The Smiths: Halle Ruth Smith

Our newest little addition has arrived! And one week early! Halle Ruth Smith was born at 11:08pm on Monday, November 12th. She weighed 8 lbs 10 oz and was 21 1/4 in long.

We had a rather interesting Monday leading up to her birth. I'd worked up through Sunday night (special circumstances at work required that we all work Saturday and Sunday that weekend, but luckily, they let me work from home). Everyone at work was sure that I wouldn't make it and they had people on standby to come in and cover for me last minute should it be necessary. But it wasn't! I was quite proud of that :)

So Monday morning, I was feeling very relieved. For a couple of weeks my doctor had been telling me how far progressed I already was and that it was likely that the baby would come early. We just took it a day at a time and got through! Andrew's mom was arriving on Monday so we spent that morning finishing getting ready for her arrival. Shortly before lunch, we left to pick her up at the airport. Traffic was terrible! There'd been a major accident and it took us two hours to get out to the airport. Two hours! We were in stand-still traffic for most of the way. Very aggravating! But we finally made it there and Connie wasn't too mad at us for making her wait so long :)

From the airport, we had to go straight to the hospital for my weekly doctor's appointment since by this time we were running late. No time to stop and grab something for lunch! We were a few minutes late, but had called ahead to let them know. As soon as we got there, I hurried inside and they did a sonogram to see how things were going. She estimated that the baby was 8 lbs 10 oz (talk about good estimating skills!) and found that the cord was around her neck. That didn't concern them too much by itself, since it's a fairly common thing. The biggest concern was the baby's heart rate, which was on the low end. So she poked around trying to stimulate some activity, but couldn't really get a reaction. So she sent me over to the doctor's office with a warning that they'd probably want to hook me up to a monitor for a bit to watch the heart rate.

At the doctor's office, my doctor found that I was already dilated to 5 cm and she agreed that she'd like to monitor the baby's heart rate for a little while since it was low. So they hooked me up and Andrew and I just got to hang out for a few minutes. Connie and Eve were out waiting in the lobby of the hospital. After monitoring the heart rate for a while, the doctor came to talk to us. She was leaning heavily towards inducing me on the spot with all things considered: my body was ready to have the baby, she was already quite big (and only getting bigger!), the cord was around the neck, and her heart rate was a concern. However, it was during the monitoring of the heart rate that my contractions started, so when the doctor came to talk to us again about inducing I told her I didn't think it'd be necessary. So she sent us downstairs to be admitted.

After that, everything happened pretty quickly. I got checked in between 5 - 5:30ish and got my epidural at 6:30. Right after they got me in my delivery room, Andrew left to take Connie and Eve back to our house and get them some food! Eve had wet through her clothes by this point, so had been running around the waiting room in her shirt and a diaper. And no one had eaten since breakfast!

Andrew made it back around 7:30pm and at that point, it was just a waiting game. The epidural worked great at first, but kept losing its strength so they'd come in a give me more juice. I think it was around 10pm that they gave me a little pitocin and at 10:53pm I was ready to go! I remember the time exactly because our labor and delivery nurse was scheduled to end her shift at 11pm and we were trying to have the baby before she left. She was the same nurse we'd started with when Eve was born, but she'd switched shifts and missed Eve's birth. We didn't want that two times in a row!

15 minutes of pushing later, little Halle was born! And our nurse stayed a few extra minutes to see it through :)

Halle was as healthy as could be and super cute! She had the most awesome eagle cry you've ever heard! We never managed to get it on video and she doesn't do it anymore...it will just have to live in our memories...

Since it was so late at night, we waited until the following morning for Andrew to bring his mom and Eve to meet the new baby. It was also that following morning that we settled on her name. Halle is a name that we both like and Ruth is for Andrew's grandma.

Eve was instantly smitten with her little sister and has been so good with her since! Lots and lots of kisses, hugs, and snuggles!

Eve's working on the concept of not squishing the baby....

Our first family portrait! Ignore my swelling face - I blame the hospital IV's that also made my hands and feet swell :)

We spent a mostly quiet day and a half in the hospital and were ready to head home by Wednesday afternoon. I'm kicking myself because I didn't get ANY going home pictures! We were so rushed because they were late in letting us go and Andrew had to get to class that afternoon.

This is how we arrived at home - two little girls completely out!