My Little Clara Beara

Well, my new daughter made her grand entrance into the world early. By two and a half weeks. I was expecting to have her early...both siblings were exactly 4 days before their due dates, but she had other plans and wanted to join us sooner. What a drama queen!

I was actually laboring most of the week with pretty intense contractions that kept me up for several nights, the loss of my mucous plug (on three occasions) and an overall feeling of yuckiness and exhaustion. Feeling like labor was getting close, I was a nesting maniac-washed her clothes, sheets, towels, got the house ready, packed my hospital bag and bag for the kids, etc. I felt like every night was going to be "the night" and was just waiting for my water to break.

Saturday night, I was up again, lying in bed having contractions. I got up and messed around on the computer for awhile, timing contractions and playing Facebook Scrabble. Finally after about 45 minutes, I decided to try sleeping a bit. The contractions were coming, but still pretty irregular. At around 5 am, I woke Michael up.

"Mike, this may be it. I think that I am in labor."

He shot up, ready to go. And within 30 minutes, our friend was over to watch the kids and we were out the door and en route to UC Davis downtown. We left so fast that I forgot to grab my purse (no ID on me, I hoped that that wouldn't be a problem). It wasn't, luckily.

We arrived at the hospital in record time. Very little traffic at 5:30 am on a Sunday morning and I was checked in at around 6. They immediately took me to triage and found me to be at only 4 cm dialated and having contrations about 5 minutes apart. I was disappointed because with Emily I came in almost fully dialated and more or less ready to go. I was worried that this time we wouldn't make it to the hospital in time, so we had come earlier in the labor. There was still a ways to go.

They started me on an antibiotic IV drip and wheeled me down to my labor and delivery suite. My labor progressed slowly and after the second dose of the antibiotic 4 hours later, they found me to be only 6 cm. Sigh. I felt like I had transitioned already and had only gotten 2 cm closer.

They offered to break my water to speed things along and I agreed, but warned them that the last time they did that, the baby came out in the next contraction.

The process of breaking my water really was really horrid this time. It felt like I was being prodded and jammed with a knitting needle for a very long time. It would not break and took several tortourous attempts to finally do the job. That was the worst part of the labor up to this point. And then came the next 9 minutes of HELL.

In the course of 9 minutes, I dialated from 6-10 cm and pushed a baby out. I felt the intense urge to push almost immediately, but had to wait for the doctor. This was nearly impossible and very painful. Luckily at the end of the 9 minutes, I had a new baby.

Her name is Clara Joy Lomonaco.

She was born at 11:16 am (the same time of day I was born) on April 19.

And she weighed in at 6 lbs, 8 oz and was 19 in long.

Pretty good sized for 2.5 weeks early.

I felt pretty rough and exhausted for the first little bit after she was born, but it is amazing what a little bit of rest, a shower or two and a peaceful day can do for you.

We go home tomorrow where we will begin our lives as a family of 5. Eeeeek! I'm so glad that Michael has almost 2 weeks off to help with the transition.

We'll post photos soon!

Cute Questioning

Emily asked me about her cabbage patch doll the other day.

"Mama, where did this doll come from?" she asked.

"Oh, the White family gave you that for your birthday, remember?" I said.

"Are they snowmen?" she wondered aloud.

White...snow. Get it???

A valid question, indeed, from an inquisitive two year old.