Hannah Janiece - Sept 2nd 2001

Hannah

After we had the boys, we decided that 4 kids would be a nice size family. The two year plan was working nicely for us, and so soon after Thomas was a year old we thought we would try for another one. I laugh at the word try, because we really never had to try before - I never had to wait more than a month to find out.

This time however we really had to work at it. It took six months for me to get pregnant again. I know this does not seem long to some, but for me who never had to wait before, it was frustrating. Also, having to wait that long, threw a wrench into my plans of having another spring baby. Now my due date was September - which meant that I would have to suffer through the summer.

As with Thomas, this pregnancy too has become a blur. Steve and I were sealed in the Temple at the end of May. We had a nice little BBQ at the church. We had the tables set up in the gym, and the power went out. By the time that we got to the church, my friends had moved the tables into the RS room where there was more light.

I'm not sure, but I think this was the hottest summer in the history of the world. We did not have an air conditioner in our house, just a swamp cooler. So I would pile up my bean bag chairs under the cooler and read in order to pass the time. At least once a week, the power would go out because there were too many houses in the area that were running the air all at the same time. So it would take the power company a couple of hours to get everything back on track. This was not a fun time.

I do remember that I was a hormonal mess. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything. My poor kids just had to stay home and try to keep each other company. We even went to a playgroup each week, and I didn't even talk with the grown-ups. I would just sit downstairs with the kids and make sure that no one was mean to my boys. (Talk about over protective!)

I don't know how it is with others, but it's probably not much different. My body wasn't always happy to be carrying another baby. The muscles were not working as well, and the ligaments were way too stretchy. By the last month, again I was way ready to have a baby. We had the name all picked out, and we had even told the boys. We were going to name her Annabelle. I loved it. I couldn't wait.

One Friday night, we were watching TV and I started having contractions. This was nothing new - I'd been having them for weeks. Then they started to hurt. They were coming every 8 minutes, and then every 6 minutes. We waited for about an hour, and then called my mom. It took her a little over an hour to get there, and the contractions were still pretty consistent. When my parents showed up I got up to go and talk to them and I decided to have a Rice Krispy treat - 'cause they are so good you can't not eat them! Well that was the end of my labor for the night.

I went to bed feeling sad and depressed - I was so sure we would have a baby that night. The same thing happened the next night too. Only this time I didn't eat anything. We headed to the hospital. I was on my third baby and dilated to a 5. I knew they would not send me home. They put me in a holding room to monitor me and the contractions were nice and steady around 6 min apart. So they admitted me. We sat there all night with no progress whatsoever. Somewhere in the night I got an epidural, because even though the contractions were not super painful, I was afraid of them getting worse. So we just sat there waiting. Both of us dozed on and off throughout the night.

The next morning, they were trying to get a hold of my doctor. We could read the notes that they posted on the monitor in our room. My doctor couldn't come in. They needed the on-call doctor from my OBG group to come in instead. Except that she was called to another hospital for an emergency. They were worried that I had been laboring all night without any progress. Was there a doctor that could break my water to get things moving?

Finally some doctor came in and broke the water. I was sure that this would work - it did with the other two - still nothing. My doctor finally showed up - disheveled with tangles in her hair - did she not have time to run a brush through it? We were happy to see her - she was obviously in a hurry, because she started the pitocin and then soon after doubled it. Things went quickly and soon we had a new little baby girl.

We tried calling her Annabelle, but it just didn't fit. We were thinking about the name Elizabeth, which was also my doctors name. When we told the doctor this, she told us about how growing up she was called Lizzy, and then when she was in High School she got the nickname Lizard, and then somehow it got shortened to just Erd. I thought that was weird, and I decided that I was not too sure about the name Elizabeth. So it took a little bit to finally decide on a name.

We named her Hannah Janiece

She was born at 10:55 AM

She was 8lbs 3oz and 21 inches long

When we got home, Thomas was so upset that we had named her Hannah. He just kept calling her Annabelle for a couple of weeks. Also, we were so excited to have a little girl with dark hair and hopefully brown eyes, but as you can see, they didn't stay that way.