Raleigh Renee Anderson

Well, she's finally here!

Introducing Raleigh Renee Anderson...

Born August 18, 2012 at 6:51 pm.

8 lb 6 oz and 20 1/4 inches long.

Pretty much perfect!!

So I had my induction date finally set up for August 17 at 6:00 pm.

And yes, Raleigh wasn't born until almost 25 hours later...

Let's just say it was a long day and night!

When Travis and I showed up at Labor & Delivery it was completely full.

Therefore, those of us who were scheduled for an induction had to sit around and wait for a room to open up for us.

So Travis and I ended up sitting around the waiting room for 2 hours until we finally got called back.

Do you know how nerve wrecking it is just sitting around in a waiting room while waiting to deliver your baby?!

I was pretty uptight and kinda freaking out the whole time.

I don't know why, but I totally psyched myself out about going through labor and delivering Raleigh.

Maybe it's because Lawson's labor was so long and the delivery was such a nightmare but I was scared to death about going through all that again.

Anyway, we finally get called back to a room around 8:00 pm and we're thinking "Sweet, we're finally going to get this show on the road!"

Wrong.

Since L&D was still completely full we ended up waiting 3 more hours in our room before I filled out all the paperwork and got started on the pitocin.

So yeah, I wasn't actually "induced" until 11:00 pm...

And we'd already been at the the hospital for 5 hours!

Blah.

So I guess the way being induced works is that they start pumping you full of pitocin which is suppose to stimulate uterine contractions. 

But the kick is they can only do it for 8 hours and then if you haven't actually gone into "active labor" then they have to give your body a rest from being so stimulated.

Well, guess who got lucky and had no change during those first 8 hours of being on pitocin?!

Yup, I was lucky enough to be on pitocin from 11:00 pm until 7:00 am the next morning and make absolutely no progress at all.

But I was still having decently strong contraction about every 2-3 minutes during that whole time so guess who didn't sleep at all either?!

To say I was pretty tired would be an understatement.

And I hadn't even gone into real labor yet!

Double blah.

So they decided to give my body a rest from the pitocin for 5 hours and told me I could basically just hang out in my hospital room and do whatever I wanted.

Well obviously I wanted to have a baby so the nurse brought me a birthing ball and I tried doing some different exercises to help induce labor but then gave up and ended up taking a nap instead because I was very tired.

So fast forward to 12:00 pm.

They finally come back in to get me started on the pitocin again.

They said that they would run it for another 8 hours and if I still hadn't made any progress then I would have to go home and come back 12 hours later.

Great.

Travis and I were pretty discouraged by this point.

We'd been at the hospital for 18 hours at this point and were no different than when we first showed up.

We could've just stayed home that night before and got a good night's rest!

Oh well.

So about 3 hours into the second round of pitocin and I still wasn't feeling any different.

I was seriously so upset at this point.

I was no longer worried about going through labor and delivering Raleigh.

I just wanted to get things going!

But finally around 4:00 pm I could finally tell a difference in my contractions.

They were definitely starting to get stronger and closer together.

Yay, yay, yay!!

So the midwife comes in to check me and I had finally made some progress and was considered in active labor.

She then gave me the go ahead to get the epidural since there was no going back at this point.

(Insert happy dance here!)

The anesthesiologist came and gave me the.best.epidural.

I was in some pretty intense pain at this point and definitely needed it!

At the same time though I was a little hesitant because my epidural with Lawson caused my labor with him to slow way down.

Well, that definitely did not happen this time around!

Once the epidural got taken care of and was working great it was only about an hour and a half until my water broke.
And once my water broke I could definitely tell that it was about time to start pushing.

So I push the call button and the nurse comes in and I tell her "My water just broke and I think it's time to start pushing".
So she checks me and says "Oh you are definitely ready!"

All of sudden everything was going crazy and everyone was coming in getting ready and I'm starting to feel like I'm about to explode.
This was all happening as the shifts were changing at L&D so the midwife that had just barely gotten there and literally walked right to our room and delivered Raleigh within minutes!

I started pushing at 6:44 pm and she was born at 6:51 pm!
Yup, it only took 3 pushes.
It was sooooooo easy!

I honestly could not have asked for an easier delivery.
Every thing went so smoothly and easily once the pitocin kicked in and actually started working.
Like I said, Lawson's labor and delivery were so difficult but this time around was completely different.

As soon as she was born they placed her right up on my lap and Travis and I instantly fell in love!

One of the very first things I said was "Is it a girl?!" because I had several very distinct dreams where she was born but turned out being a boy.
So I wasn't 100% convinced that we were really having a girl.

Once they confirmed that she was a girl everything was so surreal.
We had another child!
It's amazing how you can fall in love with someone so quickly and feel so connected to them immediately.
She sure is a cutie!

Here's a few pictures that we were able to snag during everything...

Finally in our room waiting to get started!
Too bad it took so long from this point for her to actually make an appearance.

Only a few seconds old!

Our first family picture!

Well, minus Lawson of course.

We definitely did not feel complete without him there.

Getting all cleaned up and weighed.

8 lb. 6 oz!

At least she wasn't quite the 9 lbs her brother was!

Like I said, I totally fell in love immediately!

Oh, and she looks absolutely identical to Lawson's pictures of right after he was born.
I'm ok with that because Lawson is a cute kid which means now she'll definitely be cute when she gets older :)

Travis is completely whipped.
He says there's just something different about his relationship with a daughter.
Only a few minutes old and she already had her Daddy wrapped around her finger!

The next day Lawson got to come to the hospital to meet his new sister!
I was interested to see how he would react and see if he would understand that "Baby Raleigh" was no longer in Mommy's tummy.

When he first got there I was holding Raleigh and he runs up to me and gives me a big hug because I hadn't seen him in 2 nights.
And then he yells "Baby!!" and points to Raleigh.

I then tell him "Yes, this is Baby Raleigh."
To which he responds "Oh wow!"
Funny kid...

He immediately asked to hold her so we told him to climb up in the chair and got him all prepped.

Needless to say, he was in heaven holding his baby sister...for about a minute or so!

It was pretty cute because during that minute that he was actually interested in Raleigh he gave her several kisses and we weren't even encouraging them.

Even now, he'll still go up to her constantly and give her kisses.

Melts my heart!

Me and my two kids!

Still kinda weird to think of me having two of them now.

Gotta love how Lawson is still giving her kisses!

First complete family picture!

It definitely felt better having Lawson there with the rest of our family!

So since Raleigh's delivery went so quickly and smoothly I was actually feeling amazing considering I had just given birth less than 24 hours ago.
Since I was feeling so great they gave us permission to go home once Raleigh turned 24 hours and they could give us the go ahead to leave.

Completely different than with Lawson.
We were at the hospital almost 3 days with him!
It was so nice to go home and sleep in my own bed and not have someone coming in every hour to do something to either me or Raleigh.

Here we are getting ready to go home!

Raleigh was not too happy about getting dressed and getting in the car seat.
Oh, and of course I had to have a cute little headband to match her outfit...

I can't get over how tiny she looks in her car seat!

It's crazy to think that Lawson was once this small as well and now he seems so huge!

She screamed and cried the entire way home.
But once she was back in our arms and home she was all better!

It's been a whirlwind of a few days but we're so glad that little Raleigh is finally here!

Other than a few sleepless nights, so far everything is going great.
Lawson doesn't really pay her any attention other than the occasional kiss he gives her.
We'll have to see how long that lasts...
It's so great being a family of 4 now!