Steve had taken a sleeping pill the night before in hopes of being well rested in the morning, which backfired on him. He ended up taking a four hour nap on the couch at the hospital while waiting for Sage to make her debut. I watched a Bones marathon. We forgot our camera in the car so we only have some hurried iPhone pictures when she first came out. Despite all this, Sage now commands center stage in our lives. She is a dream baby.
Once we were in the hospital I felt very calm about the whole experience. Usually I'm a ball of nerves about what could go wrong, but this time I think we both felt like old hands at the whole process. We were induced at 39 weeks with the assurance that Sage was a "very large baby" and that I was carrying an Olympic sized swimming pool to house her in. Only one of those statements turned out to be correct. Sage entered the world at 7lbs 12 oz and 20 inches long- hardly a large baby in our definition of the word. Elsa was our smallest by only 2 oz less. The pitocin didn't have much of an effect on me this time around, so we waited quite a while for things to get started (thus Steve's four hour nap). Eventually they decided to break my water and after that things started going quickly. I had another blessed epidural that made the whole process pain free and almost enjoyable if you can say such a thing about childbirth. The doctor asked me to push to see how long this might take and quickly told me to stop so he could get his hospital gown on. Sage came like the others in just a few pushes. Steve happily cut the cord and there we were.
Despite not having our camera on hand, Steve was able to get a few pictures with my mom's old iPhone before he ran to the car to get the actual camera. She cried a few times after birth, but was quickly soothed when they put her under the heat lamps. Her ability to be soothed has not changed much from that point. Steve kept telling me not to worry and that Sage was going to be a dream baby for us and he has not failed to remind me how right he was. One night after we got home, I went to check on her and she was quietly looking around, not crying, for who knows how long. It's a welcome change for us, as Elsa certainly has given us a run for our money and I was very concerned how I was going to manage everything if we were to repeat that experience again. Sage hardly cried at all the first month.
Sage did great at nursing in the hospital, but we opted to pump and bottle feed when we got home due to past experiences with our other babies. It felt like it took us 4 kids to finally figure out how to take care of a newborn. Poor Rowan had to deal with the brunt of our learning curve. Thankfully he seems to be doing okay, so we can only go up from here.
I have to say, part of the serenity of this birth had to do with the hospital. They were so much more laid back than previous hospitals we'd been to. There weren't people constantly coming in and out of our room like they were in South Carolina. One nurse even let me sleep instead of doing the mandatory blood pressure tests that they need every few hours. I'd never experienced that before. I also requested not to have a lactation consultant come in. That was a major improvement over other hospital stays as well. In Illinois, the nurses really stressed me out about Rowan's weight loss in the hospital and how I need to make sure and nurse 15 minutes on each side every 3 hours. Rowan was so tired, I could hardly reach that time and I was completely freaked out that things were not going according to what I thought was normal. Sage nursed as much or as little as she wanted and the nurses weren't too concerned. She lost 6oz in the hospital and no one cared much about that either. It felt so good to finally feel in command about how things were going this time and not feel undue pressure about what some nurse thought was normal.
Utah also does things differently about the belly button. Other hospitals were very adamant about constantly cleaning the area with alcohol. In Utah, they tell you to leave the area alone and it will eventually take care of itself. One less thing to worry about!
The final and probably most important thing that helped make Sage's birth a calm event was all the family support we had in preparation for her arrival. Elaine came down a few days before the induction to get the lay of the land and then helped us settle in when we got back home. My mom came that Saturday and took the torch from Elaine for the next 10 days or so. Despite having three kids already at home, the transition to four was made so much easier due to our Grandmas coming and taking care of us. It truly came in handy when Elsa came down with a fever the day Sage was born. Both Elaine and Krystal were able to take care of her so that we wouldn't have to worry about what was going on home too much and instead focus on what was going on at the hospital.
We managed to leave the hospital a day early. Elsa came down with a fever the day Sage was born and we didn't want to leave poor Elaine to deal with that by herself. Steve went home the night of Sage's birth so he could help as much as he could. Leave it to Elsa to get sick at the worst time possible. Thankfully we got through it with our family's help. It takes a village now that we are completely outnumbered by these crazy kids.
Not loving her bath. It's weird that 3 months later, I feel like she has less hair now than when she was born. Still has a tinge of red to it.
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