Sweet Annalee

She's here!

So let me tell you all about it!

I was scheduled to be induced on Tuesday, so Monday was crazy busy as I did all the laundry and cleaned up the house and did all the last minute things I wanted to do before bringing another child into this crazy world.

We stayed Monday night at Jason's parents' house so the kids wouldn't need to be disturbed on Tuesday morning since we needed to be at the hospital by 6:30 am. I didn't really sleep at all that night, so with the exhaustion from doing too much on Monday, plus not sleeping, I knew Tuesday would be real fun.... I was hoping I'd get in a little catnap during my epidural. (That didn't happen though.)

Here's my last shot of this pregnancy on the morning of:

They got me all checked in and set up and started the pitocin at 7:20. About an hour later they broke my water... which is just a bizarre feeling of utter wetness. (With Sam and Livia I already had an epidural when they broke it.) I got an epidural at 9:30 (yes, I am a pansy and proud of it.) At 10 they checked and said I was about a 3. At 11:10 the doctor came in and checked again and said I had made it to a 4. At 12 a nurse came in and said it looked like I had probably progressed quite a bit by the look of my contractions and checked.... and said, "yep, you're complete." I was really confused how I went from a 4 to a 10 in 45 minutes, so I was suddenly really nervous and anxious.... and then she left. And they didn't come back until 12:25. I was surprised and wanted to ask them if they had never seen the movies.... babies come the second you reach a 10, right? Nope! You can lay in bed for another 30 minutes! Finally they told me to start pushing... and a few minutes later, out popped this amazingly gray little body.... but there was no noise. Which freaked me out... but she just didn't want to take her first breath. He cleaned her mouth out and she announced her entrance into this world. But only for about 3 seconds. Then she was done making noise for a while.

She scored 9 and 9 on her Apgar test. She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, and was 20 inches long. She is adorable and so sweet. Very sleepy, but sweet.

And Daddy fell in love again:



And so did Mommy.



Later that day Jason's parents came to meet her. They brought Sam and Livia to see their new baby sister. They were interested for about 3 minutes. Then the 'exoticness' of the hospital room overtook them. Those big curtains are just way too much fun. But at least they let me get a couple of pictures while they were still interested.


We were able to hang out in the hospital until Thursday. Jason was a trooper and stayed the nights there with me, even though the couch bed was less than inviting.

I think the most challenging part of this delivery was choosing a name. (As so many people already know! Sorry it took so long!) This process seems to get harder with each child... so we're in for a real treat when #4 comes along. We debated and discussed this topic several hours each day we were there with very little progress! (This topic could be a post of its own. So maybe I'll do that for any interested readers.)

To make the long story short, we decided on Annalee Ray Cook.

Thursday we packed up our stuff and our new little family member and made the trip home to start our new life as a family of 5.


Most of the family has been adapting well... apparently Cowboy is a little jealous and wants to not be forgotten as "the baby of the family."

We'll be keeping a close eye on that one....

And sorry for the side-ways-ness of this picture, but 2 weeks before Annie was born, Jason's younger sister, Shelly, had a baby boy. I'm sure they'll be the best of cousin-friends.

Here's Bennett and Annie, meeting for the first time:


So yeah, that's the story. We now have this precious bundle of joy, and the kids have way more interest in her now that the available curtains are boring... luckily they don't smother her too much though...

But we're just so happy she's here, and she's healthy, and she's beautiful.