Olive's birth story

On Thursday, July 24th, I went into labor two weeks early at 1:30 p.m. My friend Alyson, who lives right down the street, came over to my house to help me with some last-minute packing and to collect Owen, while Roby made his 40-minute commute from work. We arrived at the hospital, which thankfully is 5 minutes away, at 3:30. Unfortunately, they sent me home after two hours of breathing through contractions because of zero progression from 2 1/2 centimeters. I know, that's crazy talk you say. I whole-heartedly agree!

After 2 1/2 hours of intense laboring at home, my water broke and Roby had to channel Speed Racer to get me to the hospital. Once there, he couldn't coax me out of the car, where I was trying to deal with the pain, into the waiting wheel chair and had to tell me what my two options were: 1. Get into the wheel chair immediately 2. Have a parking lot baby. I opted to not have a parking lot baby. :) The nurses wanted to see progression, well, apparently Olive was thinking, "I'll show them!" After a crazy race to a room, and no time to even change into those lovely gowns, there I was in full-on labor, unable to get an epidural or any relief at this point, with the on-call OB still on the drive to the hospital. God certainly was looking after me that day, as He provided an awesome, wonderful, sweet, encouraging, understanding, compassionate, CALM OB from a completely different practice who just happened to be down the hall after delivering a baby and heard all the Heather-in-labor ruckus (it's actually quite accurate that most everyone in that hospital wing did!). Dr. Newman introduced herself and asked if she could deliver my baby. Hmmmmm, let me think about that...uh, YES PLEASE! After pushing through 2 contractions for 5 minutes, Olive made her way into this world at 8:22 p.m.! The amount of time passed from parking lot baby option to Olive's birthday? TWENTY minutes. Yes, friends, it officially was a crazy labor and delivery- parts of which I am still trying to cope with and get past...(such as why in the world did they send me home with a pain pill when I was having contractions 2 minutes apart and 45 seconds long?), but I'm slowly dealing with it more with each passing day.

God blessed us with an incredibly healthy, beautiful, happy baby girl (who looks like a miniature Owen)! We are so grateful that she didn't suffer from any complications! She lost nearly a pound in her first few days of life, but thankfully after about 10 days of nursing her every 2 hours, she gained all her weight back by her second week birthday, woohoo! The other concern we faced was her jaundice. Since it had not cleared by her last check-up, she needed to get her bili-rubin levels checked, and we discovered they were high. The next three days we continued to place her in indirect sunlight for as long as possible to help get rid of the jaundice, and I'm excited to say that after getting retested a few hours ago, her levels went down...and she is officially out of the woods! Hooray for an official clean bill of health- such a relief!

Owen seems to be adjusting well to this new little girl in his life, whom he has dubbed "his ladybug." Alyson brought him to the hospital the day after Olive was born to see his sister and meet up with his Nana, who had driven 12 hours straight the night before from Pennsylvania to get here for her two-week visit. He seemed a little shy at first, but soon was holding her in his lap and singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star...and that's when it happened...her first real smile! I didn't know it was possible so early on! It was SO obvious that she recognized her big brother's voice from when he would talk and sing to her while she was still swimming in her watery world! It was AMAZING. I have never seen such a smiley, happy baby. If you speak to her in a certain soft way, she will flash a little grin at you, and has even laughed for Roby (which he captured with the camera)! The other thing that makes me melt is when Owen goes over to Olive when she cries and says, "It's alright, Olive, Owen is here. There is nothing to be scared of" in his sweet little voice. And he will randomly say, "I want to touch Olive," and touch her hands and graze his lips across her fuzzy little head and then say, "Awwwwww. What a cutie."

These first two weeks have been wonderful with my Mom visiting and Roby able to spend some time at home with us. Olive has slept through most of it, but we still relish those cozy moments snuggling with her sweet little sleepy self. Roby returned to work after the first week, and Mom has helped tremendously by cleaning my whole house top to bottom and cooking yummo meals EVERY night. Roby is in heaven...now I have so much to live up to...uh oh! ;) It is going to be a challenge Monday when Mom leaves and I'm left to take care of a rambunctious nearly 3-year-old and a needy newborn. Hmmmm. I'm kinda terrified people. Obviously mamas do it all the time, so I'm sure I will figure it out. If you have any tips, please share!


I will do my best to keep our blog updated with news and pics of the latest addition to the Isaac family. Looking forward to sharing our continued adventure into parenthood with you all!