Hello Annie!

This has been a very long week.  On Tuesday morning, Ben had his final visit with the orthopedic surgeon to make sure his arm has healed correctly.  It has.  John drove to Memphis for a meeting.  Mama came to spend the night.  In the afternoon, she stayed with Ben and Mollie while I went to my weekly prenatal appointment.  I was between 2 and 3 centimeters dilated and 70 percent effaced.  

At 2 a.m. Wednesday I woke up to a "seal bark" cough coming from Mollie's room.  I went into her room and found her sitting in her bed coughing.  She told me, "My mouth hurts."  This wasn't Mollie's first time to have croup so we got out the breathing machine and gave her a breathing treatment.  Spent some time sitting on a stool in the shower breathing steam and even stuck our heads in the freezer for a few minutes to breath in the cold air.  Mollie was very awake after all of this and wanted to wake Ben up to play with her.  I would not let her.  Finally, she went back to sleep about 6:30 a.m.  When she awoke at 9:30 she still sounded croupy.  I called the pediatric clinic and got an appointment for her at 11 a.m.  

Throughout all this time, I'm having sporadic contractions.  I called the OB clinic and the nurse told me that unless the contractions begin coming regularly every 5-7 minutes for two hours I did not need to come in. 

While Ben and Mollie napped in the afternoon, my contractions began coming regularly 7-9 minutes.  When they got to 6 around 4:30 p.m., I called the OB clinic and this time the nurse told me to go to the hospital to be checked.  John is on his way home from Memphis, but still about two hours away.  I asked Mrs. Judy to come over and stay with Ben and Mollie while Mama took me to the hospital.  John arrived around 6:30 p.m. and Mama returned to my house to stay with Ben and Mollie.   I was still dilated 2 to 3 centimeters but having regular contractions so the on call doctor wanted me to stay for a couple of hours for observation, but it seemed likely that I would be sent home.  She didn't think the contractions were doing much because I didn't seem very distressed by the pain.  But when they checked again, they found that I was dilated between 3 and 4 centimeters.  At that point there was still uncertainty but it seemed more likely that I would be staying.  Because I was four weeks early, there were all sorts of regulations involved concerning when a epidural could go in and if they could break my water.  If I got to 5 centimeters on my own, they could do an epidural.  Once the epidural was in place, they could break my water if necessary.  So John and I continued to watch Duck Dynasty and made a final decision about what we would name this baby is she arrived tonight.  At 10 p.m. I was at 5 centimeters so we were having a baby sometime in the next several hours.  They began getting me ready for an epidural.  Interestingly at this hospital, the epidural is put in by the OB.  I HATE having the epidural put in, but I tried to remain calm and stay super still while Dr. Stewart worked.  I told her and the nurse about how only one half of my body became numb when I got my epidural with Ben.  

Guess what?  After about half an hour only my right leg was numb.  She had to pull out the first epidural and put in a second one.  I prayed that it would work this time because my water could break any time and they said things would happen fast once my water broke.  Thankfully, my epidural worked that time.  But it worked too well.  My blood pressure dropped rapidly and I became nauseous and light headed.  All I could say to the nurse was, "I feel icky.  I feel really, really icky."  She called in a second nurse, quickly got me on my side, and gave me a couple of doses of medicine.  My blood pressure stabilized and the baby's heartbeat stayed constant the entire time.  

John and I kept watching Duck Dynasty until they began repeating and then we switched to HGTV.  I had complete control of the remote from my bed rails.  My OB goes to church with us.  He and his wife are Mollie's Sunday School teachers.  He had written in my file that he was to be called when I was ready to deliver even if he wasn't on call.  Around 3 a.m. they called Dr. Benton and he hurried across town to be here for delivery.  I was so close to delivering that my nurse joked that I shouldn't cough, laugh or sneeze or she baby may come on her own.  After Dr. Benton arrived, I pushed through three contractions and Anna Elizabeth Elder arrived at 3:26 a.m.  She was 6 lbs 7 oz and 18 inches long.  We are calling her "Annie."  Below are some pictures John took right after delivery.