Harper Jean

Since we have been asked a few times, here's the story of Harper's name:

Lucy is named after three grandmas (my paternal grandma, my maternal great-grandma, and Evan's maternal great-grandma). Lucy's middle name is my middle name- Nichole. We like the idea of family names, but couldn't find one that we felt right about. So, after a few months of thinking, I heard the name Harper somewhere. I told Evan and we started calling the little one Harper that day. It just felt right. We already had a middle name picked out (Jean after my mom's middle name and my great-aunts first name). We liked Harper because we were able to name her after both grandmas. Evan's mom is a professional harpist so we were able to name her in honor of her grandma Pack by using her beautiful talent. We love the idea that our girls are named after special people in our lives and their ancestors. 

Harper's birth story:

At 12:30 am on the 4th I woke up with awful stomach craps. I tried to go back to sleep but every couple of minutes I was rolled up in a ball (I now know they were contractions). I went out to the couch so I didn't wake Evan up and watched TV for about an hour. I took a bath to ease the pain and drank a ton of water hoping it would stop and I could sleep. After a while, I decided to start timing these "cramps". I was in pain for about a minute and a half every three minutes for 5 hours before I woke Evan up and told him that I think we should go get things checked out. He quickly jumped out of bed ready to go, but I hadn't packed a thing and really wanted to shower. So I showered and packed while Evan sat nervously kindly trying to get me to hurry. I pack a few things for Lucy for the day in case I wasn't coming home. Evan woke my sister up and have her the monitor and asked if she could watch Lucy until we found a sitter.

We arrived at the hospital around 6:30 am and they monitored me for about an hour. I progressed enough to be admitted. That's when things got real for me. Even though I was past my due date, I didn't expect to meet this little girl for a few more days. We moved from triage to the labor room and sat for a while. I was added to the list for the anesthesiologist. That was a slice of heaven! 

My OB was on call at the hospital all weekend so we missed him by half an hour (he was off at 6am) so I had the new on call doctor. I don't think we could have been luckier.  If I could have asked for a second choice doctor, it would be him. 

Dr Haskett came in around 2 pm and broke my water and contractions stopped. Like no movement on the screen. So the started pitocin around 3 and they picked up pretty quick. At 4:30 I was ready to push. I pushed for about 15 minutes and a nurse came in telling the doctor that he had an emergency in the next room. He left for a second, came back and told me to stop pushing! WHAT? He had to leave for an emergency c-section. He was gone for about a half an hour and I sat waiting. And waiting. And waiting. When he came back, three more pushes and Harper was born at 5:38 weighing 7 lb 6 oz and was 19 inches long. She had the cord wrapped around her neck a few times but the doctor said it wasn't really tight so her breathing was ok. We feel so blessed to have a safe and semi-easy labor.  She is healthy and perfect.