On Monday, November 12th, I was very frustrated. Isaac spent a lot of the day talking with our doctor’s nurse, trying it figure out what our Baby Plan was. We knew we couldn't be induced Tuesday morning, but didn't know if we would go to the appointment Tuesday afternoon just to be induced Wednesday morning. We also had the possible option of going to the appointment on Tuesday and being a 4 and telling the doctor to admit me as in labor and start pitocin. I was getting stressed out. Supper did not go over well. After my Bible Study, we went to Isaac’s parents’ house to tell them our plans (which we still didn’t know.) Isaac's mom was supposed to substitute teach on Tuesday so she needed to know if she should take off work. I felt this overwhelming feeling of God saying to me, "Trust Me." I finally told her that she should teach and we'd call her after school to let her know where the kids are and we went home. I was too exhausted to do the laundry and shower, telling myself I could get it done tomorrow before noon when we would leave for my appointment (if we even went to it!). At 4:35 am, I woke up feeling wet, needing to go to the bathroom, and having a mild contraction. I went to the bathroom and changed. I started to realize that my water broke and this was *it*! I tried to wake up Isaac and when he finally woke up, I had to convince him that this was the real deal, too. Realizing that I'm having consistent contractions every 3-5 minutes, I have him call his mom. He gets in the shower, and I run around trying to figure out if we have everything we need. MIL shows up just and I'm getting anxious to get on the road. We pull out right at 5 am. We go on the back roads to Kirksville since it is usually faster. What we didn't account for was SLOW driving deer hunters. We passed a couple vehicles like they were standing still. Contractions were 2-6 minutes apart the entire time we drove. In the Kirksville, I was still feeling anxious, knowing how far we still have to go. Isaac went through a red light and passed a super slow vehicle in the center turning lane. In Macon, we got behind another slow vehicle but don't pass it. I'm feeling better knowing we are only a little over an hour away. Contractions started to get harder as we got closer to Columbia. I pressed my right foot on the front of the van floor where it goes up at a bump to get through contractions because they are getting worse. My back was aching with them but there was no moving to get myself more comfortable. We finally arrive at 7 am and go in to the hospital. Mr. Grumpy (name changed to protect the guilty--not that I paid attention to see what his name was anyways, though!) greets us and asks how he can help. I tell him "I'm going to have a baby!" I can't remember what he said but he wasn't really impressed and said something about "if" they admit me. I had already told him my water broke so he knew good and well there was no "if". Registering with him took FOREVER. I would stop talking during contractions and I'm pretty sure he thought I was faking it. One contraction, I had my head down on my arms leaning on the counter and he told me I had to look up for my picture for my bracelet. Could he not wait 30 seconds for it to pass? We finished with that finally. I declined his offer for a wheelchair and he told us to go up to the baby floor since no one was in the triage. The nurses station was a lot more friendly and we were led to our first room. At 7:40, I was 4 cm and -2 station. I was not impressed that the last week, especially the last three hours of contractions, didn't get me more than half a centimeter! We moved on to the labor and delivery room, stopping for contractions as we walked. The nurse came in and introduced herself as Anneke (ann a ka) I immediately thought, "If I changed the spelling to Annika and pronounced it ah ni ka it would be the cutest girls' name. There was also a student nurse who, after the birth, told me it was the first one she got to attend, so that was really neat. Somewhere around this time, we realized that there was meconium in my amniotic fluid--not a big deal, it just meant the pediatrician would be there at birth to make sure Baby was okay. I spent the next hour or so mostly on a labor ball. I made Isaac apply tons of pressure on my back during contractions while I bounced. I was so exhausted, though. I felt like I was going to fall asleep during contractions. Of course, they were too intense at this point to be able to, but all I wanted right then was a good nap! At some point in this hour, my doctor came in before her morning appointments and I met the on call doctor. I asked if we could check my progress and decided in my head that if I was a 7, I would fight it out, but if I was any less, I was going to request an epidural. At 9 am, I was only a 6. Anesthesiology came in and we started to get ready. I was on the bed on my knees and felt the urge to push. I told Anneke and she checked and in twenty five minutes I'd made it to a 7.5! Now I wasn't sure if I wanted to follow through with the epidural, so I asked them to wait for me to have one more contraction. Yup, I was ready for it! We got it going around 9:40 and it was instant relief. I could barely feel anymore contractions without ever upping my dosage. (Quite contrasted to Jeriah's when I was pushing my "more" button every couple minutes!). I was finally able to relax a little bit for the first time since I woke up. Of course, I wasn't facing extreme exhaustion anymore and was too keyed up to sleep! I even checked Facebook and replied to aunt asking if I would have the baby before thanksgiving. We were planning on telling very few people about baby's arrival within the first 24 hours to limit visitors, so at 10:08 I simply told her "Yeah. They won't let that long." I guess I was a bit distracted to have left out the "me go"! I also made my daily thankful post that I didn't get around to making the night before. Isaac moved the van from the 15 minute parking space (oops!) and brought in the stuff we needed, including the camera. (Note for next time, if I don't get an epidural, there will be no time for Isaac to leave to retrieve camera during labor, so just take it inside in the first place.) I think I might have dozed for a little bit at this point. When Anneke checked me the next time she came in, I was thrilled to hear that I was complete and it was time to push. At 11:25, I was pushing. My regular doctor had finished her morning patients and was able to be there alongside the on call doctor. The epidural took away most of my urge to push so I had to be guided in that. At one point, Dr. W told me one more push and Baby would be out. Well, that was at the beginning of a contraction and my three pushes for that contraction didn't get Baby out. I was not impressed! But the next contraction finally did the job and at 11:44, we had a baby. There were lots of bodies and hands so Isaac couldn't tell immediately but he finally told me "It's a girl!" I remember saying "What?!?" He later recounted the story as me screaming, but I think he might be exaggerating! I was completely surprised though. I was thrilled to have a girl. They whisked her off to the little take-care-of-baby room to make sure she was okay with the meconium. I delivered the placenta and got stitched up. They brought Baby Girl back and we got to nurse. I also got orange juice and ordered lunch--nice timing! In the next hour or so, I decided I was never having another baby. I'd forgotten about the pain of post-delivery! (Don't worry, I got over that idea before the end of the day so I guess the memory of the pain faded quickly enough!) Recovery rooms were full, so we got to hang out in L&D. It worked out well because Anneke was our nurse the whole time and we got moved over right at shift change. Isaac and I spent the rest of the afternoon discussing girl names. We were tossing around Annika and one other name. I read through my list of middle names and we weren't in love with any of them. Isaac decided that both of our first names needed a one syllable middle name. And, to meet our name requirements, it had to be Biblical. So I said something like "there are tons of one syllable Bible names, like love, joy, peace, hope, faith....." And in the list I rattled off, Joy struck me as one not previously on my list. (Peace wasn't either but it wouldn't ever be!). So, we tried out the name with both first names and she was suddenly Baby Girl Joy Houf. We finally agreed to call her Annika the next afternoon. (I'm pretty sure Isaac was threatened by his mom to make him choose the one I was leaning towards most at this point.). We had a really good experience this time. Not that the other times were bad (minus the lactation nurse who was there for Kadin and Jeriah--lactation nurse this time was super nice and very helpful), but this time we were blessed with really super nurses and a great pediatrician. He was so good with the older two, telling them what he was doing during his thorough exam and having Kadin try to sound out his name when he wrote it on the white board. We got to leave as soon as the test results from the tests they do at the 24 hour mark were back.
