Taylor Baird

Tomorrow will be the three week mark since I woke up early in the morning, knowing that I was going to have this baby. The night before we had gone to the adult session of District Conference and I started having some contractions, but they were on average 10-15 minutes apart. Nothing close enough to get my hopes up. We went out to dinner after and either they stopped, or I just wasn't paying enough attention to notice them. So we came home and went to bed. The next morning, I woke up at 5:40am, with a very distinct feeling that today was the day. I hopped in the shower and had 5 contractions in the 15 minutes that I was in there. They were now 2-3 minutes apart and pretty uncomfortable. I woke Justin up and told him that if he wanted to shower, he better hurry because we need to head to the hospital! I threw some stuff together in a bag (not sure why I hadn't packed a bag yet!) and called my friend Hollie to come over while the kids were still sleeping. By the time we got to the hospital, my contractions were getting more painful but a little farther apart. I started to worry that they were going to send me home and tell me that it was false labor. But when they checked me, I was almost at a 5 and they admitted me with no problems. Yay! I had been dreading the unknown of when to go to the hospital, or my water breaking somewhere embarrassing, or thinking I was in labor and having the hospital send me home. I had been induced with my other two boys, but they won't induce you here until you are between 41 and 42 weeks! That sounds dreadful. So once I was actually in my hospital room and my epidural was on it's way, I had a huge sense of relief and gratitude that everything up to that point had gone so smooth. I was extremely surprised that he was coming 6 days early though! Excited beyond belief that my pregnancy was about to be over, but super surprised that it was going to end almost a week early. Justin and I kept saying to each other that we couldn't believe it was actually happening and that we were really going to see our baby! It didn't feel real and didn't really sink in until after he was born.

We got to the hospital at 7am. I got my epidural by 9. They broke my water at about 12:45, and by 1:45, they were getting ready for his arrival. I pushed for a total of 7 minutes, through 3 contractions and he was here by 2pm! He got tangled in his cord on his way out and was bright blue, which scared us half to death, but luckily he was fine and pinked up after a few minutes. Right away, we could tell that he looked a little bigger than our other two. Especially Anderson. He already looked a little chunky! Imagine if I would have had him at 42 weeks, instead of 39 weeks.

Welcome Taylor!

Born on Sunday, November 17 at 2pm.

8 lbs and 21 inches long.

He was perfect. 10 fingers, 10 toes and the cutest little puffy face we'd seen.

Look at that chunky face!

The boys were pretty excited to come and see him. Anderson kept saying, "Oh you cute little baby Taylor!" "Look at his teeny toes and his teeny fingers!" When they were getting ready to leave Justin told Jack to come and give his brother a kiss before they left. Jack looked at him rather surprised and said, "Dad, I just met him!" Obviously you don't kiss people that you hardly know. :) 

The hospital stay was good and the doctor and nurses were awesome. Plus we had a great view of the ocean out our window.

The boys came back right before we were ready to leave the hospital. They have been so funny during the whole pregnancy asking all sorts of questions that I wasn't quite ready to answer. Jack was only 2 when Anderson was born and he wasn't old enough to care how the baby comes out and all of those awesome questions that I'm not really good at answering. I was nursing Taylor under a blanket and Jack naturally wanted to know what I was doing and why he couldn't see Taylor at the moment. After I explained it to him, he looked at me with an awkward face and said, "That is SO....weird!" I got a good laugh. Then a couple days later, I had just finished pumping and Jack looked at the bottles and asked where I got the milk from. I explained yet again and he said, "That's even weirder than him eating from your chest!" You know what? You're right bud....it is a little weird!

Even though I look super scary in these pictures, they are our first pictures as a family of 5. Crazy! 

Here he is, ready to go home! Chunky face and all.

Our first week with him home was so relaxing. Justin was home with me, we had dinner brought to us, and our kids were invited to one place after another with all of our wonderful friends. Even though I felt like I sat in a chair feeding Taylor for a week straight, I loved every minute of it. They change so fast and I wanted to soak up every second of this teeny baby that would be changing almost daily. They grow up too fast!! Tomorrow he will be three weeks old and I want to cry my eyes out. Where have the past three weeks gone?! Before I know it he will be big like his brothers and be in to all kinds of trouble. I told him that he has to stop growing, but he won't listen. So in the mean time, I will be loving every minute I have while he's still little.