Whitlee May Day

The last couple of weeks have seemed like an eternity.  It all started with Zac and a business trip to Houston.  His work wanted him in Houston for a week just two weeks before the baby was due.  I was a little nervous, but having never (yes NEVER) gone into labor before, I was pretty confident that he wouldn't miss the delivery.  Just to be safe, I asked the doctor to check me before he left to make sure there wouldn't be any surprises.  Though I wasn't dilating, the doctor was concerned that the baby seemed to be measuring 2 weeks ahead of her due date.  This was also concerning because our doctor had planned a trip to Hawaii overlapping with Zac's trip to Texas and not returning until the day before my due date.  He told me to come back the next week and if anything seemed "amiss" then he would take the baby two weeks early.  This sounded pretty good to me, seeing as I was incredibly uncomfortable by this point... however time timing would put the baby born when Zac was scheduled to be in Texas, so he had to cut his trip in half and find an early flight back.  We were all prepared to have this baby on March 20th.  I went in for my appointment the day before and lo and behold, the baby was measuring right on again.  I wasn't dilating, and labor did not seem to be coming any time soon.  The doctor decided that we could wait.  I may have had some 9 month pregnant, don't want to do this anymore tears, but there was nothing else I could do but wait, and wait, and WAIT.  And when you are 9-months preggers, 13 days can amazingly turn into what seems like another 13 months.

In the meantime, I had these darlings:

To distract me with their crazy messes fun (does it look like there is room for one more to fit in there?)

And they pampered me with endless foot rubs and hair treatments.  This is a hairstyle Ashlyn came up for me called the side Unicorn.

FINALLY the day came and of course I had 0 hours of sleep the night before due to all of the fun and excitement planned for the next day.  As the baby was scheduled for April 1st (April Fools Day) I was up all night plotting some April Fools antics.  Would the doctor let me sneak a puppy into the delivery room to hold up and show Zac?  And if so, what in the heck was I going to do with a puppy after the trick?  Maybe a watermelon then?  The doctor probably wouldn't go for it.  Perhaps, I would just wake up Zac in the middle of the night instead and tell him my water had broke.... but then he was sleeping so soundly, I didn't have the heart.  Instead, I got up early and used some old fall backs: Christmas music on Pandora, blue food coloring in the milk, and googly eyes on dozens of inanimate objects.

This is the "I'm sexy and I know it 9-months pregnant" look.

We got the kids off to school, Zac's mom arrived and we headed in to the hospital to get all prepped.

They got me all hooked up to a hundred different monitors and wouldn't you know it, they were registering some contractions.

Oh good, can I just have the baby then without the C-section please... I've only had four other C-sections.

No?  Okay, I'll just put on this nifty hat then that my husband assures me is adorable.

But compared to the fully body hazmat suit that he gets to wear, I am feeling pretty underdressed.

Gosh, he would have made a sexy doctor.  The construction hat and plumber pants just can't compete.

The doctor got done with his previous surgery a little early, so we got to go into surgery a little early.  And though Zac passed out with two of the four deliveries in the past, this time he swore he was going to watch the surgery and even video tape it!  I had money on him going down....

But he didn't, in fact he loved it... and made everyone that came to visit us watch it, including me.  I yelled OWWWWW!!!! the whole time I watched that video.  Good thing we are done having kids.

But of course everything was worth it as soon as I laid eyes on this little girl:

My sister and my dad stopped by on their lunch break to see if their was any baby news yet and happened to arrive at the exact moment I was being wheeled out of the operating room and into recovery, so they got first peeks at the baby and didn't even give me a chance to send my mass e-mail of an African American baby to everyone as my little April Fools joke.  At least we still got to send a picture of a baby monkey to the kid's teachers to show the class their new baby sister.  We also sent them some real pictures so they were able to see the baby before they got home from school.

Zac skyped his mom and Charlotte at home and videoed babies first bath for them.  Charlotte was in big sister heaven.

Poor baby still didn't have a name at this point.  We were struggling.  We had it narrowed down to about 10 names give or take and then we would get sick of them and start all over again.

And because it was April Fool's Day of course the weather had some tricks in store for us and it began to snow HARD.  Zac's mom was a little worried about the weather conditions, so as soon as these sweeties got home from school, they all busted it down to the hospital to see us and beat the bad roads.

I think they love their new sister! 

 After some deliberation with the kids and a good night's sleep on it, this baby girl had a name:

Whitlee May Fillmore

Whitlee is a name that Zac and I had talked about long ago when we were first married and expecting our first baby.  I lost that baby 10 weeks into my pregnancy and we never came back to the name Whitlee with any of the other kids.  Now that we are on our last kid, it kind of felt like full circle to come back to it now.  The May comes from three great grandmas: my mom's mom, Leona "May", Zac's great-grandma, Alice "May", and my dad's mom Mabel (May-bel) June.  Zac and I have also always enjoyed the special connection we have by having our birthdays on the same day in May.  So May seemed like a good choice.  And as this baby looks quite a bit like Zac, "Fillmore" seemed like a good fit for the last name.

Whitlee weighed 7 lbs 15 oz. and was our biggest baby (also the longest I have ever been pregnant with any of my babies).  When the twins were born at 3 1/2 lbs each, Zac put his wedding ring around Ashlyn's wrist for a picture to show just how small she really was.  He could barely get the same ring around three of Whitlee's fingers.

We had a few scary moments in the hospital.  Whitlee was 100% healthy and doing great, but mom started hemorrhaging.  The nurses were quite concerned and talked to us about the possibility of a hysterectomy.  It turns out my body is quite a bit worn out after having been stretched out by twins and then 4 C-sections.  I was having a hard time healing.  And even if I didn't end up with a hysterectomy, I was told we should not have any more kids.

I am so thankful to have such an amazing husband.  Zac gave me a blessing on the spot.  The nurses got in touch with the doctor, got me on some medications and my body began to repair itself.  By the morning the issue was completely resolved and we were able to start focusing on recovery and getting ready to head home. 

Whitlee likes her fingers and sucking on her hand.  Zac spent as much time possible holding her and bonding with her in the hospital, trying to make a daddy's girl out of her.

And now that we are home, it has been a non-stop tug-o-war to see who gets to hold her. 

We are so glad to have Whitlee in our family.  We couldn't be more blessed :)