Our sweet Harper gave us quite the surprise and crazy birth story, like one you'd see in the movies. We are just happy to have her here safely, she is such a joy! After I gave birth to Graham, my doctor had told me that if I had another baby that I should get to the hospital quick because the next one would come faster. Oh was he right!
On Monday, March 4th I went to my 39 week appointment (I was 39 weeks, 3 days) to get checked and get my membranes stripped, hoping that it would put me in labor. I was disappointed when I was told that I wasn't dilated enough to even perform the sweep. At that point I decided to set a date to be induced. As much as I didn't want to be induced, I was just feeling so done with this pregnancy and wanting to meet my baby girl. So the date was set for Thursday (a day before my actual due date).
On Tuesday, March 5 my sister Erika came over and hung out for most of the day. I wasn't have any contractions, just Braxton Hicks which was pretty normal. Then around 7:00 PM I started feeling contractions. I had never felt them before so I was a little unsure of what I was feeling. It almost felt like gas pains, like I needed to use the bathroom. So I called my sister Jamie and talked to her about it and asked her her experience of when she decided to go to the hospital. It got to the point that I had to stop and take deep breaths through my contractions, I couldn't talk through them. Starting around 9:00 my contractions were coming every 3 minutes apart and then every two minutes. I called the on-call midwife at 9:40 to see when she thought I should come in. She told me to try taking a bath to see if the contractions would go away, that it could be false labor. Rem started filling up the tub, but I soon was screaming through my contractions and feeling the urge to push. At 10:00 I told him to call our neighbor Kellie Terry to come be with the boys because we needed to go to the hospital now! She ran over and Rem said she was freaking out. She was saying to get me in the car quick so gravity doesn't pull this baby out. We got in the car and just down the street Rem pulls over to turn around and says lets go home and call an ambulance. I yelled at him NO, let's go, get to the hospital now! So he kept driving and decided to call 911. We were still unsure at that point whether or not we needed to pull over for an ambulance so we just stayed on the line and the woman asked us a bunch of questions and she could definitely hear me screaming through each contraction that were probably coming every minute at that point. She finally advised us to pull over and she was sending an ambulance. We pulled off the 3300 south exit and into the Dan's parking lot. She then told me to not prevent this birth from happening and she was going to coach Rem through it. She asked if we could see a head so I reached down there to see if I could feel anything. I could feel the sac coming out of me, it was about a golf ball size at that point, it was such a weird feeling. Rem came around and started to take of my pants and as soon as they were off my water BURST. Luckily Rem was smart enough to put towels down in the car so we didn't have a huge mess to clean up later, he really thought this baby was going to be born in the car. Soon after he laid me back, waiting for instructions, we could hear the ambulance coming. They soon got me on the stretcher and into the ambulance. Rem drove our car behind the ambulance so we didn't have to have someone go get it for us.
They had me lay on my side and put me on oxygen. I had my eyes closed tight and was holding onto the stretcher super tight through each contraction. They were trying to coach me through each contraction, telling me to slow my breathing and to not push. What?! I was just told not to prevent this birth from happening and now was being told the opposite. One of the guys said that if I gave birth on the ambulance that I had to name my baby after the other guy, his name was Mitch. Then I told them I was naming her Harper and the guy said he had a daughter named Harper so I told him that I would name her after his daughter. When we finally made it to the hospital there was a whole team of people waiting for me. They transferred me onto another bed and asked if the EMT's had checked me and they said, "no, we don't do that!" So someone checked me and I was already dilated to a 10. They then took me up to labor and deliver and transferred me to another bed, I got into position and started to push. There was no time for an epidural, but to be honest I wasn't even thinking about that at this point. It for sure was painful, but everything was just happening so fast that I didn't really have the time to think about the pain I was in. After only 8 minutes of pushing, SHE WAS HERE at 11:05 PM. There I was holding her trying to soak in the moment of holding my baby girl for the first time. It was so surreal and so amazing! She was perfect! I didn't want that moment to end. I was so exhausted and I think in shock of how everything went down. But it didn't even matter. My parents and then my sisters soon arrived. The plan was to have them there at the delivery, but with how everything went so fast none of us were prepared.
Later when I was talking to the nurse, telling her about the mixed information I was getting to not prevent the birth to "don't push", she was telling me that the ambulance EMT's are trained to deal with such trauma, but when it comes to babies they freak out! I thought that was funny!
It was so sweet to see the boys meet their new baby sister. Paxton was definitely hesitant to get too close, touch her or hold her. We kind of had to push him a little and then he started to warm up to her. Graham just instantly and constantly wanted to be touching her face and kept asking to hold her. I don't blame him!
Other than it being hard to sleep in the hospital, I enjoyed those couple days there with Rem and our sweet little girl. Having a newborn is so amazing and such a miracle, you just stare at them and are in awe of how they just got here and that they grew inside you. I tried soaking in every minute of her first days here. She is perfect in every way!
8lbs
20 inches
and perfect!
We had some visitors at the hospital. Here is her cousin Jo visiting, who now looks huge next to Harper.
And lots more visitors at home. Here is cousin Jack, he also looks so big now.
Grandpa is in love holding his 3 newest grand babies!
Utes game!
The boys got to go to another Utes basketball game. Grandpa spoiled them and they came home with these awesome basketballs, they were super happy!
Grandma wanted to join in on the moms and baby picture with her puppy baby, Harley.
The dads and their babies.
First bath at home. She loved it and fell right to sleep.
In the 3rd grade the kids pick a famous person to do a report on. Paxton chose to do his on George Lucas, the guy who created Star Wars! They had to make a poster, dress up like the person and talk for a couple of minutes about the person. Paxton did a great job and he seemed to enjoy some parts of learning about George Lucas.
Happy 9th birthday Paxton!
We only do big birthday parties every other year, so I was so glad that it was Paxton's off year with just having a new baby. Paxton got to invite one friend, Kai, to go do something fun. He chose to go do laser tag. I put Rem in charge of taking them so that is why there are no pictures. Later he chose to go to Chuck-a-rama for his birthday dinner.
Pax sure loves his baby sister!
We got to celebrate this kid two days in a row because his birthday was on a Sunday. At first he complained at the idea of his birthday on a Sunday, but then he ended up loving it!
Happy St. Paxton's Day!
I of course have to dress all my kids up in St. Patrick's day clothing because it's a special day at our house. It was fun to buy something more girly and tiny!
We invited all the cousins over for dessert, Paxton chose donuts!
My sister took family pictures for us about a week after Harper was born. This one is one of my very favorites! Harper is sure going to have some big brother protectors.
Dress-ups with cousin Lucy
I got a bunch of hand me down clothes from family and friends and this Snow White dress was one of them. I knew it wouldn't fit her for Halloween, but I held on to it anyway. Lucy was over one day and saw it and really wanted to play dress-ups with Harper. So the next time we got together, they both wore their Snow White dresses, it was super cute!
Graham can ride a bike!
I'm pretty sure Graham could've figured out how to ride a bike last year if we would've just spent some time with him, but life got in the way. So we finally took him out and rode over to the church parking lot. He picked up super quick and now loves riding his bike!
St. George
I didn't think we'd be doing anything for Spring Break seeing as I had recently had a baby and Spring Break was about 3 1/2 weeks later, but my grandma's St. George house was available and I was feeling pretty good so we went for it!
Rems sister and his parents now live there so we spent some time with them. My parents actually came with us for a couple of the days. We did some red rock climbing and hung around the house. It also was our anniversary so Aunt Becky watched the kids and we went to dinner kid and baby free! It was a great little vacation. I'm glad we went!
We went and climbed around Gunlock, it was really pretty seeing all the water flowing over the rocks. I guess this doesn't happen very often, only when they have a rainy and snowy winter does the water get high enough to run over the dam and down the red rocks.
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