The Farnsworth Family: Charlotte Ellen Farnsworth

We are so excited to welcome the newest member of our family! Charlotte Ellen Farnsworth was born on Wednesday, September 7, 2016 at 5:40 pm. This beautiful girl weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and was 20 inches long. It was a hard process getting her here but we are so happy she is finally with us.

I have not written a whole lot about this pregnancy but it was an interesting pregnancy. After having Logan, I knew we would have more kids but I really just wanted to take a break and wait for a little while. I just felt really overwhelmed with three and I also felt like because Colby and Logan are pretty close in age it seemed like we missed Colby's baby years. So I wanted to wait and we did. Then exactly one year ago, I was folding laundry and watching a movie with the kids and I had this very strong impression that there was another baby waiting to come to our family. I knew that it was going to be a girl and I knew that her name was going to be Charlotte Ellen. Charlotte after my best friend since 9th grade, and Ellen after my Grandma Morwood. At the time, I was training for the marathon that was just a few weeks away. Even though the impression was quite strong, I wanted to keep running so I kind of ignored it for a few months. Still the impression was there and kept nagging at me until I decided it was time. It took a bit and I decided to stop running completely in November. By December, I found out I was pregnant. We were so excited and I knew at that moment that this little girl was coming to our family. On my 20 week ultrasound, we were able to find out the gender but I already knew it was a girl so I was not surprised when the ultrasound tech confirmed that. I have never had such an impression as that with any of my kids so I know this little Charlotte is going to be a special member of our family. We love her so much!

Like I said before, this pregnancy was quite interesting though. For the first 3 months I don't think I got off the couch at all... I was so tired and nauseated. Luckily I never threw up but I just had no energy at all. The second trimester was better in that I was finally not sick. But that was when the pains set in. I could not sit on the couch or recliner or even lay down in bed for longer than a few minutes before my sciatica would flare up and it hurt so bad. The nights were the worst. I could not lay on my side or back or anyway to prevent the sciatic pain. There were nights I would cry and just pace the floor all night to try and relieve the pain in my legs and butt. No pain relieving medicine worked, occasionally heat packs helped but not always. When I asked the doctor what I could do besides just suffer in silence, he just said "I'm sorry." He said unfortunately it is just part of some pregnancies and it will go away after the baby is born. I finally got a maternity back brace and tried that and it seemed to help a little bit during the day. Finally and thankfully, the pain went away when I got into the third trimester! I could finally sleep (with a million pillow of course) and sit on a soft chair! The third trimester was much better and I enjoyed being pregnant and feeling the baby move and kick inside of me. The kids loved to put their hands on my belly and feel the baby move too. They got so excited when the baby kicked them.

In the last few weeks of the pregnancy, Dr. Horsely striped my membranes probably four times and kept asking me if I wanted to be induced or just wait or what I wanted to do. I told him I was fine and could wait. To tell you the truth, and I hope this doesn't sound bad, I wasn't in any big hurry to have this baby. I knew she was fine and moving around so I wasn't worried about her. I had a lot to do getting Emily and Colby ready to start school and preparing for the baby by making blankets and freezer meals, and I knew once the baby came I wouldn't be doing anything for a while except holding and loving on the baby.

My official due date was September 4 or Labor Day. Everyone thought it would be cool to actually go into labor on Labor Day. My doctor was out of town for that holiday weekend so I did not want to have the baby until he got back... Before he left out of town, he had me come in for a non-stress test to make sure the baby was not stressed and the heartbeat was fine. The baby passed the non-stress test and everything was fine. The next Tuesday after my due date, we did an ultrasound to make sure everything was still OK and the baby was still fine. The baby and I passed the ultrasound and everything was fine so the doctor striped my membranes again and asked me what I wanted to do. I was still only dilated to a 1-2 and was about 75% effaced. My parents were coming up to stay with the kids for the next couple of days and it was Russell's last day on shift so I told him we could induce the next day if that was fine. He said that would be great so we scheduled to be induced the next day. I finally felt like I had everything done and the kids would be taken care of while I was gone so I felt it was a good time.

When getting induced here you are supposed to call the Labor and Delivery floor at 5:00 am to get on the list and scheduled for the day. I told the doctor that Russell didn't get home from work until 8:30 so I didn't want to go in that early. He said to just call at 7:30 then and you will just go in later in the day. So that morning I got a phone call at 5:30 am from the L&D nurse asking me why I hadn't called. (So much for getting one last night of good sleep!) I told her what the doctor said and that Russell wasn't home so I couldn't come in at 6:30 when they wanted me to. She said okay. Then they called me again at 7:30 and wanted me to come in so I told them the same story. They said okay they would call another lady to come in first and then just call later today when they had an opening. It was so confusing to them for some reason but I told them that would be just fine I could wait. Russell finally got home and we walked my parents through the routine and showed them where the kids classrooms were at school. Finally at 11:30 they called me to come in. It was go time! Russell and I grabbed our bags and headed to the hospital. I was getting ready to have this baby! Here is my before picture:

And here is the after picture! Isn't she the cutest thing ever!

Our nurse, Ruth, was really great. She was so nice and tried to make me so comfortable. She said I couldn't eat anything except ice or a Popsicle and then asked if we had eaten lunch. In the rush to get to the hospital, we forgot to eat. Because of this, every time she asked if I needed anything, I told her I needed a sandwich! She just laughed and said it would be ready in about 5 hours and then she would bring it out.

They started the pitocin at about 12:30 and the contractions started. They were not too bad but they were there. They also started the antibiotic because I tested positive for Group F Strep. By 3:30 or 4:00 I was dilated to about a 4 I think so the doctor came in and broke my water. This is when I really started to feel the contractions. The laboring part was not that bad this time because Ruth had me try different positions to help with the pain. She knew I didn't want an epidural and was very supportive and helpful. Rather than just lying in the bed the whole time, she had me sit in a soft rocking chair and rock through the contractions. Surprisingly sitting and rocking really helped! When the contractions got closer and harder, she had me lie down on my left side with a pillow between my legs. This also helped a ton and opened my pelvis to allow me to dilate more quickly making the labor relatively shorter. I also got a dose of Fentanyl to help with the pain. It did take the edge off but made the room spin so I just had to keep my eyes closed and hold on to the side of the bed. Finally by 4:30 I was at an 8-9 and I felt like I needed to push. They called the doctor to come back and the nurses prepared for delivery. When the doctor got there, he checked me and said I was still and 8-9 and about 95% effaced but a little bit of pushing might help. Then he had some not so good news, rather than facing down, the baby was facing up and he would have to try and rotate her. Okay, no big deal I thought. Little did I know what a big deal it was. Because of her position, her head was just pushing against my pelvic bone rather than pushing down to come out. With every push the doctor tried and tried to rotate the baby. With every painful push the baby was not rotating! The next option was to try and move the head down under the bone. More pushing, more trying to rotate. I was so exhausted. The contractions were about one minute apart with less than 30 seconds rest in between. I had been pushing with all my might every minute for about 45 minutes when I just felt like I couldn't do it anymore. I kept asking Russell what was wrong and why was it taking so long. I told Russell I was so tired and something needed to change. The doctor was trying with all his might to get the baby to move but she wouldn't. (She wanted to come out looking up at the world not down at the floor!) The nurse and Russell just kept telling me to hang on and I was doing great but all I wanted to do was go to sleep. Finally they decided to use the vacuum suction to try and get the baby's head down. They problem was that because the baby was faced up, the only part of the head that was showing was the top and they don't really like to put the vacuum on the top of the head because of the fontanel. Finally after an hour of pushing, a tiny part of the back of the head showed and the doctor was able to position the vacuum behind the fontanel and use it. This last push was the worst ever because of the crowning, or "ring of fire" they call it. But after the head was out, the rest of the beautiful baby came easily. After 5 hours of labor including 1 hour of pushing, my fourth child was born. Through tears in my eyes, I saw the most beautiful baby ever! The poor thing had a pretty beat up head because of the vacuum but other than that she was perfect! As they sat the baby on my chest, and I held her, the last terrible hour was all a blur but all totally worth it. I tore pretty bad and had to have quite a few stitches but I was glad she was finally here.

The first thing I noticed was all of her light brown hair and her eyes as they looked up at me. She had the little cry and I told her it was okay for her to cry because she had been though a hard experience. She cried and whimpered on my chest but seemed to be right at home with me. I was so happy to have her here.

After we got all cleaned up and kind of settled, we had some visitors!

As you can see, the kids were so happy and excited to see their new sister! Grandma and Grandpa Morwood were happy to meet their newest grandchild as well. All the kids wanted to do was hold, hug and kiss their Charlotte. Emily was ecstatic to have a sister. Colby was amazed at how small and cute she was. Logan just wanted to love on her the whole time. We had to get out first family picture too. I can't believe there are now 6 of us!

It was about 10 or 11 pm before we were able to get settled into our room on the Mom and Baby Floor and actually get a little bit of sleep (that is in between the nurses checking you and the baby feedings). I was exhausted and feeling quite sore especially my stomach muscles. It was hard getting in and out of bed. But on the other hand, Charlotte was doing quite well. She had learned to eat quite quickly for a newborn and was quite content just sleeping on my chest. She hated being moved from that position and cried anytime she was take out of her little cocoon on me.

Charlotte was born at 5:40 pm on Wednesday and by about 3 pm on Thursday she still had not had her first bath. Russell and I were pretty annoyed about this. We asked the nurses a few times what the deal was. They told us that some new study was out that said that babies do better when they wait to be given their first bath than when they get bathed right away. Well that's great I thought but I wanted my baby to have a bath. I mean there was still dried blood and junk in her hair! Finally the nurse came in to give her her first bath:

Needless to say, Charlotte had to be taken out of her cocoon and she hated it! She cried the whole time until she was getting her hair washed then she calmed right down and loved getting her hair washed.

When Charlotte was 24 hours old, the nurses did all of the newborn tests like the bilirubin, hearing test, and whatever else they do. It turned out that her bilirubin was slightly high but not too bad, we just needed to get it checked again in a couple of days. Then for some reason she failed her hearing test too. We would need to get that retested in a few days too.

After all of the tests were done, we were given the okay to go home. This was the shortest I have stayed in the hospital with any of my deliveries. We were only there a little over 24 hours and by 8:00 pm we were heading home. Here is Charlotte in her going home outfit:

She was so small in that big car seat! It has been a long time since I put a baby in a car seat. It was a little hard because I wanted to be extra careful.

These two ladies were our nurses on the Mom and Baby Floor. They came to see us off. This was a short stay in the hospital but a good one. The Logan hospital is definitely different than DRMC but it was okay. It was nice to get back to my own house though.

When we got home, the kids were so excited to have their new sister finally home! They all just wanted to play with her and hold her. They boys, especially Logan, did not understand why she couldn't play with them. We had to keep telling them to be soft because she is little.

But in all, they sure love this little girl so much. I love this picture of Colby and Charlotte because it really shows how much this baby is loved in our family. Colby is especially protective of her and is always checking on her and talking to her.