Alice Rhoda Hook

It's a girl!

On May 1st at 2:04pm we welcomed sweet Alice into the world. She was 8 lbs. 7 oz and 21 inches long. And it has been confirmed: I have officially the worst mother's intuition on the planet.

Her birth story was quite different than both big brother and big sister. I checked into the hospital just after midnight on my due date (May 1) in order to start receiving my strep B antibiotics, which needed to be administered twice, four hours apart. The idea was that I'd be hooked up to antibiotics and just sleep that night before my official induction started in the morning. Why an induction? It was honestly for convenience mostly. But it was also a combination of being positive for Strep B (so guaranteed antibiotics), having fast labors with both my first two, getting maximum days with Jono off work (He took Thursday + his regular day off Friday, and the next week = 11 days total), and avoiding Clara's birthday (May 3rd). Of course it would've been nice to go into labor before my scheduled induction, but in many ways it worked out really well despite.

Of course the part about sleeping the night before the induction was good in theory but ridiculous in reality. Nurses coming in and out, being hooked up to monitors and IVs, anxiety about what in the world was about to happen in the coming hours. It didn't create the best sleeping environment. Jonathan may have slept about two hours but I am not certain I slept at all.

The induction started (with petocin) around 8am. After laboring all morning, I was about five centimeters dilated just before noon. With Caleb I was induced and turned down any pain meds until it was too late. My early labor was slow but I went from a five to a ten in less than an hour and pushed him out (sunny-side-up) in a matter of minutes. My doctor didn't make it (the resident doc delivered) and the recovery was very hard. I knew I could probably do that whole story again but couldn't bear the thought of the recovery again (especially with THREE kids at home). So after going back and forth and back and forth about choosing an epidural, I went ahead and got one just after noon. And let me tell you. It was a very good decision (for me, for this time around at least). For the first time, my doctor actually made it to deliver my baby and for the first time I actually remember the moment she was born and the moment we found out she was a she. I might even go so far as to say it was my best birth story yet :).

We are absolutely head over heals with Miss Alice. She is the perfect little addition to our family. And Clara has a sister. A SISTER. I can hardly even handle the thought. It makes me so excited. I'm hoping five years age difference might spare them some comparison, since they likely won't be in the same world really growing up (Clara will be a senior in high school while Alice is a seventh grader, a sixth grader when Alice is in first grade). But hopefully it will develop over time into a sweet relationship that grows through the years and into adulthood. I can't think of life without my sister!

And sweet Caleb. I swear to you I am going to catch up on this blog and fill in the large gaping holes. When I do, I'll update all about Mr. Bugs who is the sweetest, goofiest little guy in the planet. He is the perfect little middle man, little brother and big brother both. Hopefully he can stand his ground sandwiched between all the estrogen. Time will tell.

And we are adjusting well. More to come on that later. For now, many have asked about her name. Alice has been on our short list of girls names since we first started brainstorming names, pre-Clara. We love that it's sweet and simple and classic. We can picture a three year old Alice in pigtails and an eighty year old woman, just like the handful of Alice's Jonathan has treated in their eighties & nineties. Rhoda, her middle name, is after Jonathan's grandma (his dad's mom). Rhoda Hook grew up in California, put herself through school working in a cannery, got her masters degree in an age when few women pursued that kind of education and then went on to marry Jono's grandpa and have four boys. Whew! She loved the Lord and people well. We'd love for Alice Rhoda to follow in her footsteps.

And like I mentioned before, I will start blogging again, by golly. I have hated watching this little space die. It might not be updated as frequently as it once was, but I love the way it tells the story of our family. And I'm just not ready to give up quite yet. I'm hoping to work backwards and fill in the massive gaps. So one day I will read this post and have no idea that it, at one point, was my first post in something like nine months ;). If you somehow check this space after all this time, good on ya (as they'd say in Oz). And if nobody is out there and this is entirely for our little family, that is just fine too!