The documentation says to expect a call from the hospital beginning at 6:00 am to come in for a labor induction. The idea is the delivery rooms go to women in active labor first and then they fill the remainder with those scheduled for an induction. The theory is nice, but the documentation is just wrong. In October 2009, we got a call at 5:30 am for baby #3, this year the call came at 5:20 am. Now, I don't mind getting up that early, but if you're going to call me that earlier, please be nice enough to let me know in advance. Needless to say, when the call came, we got up and went in. This being our fourth go at delivery, we pretty much knew what to expect and everything went pretty much according to plan and at 1:17 in the afternoon we had ANOTHER baby girl. She weighed in at 7 lbs 4 oz and was about 20 inches long. Yes, if you're counting I now have 3 girls under the age of 6 ... do some math and you'll find that all 3 will be teenagers at the same time. The day is coming that I will be a full fledged member of the NRA. Enough said.
Baby #4 arrived with a couple of surprises. First, she was born "face up." This normally isn't a problem, but it's not ideal. Being face up, when she took her first breath she ended up taking a big gulp of fluid which got in her lungs. This caused a small tear in one of her lungs and her breathing became labored and noisy. The nurses call it "grunting." Needless to say, this grunting was enough to have her admitted to the NICU. There is nothing more scary and emotionally draining than having to walk your baby to the NICU. Thankfully, ten minutes after we got her admitted to the NICU the grunting stopped. Since then, she's been doing remarkably well, although by Vagabond standards, she is tiny. She feels so fragile when I hold her.
The second surprise is this baby was born with hair - dark hair. Our other three children were born with practically no hair and didn't have any hair to speak of until around the age of two and all were fair-haired. This little girl looks nothing like her siblings did at birth, hopefully she'll still have the good natured disposition that the others have had. So far she is eating well and sleeping for good stretches of time - sometimes as long as 6 hours.
So now we have a Vagabond six-pack. The adjustments have begun. The older two understand that their responsibilities have increased; the younger one, well let's just say she loves to kiss her little sister. So far she hasn't shown any jealousy that her little sister has more hair than she does. My bride is adjusting too. She doesn't get as much rest as I think she should, but somehow she manages. I'm adjusting too, but I don't think that the idea of one day having 3 teenage girls is going to be something that I'll ever get used to. Feel free to pray for me ... often.
