Carter Loa

Baby sister Carter arrived Wednesday afternoon at 3:17 p.m. I had an appt that day (the day after my due date) and was told that we'd schedule an induction for the following day since I had been dialated to a 5 the week before....I got Laurissa to watch Harrison and brought my bag just in case they wanted to induce right then and turns out the hospital was free so I called Cory and headed down to the hospital from my ob's office. Luckily Erin was ready and waiting to come pick up harrison for a slumber party at Alesa June's house (and also rescued us by taking Harrison out again on Saturday-LOVE YOU ERIN AND DRU!!!!) and everything worked out great. I started pitocin at about 11 (cory was there by then so he didn't miss anything), the midwife broke my water at 12:30. After that contractions started to get a bit stronger so I went for the epidural and had a minor scare as my bp started dropping as some kind of reaction (not a huge deal but a bit unexpected)....they got me stabilized pretty quickly and I started feeling contractions a lot...I asked if I could push the button for extra drugs (they wanted to make sure my bp was stable first) and the nurse suggesting checking me first just in case she was ready.....I was planning to push that button at 3:05 for some relief but instead I pushed for roughly 10 minutes and Carter came out at 3:17 p.m. 8 pounds 13 oz, 21.5 inches long (much longer than Harrison which means she seems much skinnier even though she was 2 oz heavier) and PERFECT. We have been home since Friday and she's doing great. Breast feeding has been way easier (and on track to continue as long as I can get her to gain 9 more oz by the 9th, fingers crossed!!), she hardly ever cries except when her diaper needs to be changed, and she sleeps A LOT (way way way more than harrison from what I remember...). ...She's been laying on a blanket awake for the last 20 minutes or so and I think that's basically the longest eye-open stretch yet. So far so good but I'm sure as she wakes up it will start to get a bit more stressful :) Harrison absolutely loves and dotes on "baby sister" and loves to hold her, give her hugs and kisses, bring her every toy he owns, and force binkies on her like nobody's business. Today we had our first non-doctor outing to Red Robin (at Harrison's request after I vetoed Chick fil a ) ...Carter slept through it all of course! Bring on life as a family of four!!!

Here are LOTS of pictures. Not to be forgotten, first will put in a couple of Harrison in his dragon costume at the trunk or treat on Tuesday.