Welcome, Lydia!

Lydia Mina Kim was born on Sept 3 at 5:52PM. She weighed 7lbs 1oz and was 19.7in long. I'm already so tired all the time, but I am loving my tiny little new baby! Big brother and big sister seem to be happy to have the new baby around as well. Noah is not super interested, but wants to be helpful from time to time and likes holding her sometimes. Sarah seems more into her and seems to like holding her and kissing her. We were worried that Sarah wouldn't be happy with a new baby around, but she actually seems to be adjusting totally fine.

First, the birth story. I feel like I need to write this down before I forget what happened. It went fast. I think I started having some contractions here and there on Tuesday (Sept 2), but they were not very strong and not consistent. On Wednesday it seemed the same, although they were starting to happen more regularly. I let Peter know that contractions were happening somewhat regularly, though not very strong, but that he should probably come home soon. After I gave him the update, things started picking up a bit more. When he finally got home and we were starting to get ready to go, it was starting to feel real so I was like we've gotta leave, now. We got to the hospital at around 2:45 and by then it was starting to get hard to walk around but I was trying to keep cool. Probably a little too cool bc all of the nurses were taking their time getting me into triage and checking me. Finally they checked and said I was 2-3cm dilated. The nurse was even talking about having me walk around for an hour, but my OB said to just check me in because Noah was delivered via c-section. So I finally get checked into labor & delivery, the nurses have a hard time getting the IV in, and finally I'm hooked up to my IV by maybe 4:45. The nurses finished all the chart work by about 5:15. Since this is the third (and last!) baby, I really wanted to try delivering without drugs, primarily bc the epidural is scary, not always fully effective (when I delivered Sarah it had to be repositioned and ultimately redone), and comes with its own recovery. But 5 minutes after the nurses left my room, I told Peter to go get them and tell them I wanted the epidural! Since I was only 2-3 cm when I checked into the hospital, I figured I'd be there for a while and there was no way I was going to make it at the pain level I was at for that much longer. But then I needed extra fluids, the anesthesiologist had to be called, things needed to be prepped, etc. Meanwhile, pain level was SUPER high. When the anesthesiologist came to my room about 25 min later, the OB said I was at 9cm, and I was feeling ready to push…so the OB asked if I wanted to get the epidural or just wait and try to push. I was like uh…..has there ever been a more difficult decision in such a short period of time?? And then my body made the decision for me, because the baby was on its way out, no time for epidural. Baby out at 5:52. So in the end, I had my drug-free delivery. I was pretty traumatized afterwards and even a little nauseated thinking about the experience, but now that I'm a few days away from it all, I am really glad I was able to do it, even if it was kind of by accident! The funny thing is that what happened is exactly what my OB had said would happen. For months she'd been saying it would go really quick, and that I could probably deliver without drugs. She said I'd probably want the epidural for the last couple of centimeters, but that it would be over in about 20 minutes.

Recovery has been pretty okay, and Lydia seems to be doing well now that nursing is going better. Today is actually our first day on our own (with Peter…I'd be dead on my own). Peter's mom was here since Wednesday when we went to the hospital and has been watching the older kids a little and cooking all of our meals. She stored food in the fridge for us for the next few meals though, so at least I don't have to go grocery shopping or cook. Lydia doesn't do much other than eat and sleep, but having to keep track three kids' eating, sleeping, and bowel movements is kind of overwhelming! I'm sure it'll get better once we get used to it, but we're not quite there yet. It's nice that Noah started school today though. I have some mom meet-ups/bible studies starting up in the next few weeks also, so even though things will be busy, at least our lives will have some amount of structure and direction, and the older kids will have activities.