big sister......

casey LOVES her new little sister.........she used to wake up in the morning and we'd hear "mama" and "dada" over the monitor........now we hear "baby, baby" over it........she's crazy about molly - staring at her, kissing her, patting her (mostly gently), and pointing her out to people ("baby!").......it's really fantastic.......of course, casey doesn't quite understand how much bigger and stronger she is, so she needs regular reminding that she needs to be gentle with molly and not smother her, sit on her, climb on her, etc.......but i'd so much rather that than her being jealous of molly or just plain ignoring her.........casey constantly amazes me at how awesome a kid she is........

welcome molly jean!

while she seemed mighty content to stay inside the womb, molly jean perdios came into the world on friday, november 13th at 3:04am.......she was 7lbs, 14oz and 20" long.......and boy did she come into the world differently than casey!.......

here's the detailed scoop on molly's entry to the world.......on the morning of thursday the 12th, i had some water leakage - not a lot though - so i waited until my ob appt later that morning to alert anyone......at the appt, the midwife took a swab and analyzed it under a microscope - said there was a trace of amniotic fluid so she wanted me to go to the hospital.......so i went home, got casey settled, waited for steve to get home from work and off we went to the hospital in the early afternoon........for the second time, i checked into the hospital with no contractions and no pain!.......the midwife on duty, agnes, checked me and said that if anything i had a small leak but that they were going to induce me anyway and break my water because i was there and already a day after my due date........so we started pitocin which regulated my contractions.......after a couple hours agnes broke my water - boy it's much different having your water broken for you as opposed to having it break on its own.......sitting in a bed having water gush out of you is much more uncomfortable!........pretty soon after that i started really feeling the contractions........steve had to leave the hospital around 9 to put casey to bed because my although my in-laws tried to do bedtime, no one besides steve or i have put casey to bed before so needless to say it didn't go well.......so at 9 steve left to put her to bed and i watched grey's anatomy in our room........i promised him i wouldn't get my epidural before he got back, and i didn't........but very shortly after we asked for it.........now with casey i was petrified of the epidural and it was seriously the least painful part of that labor process........so this time around i was not even worried about it.........well, it went awful.........apparently the anesthesiologist tried to insert the needle between 2 vertebrae that didn't have enough room between them, so it was extremely painful........he kept trying to make that spot work but i think me screaming my head off in tears made him finally try another spot, which went totally smooth.........although then the medicine appeared to not be working too well, so then they gave me a local anesthetic........well by the time everything kicked in i couldn't feel anything below my ribcage.........contractions gone!.........hahaha..........so that was around 11ish thursday night........steve and i managed to take a nap at this point........i had asked agnes how i'd know when to push if i couldn't feel anything and she said i'd feel some pressure like i had to go poop and then they'd check to see if i was ready to push.........so around 2:15am i woke up and felt a slight pressure but nothing too uncomfortable........i decided to just ignore it and go back to sleep.........woke up again at 2:30 with the same pressure........thought about waking steve up but he looked so peaceful that i decided to wait..........then around 2:45 i decided to tell steve that next time the nurse came in i'd let her know i was feeling something like the pressure agnes had described........so about 5 min after that the nurse did come in........i told her about the pressure and she went (calmly) to get agnes.........so at about 2:55 agnes comes in and the three of them - the nurse, agnes, and steve - all look at what's going on "down there" - i hear a collective sharp intake of breath and they all have this look of horror on their faces.........apparently molly was crowning.........everyone was so shocked that we all started laughing and when i laughed, molly started coming out more........so everyone seemed to frantically start running around - calling in more nurses, turning on the baby table warming lights, etc........agnes didn't even get a chance to put on her overcoat thing that they usually wear during delivery..........she told me to cough........i did........she told me to cough 5 more times.........i did and molly came out..........literally no pushing, no pain at all..........i coughed molly out.........i was in total shock and disbelief.........how do you cough out a baby????........but i did........weirdest thing that's ever happened to me, and i'm fairly certain might ever happen to me in my life........last part of the story is that they had a very hard time getting the placenta out - it ripped apparently so they had to do a manual extraction - which involved a lot of hard stomach pushing and inside reaching........at one point i heard them mention surgery to get a piece out that seemed to be "stuck"........i was petrified, but they finally got it unstuck and out.........guess that got me back somewhat for delivering molly so easily........

there you have it.......molly's entry to the world!........