..samuel james powell..

one week ago today, we welcomed our precious baby sam into the world! before the details become all hazy, i figured it was time to document his birth story.

lance and i knew pretty early on that we wanted our kids to be close in age (the first two anyway!). last year at this exact time, we decided that we would start trying to get pregnant in january. we thought that 18 months apart was a great age difference between the two, and i had always wanted a fall baby, so january seemed like a good time to start. january came, and i must admit i was a little nervous to start trying. i mean, after all, the decision to bring a child into the world should not be taken lightly. i was filled with overwhelming thoughts of "will i be able to handle two kids?" and "will i be robbing finn of his babyhood by having another baby when he is still a baby?" etc etc. lance assured me that women all over the world do this all the time, and surely i could handle it. i'm grateful for his confidence in me. :) anyway, we did indeed begin trying, and as luck would have it, got pregnant that month!

as soon as i realized my due date was the middle of october, i thought it would be cool to have my baby on october 11 - 10.11.12 seemed like an awesome birthday! so that was basically the only question i asked my dr at my first prenatal appointment! ha dr. barton's response was, "sure. we might as well make this fun."

my pregnancy went fairly well. besides being extremely irritated almost the entire 9 months (i seriously wanted to kill most people half the time haha) and being extremely sensitive to the sun (which, now that i think back, it was kinda nice getting a tan after only 20 minutes of laying out) i really have nothing to complain about. in most ways it was as easy as my pregnancy with finn. i am lucky that finn is such a great napper because i almost always was able to take a nap during the day and therefore never felt too terribly tired. i must say, i enjoyed being pregnant this time around much more than i did the first time.

as excited as i was to add another little boy to our family, i was scared to death at the same time! i was still haunted by those same thoughts that i had before we started trying, that i wouldn't be able to handle two kids and that i was doing a dis-service to finn by adding another child to the family. my love for finn has always be so indescribable (as i'm sure it is for all parents). i just love that little boy more than anything in the world, and for the entire 9 months i got so emotional thinking about how things would change between us when the baby came. i was also worried that i would never be able to love another the way i love finn, my firstborn perfect little dream baby. needless to say, it was a very emotional pregnancy for me.

as october drew nearer i started getting more excited and less nervous. well honestly i was still scared to death, but really excited to meet baby sam. there comes a point when it is no longer fun being pregnant and you just want your baby out of your belly and in your arms. i wanted to begin our new life as a family of 6 (we can't forget duke and claus!) rather than be haunted by thoughts of what it would be like/if i could handle it etc. towards the end of september dr. barton asked if i wanted to schedule an induction, and after lots of thinking, pondering and praying i decided to schedule an induction for 10.11.12 - the day i wanted from before the start. :)

in the days and weeks leading up to the 11th, i think i changed my mind about being induced like 47 times. haha i went back and forth, for lots of different reasons. my mom was induced a week early with me and my brother, and both labors were extremely quick and easy (we're talking 5 hours and less). so that made me hopeful that mine would be quick and easy. with finn, my water broke on its own but contractions never started, so they put me on pitocin to get things going and i dilated from a 4 to a 10 in two hours. so that seemed promising, but at the same time my body was completely ready with finn (i was dilated to a 4 with only a few contractions before i got to the hospital) and this time it didn't seem to be making the same progress. at my last prenatal appointment (october 4) i was only dilated 1.5 cm, which made me extremely hesitant to go forward with the induction. but at the same time i was sick of being pregnant and just wanted to meet mr. sam, so october 11th arrived and we decided to go through with it.

the last week of being pregnant was long and emotional! every time i looked at finn i cried! haha don't you love hormones?! i still just felt so guilty for changing his life and was so worried about how he would react and how we would all get along. for the past month finn has not been sleeping well at all (we're talking waking up between 5 and 6, not taking his regular naps), plus he has been fussier than usual and pretty difficult for me to figure out. i think he is at a hard age because he knows what he wants, but he still isn't talking very well, so he can't communicate very effectively which leads to a lot of guessing on my part. frustrating for us both! i started getting really nervous, just imagining how things would be with a newborn that requires such constant care, and finn who was so demanding and needy! haha hence the reason i was so emotional all the time.

on october 10th we went to market street for dinner (where we seem to celebrate all of life's happy moments/milestones etc), just the three of us. it was really wonderful to spend that time together. afterwards we made a trip to costco to stock up on toilet paper, paper towels, etc, and by the time we got home it was past finn's bedtime so straight to bed he went! looking back, i'm really glad we didn't have time to sit around and play, because i think i would have lost it, just thinking that that was the last time finn would be our only child! my mom came down that night, so her, lance and i went downstairs and watched the x factor, then went to bed. i obviously didn't sleep much that night. i think i got in the shower at 5 a.m. the next morning, just in case i got the call to come into the hospital.

the hospital called on the 10th to tell me that they'd be calling the next morning between 5 and 10 to tell me to come in. i was 3rd on the list (whatever that means) but they couldn't give me a more exact time frame, which is really kind of annoying. so the morning of the 11th we woke up, made breakfast, went to jamba juice, put finn down for a nap and still i hadn't heard from the hospital. i started wondering if i ever would! my mom decided to run a few errands around town, as did lance, and go figure as soon as they both left, the hospital called to tell me to come in at 10. luckily, both my mom and lance were close by so they came back and off to the hospital we went! it still seemed so surreal that we would most likely meet our sammy boy that day.

we got to the hospital and checked in. the nurse came in and started my IV, and go figure i had a total breakdown! i just started balling. she asked what was wrong, and through my hormonal tears i told her that i just felt like i was making a mistake and that i didn't want to be induced. she was very understanding and said that wasn't a problem at all, that we shouldn't do it if i wasn't ready. i told her i just didn't know what to do, so she said she'd have my doctor come down and talk to me about it. well, 2 hours later we finally saw dr. barton (go figure, he's always running behind!) and after some consoling and reassurances that the baby would most likely be perfectly fine and that my chances of having to have a c-section were very small, we decided to go ahead with the induction. the nurse started the pitocin around 12:00, and that is where my labor/delivery/birth story begins.

basically it was just a long, uneventful day. i had always heard horror stories about pitocin contractions, so i braced myself for some pain. i told the nurse i wanted to hold off on the epidural until the contractions got more painful, because when she started the pitocin they were totally bearable. i just felt pressure, not really any pain. at about 12:45 dr. barton came in and broke my water. i had always heard it was painful, but i didn't really think it was. i must say, i was not a fan of leaking "down there" for the rest of the day! eeeew, gross. lance rented anchorman so we put that in and just chilled in the room. nothing seemed to be happening, and i started getting really frustrated! a couple hours later my contractions were still just pressure, no pain, and i started wondering if things were working right. and so the rest of the day went on. my mom kept calling for updates, and every time there was really nothing to tell her. at 4:00 they checked me and i was finally at 4 cm dilated. the contractions started to get uncomfortable and more painful, so i requested my epidural. the anesthesiologist was really nice and made the whole experience of getting a huge needle stuck in your back rather enjoyable. i think lance is more freaked out by the epidural than i am haha, both times he kind of cringed when he saw the needle. i, on the other hand, was just grateful for the relief! we, well, lance mostly, chatted with dr. kelley about scuba diving and all the cool places they each had been. and that is what i remember most about getting my epidural this time around! ;)

i felt more numb from the epidural this time than i did with finn. it is such a weird sensation not to be able to feel anything, but i am oh so grateful to whoever invented it! whenever i got uncomfortable i just had lance or one of the nurses help prop me in a different direction. as the night went on, the epidural wore off a little, which i actually preferred. i couldn't feel any pain, but i could move my legs a little more, which was nice. :) around 5:50 the nurse informed me that she was going to turn off my pitocin for a half an hour. she said that the uterus can only handle so much before the pitocin stops working with it, and we had reached that point, which was why i wasn't making much progress. this was rather frustrating to hear, but there was nothing i could do about it so lance and i just kept watching our movie ("swing vote"), wondering if we would ever get to meet our baby sam.

at 7:00 the nurses changed shifts, so i got two new nurses. i was glad, because i wasn't really a fan of the nurse i had had all day. she just didn't really talk much or keep me informed so i felt like i was in the dark on everything that was going on. the new nurses were really nice and friendly...one of them was newer, and it became obvious that she didn't really have much experience when she went to check me and had her hand up there for - no joke - ten minutes! i'm not kidding you. thank goodness i couldn't feel it! haha by about 7:30 i was dilated to a 7, at which point i texted jessica (our friend/neighbor/birth photographer) and she headed out to the hospital! it finally seemed like we would get to meet our little boy. :)

i attribute all the progress my cervix made from 7 o'clock on to the vice presidential debate. we were watching, and i seriously CANNOT STAND joe biden. his arrogance and downright disrespectful attitude toward paul ryan was making me soooooo mad! the nurses kept laughing at how riled up i was. but seriously, i think that getting so upset either got my cervix going, or maybe just taking my mind off of labor finally helped move things along. :)

by about 8:15 i was 10 cm dilated, fully effaced and ready to push. dr. barton came to deliver baby sam - - second time that it's happened after hours and he came in. i really love him and it's things like that - coming in when he could be at home with his family and just have the on-call dr deliver me - that keep me patiently waiting (sometimes for hours!) during my prenatal visits. he has such a great bedside manner, and makes the whole delivery process so enjoyable. he said he was at a boring scout meeting and glad that he got called away from it! haha ;) i started pushing at 8:30, and sweet baby sam joined the world at 8:46 pm. 15 minutes sure beats 2 hours (how long i pushed with finn!).

it's so true what everyone says. no matter how long and frustrating the day may have been, it is all SO worth it when you hear that cry, and see that boy, and hold him in your arms. there is nothing like it in all the world, and i am so thankful that i have been able to experience it two times. i was worried that it wouldn't feel as special this time around, especially since i didn't enjoy the whole labor process nearly as much as i did with finn, but i can honestly say it was just as special...maybe even more so since i sort of knew what to expect. with your first i think you are just so shocked and overwhelmed that you don't even know what to feel or think. but having been through it once, and remembering what a rare and special few minutes those moments after delivery are, i just soaked it all in. both lance and i were in tears, and so grateful to be holding our sweet little boy. we immediately started comparing him to finn, and quickly realized that he doesn't look like his big bro at all! sam was a whole pound and 2 inches smaller. he has lance's nose, my mouth, a little more hair than finn and a double chin! he is so very handsome, and i am so proud to call him mine. :)

we were a bit bummed that he came so late at night, because i was so looking forward to having finn come meet his little brother, but he was sound asleep after a long day of hanging out with grandma cindy, uncle zac and alicia. luckily, zac and alicia were sleeping at our house, so they stayed there while finn slept so that my mom could come to the hospital. i had always wanted her and finn to be our first visitors, so at least one of them was able to come. :) lance's dad came for a few minutes, but it was getting pretty late so he didn't stay for long.

the next morning my mom, zac and alicia came and visited bright and early! i was glad they came, because they ended up being my only visitors (besides finn, lance and lance's mom!). one thing we started to realize is that people don't care about the second baby nearly as much as they do with your first. ;) jk, i'm sure people still care, but we just had so many visitors with finn, so i think we were kind of looking forward to that, but oh well!

finn and lance came a little bit later, and their meeting one another is probably a story for an entirely different post all of its own. let me just say that finn lived up to every expectation and hope i had. he loved baby sam right away, and just wanted to hold him and give him kisses all morning long! he had a doctor's appointment to get to, so they couldn't stay for long, and when it came time for finn to let go of baby sam, he had a big fat temper tantrum. he held on as tight as he could to sam and when we finally pried him from his arms and put sam in the bassinet, finn ran over to it, arms up crying for baby sam. :) i'm pretty sure he thought sam was a new toy and was mad at us for taking it away from him! haha it was really cute, and pretty much just melted my heart. it has been a week and finn is still just as sweet as ever with sam. i think he is going to be a really good big brother. :)

we ended up going home from the hospital that night. everyone was so shocked that we were able to leave so early, but i was doing great, pain-wise, and was so bored in the hospital. i was ready to get home and start our new life as a family of six. we didn't leave the hospital until super late (8:30ish), because sam had to get his biliruben tests done and checked out by the pediatrician before we left. it was rather exhausting waiting for all of this, especially since we had finn with us. to make matters worse, he fell of the chair in our room and bonked his head pretty hard. we felt so bad for him so we gave him some root beer. bad idea! as lance says, he turned into the energizer bunny! he was seriously wired and we couldn't get him to sit still. it was exhausting.

but we finally made it home around 9:30, after stopping at the pharmacy to pick up my meds. after quickly introducing sam to his big brothers, duke and claus, finn and sam both went to bed right away. and thus began the greatest adventure we've probably ever been on. :)

i am so thankful for the opportunity to be the mother of these sweet baby boys. it really seems like just yesterday that we brought finn home from the hospital....new parents with no idea what to expect! and here we are, 18 months later (almost to the day!) with another new precious boy. i can't wait to get to know sam better. so far he just sleeps. :) i was so worried about whether or not i'd be able to love another as much as i love finn, or if my love for finn would change when sam got here. it's amazing how your capacity for love just grows with a new baby. my love for finn has not changed, if anything, it too has grown. and i love baby sam more than words can describe. i'm so thankful he is part of our family and can't wait for all the adventures that are to come. :)