enough of her and we all love to sit and stare at her together.

I finally get to see Travis and what he will be like with a little daughter. ....

I was nervous that I would go crazy and have a mental breakdown in the hospital because they made us stay until Sunday morning, but it really wasn't bad at all. I was able to stay busy and had plenty of visitors and people to talk to and Trav was able to spend quite a bit of time with just Taryn and I, and then brought all the kids for a couple of hours on both days. With our other babies, we could only tolerates siblings in the hospital for 10 minutes at a time, but they were really good and it was actually fun to have them there. My friend Tinah was so so good, too, and came to spend a couple of hours on both of the evenings when Trav wasn't able to be there. What a great friend. She is due in a month!

Watching "Despicable Me"--yes, the movie may have been what made it so pleasant to have them there...