She's here!

In case you've been wondering, we have a new baby!  Cynthia Johnson Mott was born at 1:43 a.m. on Monday, October 18th.  She weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces, and was 20 inches long.  We just got home from the hospital yesterday, and are both doing great.

If you're interested, here's the long and detailed birth story (if not, skip straight to pictures):

On Sunday I started having contractions about every 5 minutes while I was at church.  They weren't painful or anything, but I did wonder if they would turn into something real.  When I got home from church I walked on the treadmill for a half hour to keep the contractions going.  The rest of the day we kept going back and forth between thinking it was going to happen and thinking it wasn't - by Sunday evening, they were starting to feel more like actual labor contractions, so we got all cleaned up from dinner and put the kids to bed early.  Then we just sat around and waited.  The contractions were starting to feel more uncomfortable, but the timing was getting more sporadic.  I really wanted to wait until the last minute possible before going to the hospital (probably not the smartest approach on a sixth baby, but I always handle labor much better in my own home than when I'm laying in a hospital bed.  I feel like the labor before I get to the hospital doesn't really have to count for some reason). 

Anyway, I had decided to wait until I was pretty miserable before leaving to go to the hospital, and that never happened, so around 10:45 I just went to bed.  Even though the contractions had been building up until then, I thought for sure they would stop while I slept, and maybe pick up again the next day, because I've never gone into labor in the middle of the night before.  Sure enough, about 10 minutes after going to bed, they stopped, and I was able to go to sleep.  About an hour later, I woke up, not from a contraction, but because Elizabeth was yelling at the top of her lungs for me to come upstairs and tuck her in (still not sure why she needed this).  I walked upstairs, tucked her in, and then walked back downstairs, and I guess that was all it took, because as soon as I got back in bed I had a really big contraction.  Exactly two minutes later I had another one, and after a few more two minutes apart, I woke up Daniel and told him what was going on.  I gathered up my things and he called my friend Debbie, who came right over.  I wasted about 10 minutes trying to tell Debbie every last random detail that she might need to know if she ended up needing to help the kids get ready for school in the morning.  She and Daniel finally convinced me that everything would be fine and we should probably get going.

We got checked into the hospital around 12:30.  When they checked me I was dilated to a six (which made me happy, because I had been dreading that I would only be at a four or something).  The contractions had continued to come every two minutes since they started, but I was able to cope with them okay.  I had read a hypnobirthing book that had some really helpful breathing exercises/methods in it, and I felt much more calm during the contractions than I have during some of my other labors.  After about an hour I did get to the panicky "oh, no, I can't do this anymore, what was I thinking, how much longer is this going to go on?" stage, but soon after that I felt like I was ready to push.  My doctor checked me and I was at a 9 plus.  When her head came out, the cord was wrapped around her neck, so they had to stop and cut the cord, but after that she was born quickly with no problems.  She was born at 1:43, so exactly 2 hours after the first big contraction at home, and only 1 hour and 15 minutes after getting to the hospital.

It was the best feeling after she was born.  I was so relieved to be done!  For some reason I had really been stressed out about the labor the last few weeks of this pregnancy.  The nurses were laughing at me because pretty much the first thing I said after she was born was something like, "Oh, I'm just so glad I never have to do that again!" (we're pretty sure 6 is our limit).

Anyway, she is healthy and happy and we all love her.

Here are tons of pictures:


Me right before leaving for the hospital.  Trying to smile, even though I'm pretty sure I was having a contraction right then.

With our new baby girl:

Happy mom:

Tired baby:

Daniel brought everyone to see her on Monday after the older kids got home from school:

They were all so excited to be able to see her and take turns holding her (some of these pictures are from the first day they visited, and some are from the second, which explains the different outfits):

Tristan:

Oliver:

Rachel: 

Elizabeth:

Henry:

Dad:

Still happy (and tired) mom:

Me with my six children.  Yikes!

Cynthia.  We think she looks like Rachel in real life (except with dark hair), but in pictures she reminds me a lot of Henry.  We'll see - I always think my kids end up looking way different than they do the first few weeks.

 

At home from the hospital:

Where everyone is so happy to have her!

Late

Well, this baby is now officially two days late.  It's starting to feel a little crowded.

 


















Henry is still doing his best to prepare for when she finally does come.  Here he is taking care of a baby pony (which he named Genevieve).  If you can't tell, he is singing "Sing, Sweet Nightingale" from Cinderella (we don't even own that movie, but I checked it out from the library once, and apparently that song made a big impression on Henry). 

My favorite part is when he decides to cook Genevieve some oatmeal, and he even gets a pot out and starts looking for oats in the pantry, but after realizing he has no idea what to do next, he changes his mind and says, "actually, I'll just get some Chex for the baby." 

September

September went by super fast to me, probably because it was the last month to try to get anything done before this baby comes. 

I still tried to get some swimming in with Elizabeth and Henry after school started.  It felt weird walking to the pool with just two kids instead of five, though.  All the summer crowds are gone, and usually when we went we were the only ones there, which was fun.

September was also a big football month.  Tristan and Oliver each have practice 3 times a week and a game every Saturday.  Their first games were in Houston (about a 2 1/2 hour drive).  It was fun, though, because we got to see Daniel's brother Anthony and his wife Amber, who are living in Houston right now.  They met us at the game and entertained the kids the whole time.

More football pics:

At one of Tristan's games it started pouring rain a couple of times.  It felt good at first (September is so hot in Texas!), but by the end everyone was soaking wet.

Coach Mott/Dad talking to Ollie's team after one of their games.  They have a great team this year - they are 5 and 0 so far. 

It gets long sitting through two games in a row with all of the kids, especially since we have to be at the games an hour early, so I usually drop Daniel and Oliver off for warmups (their game is always before Tristan's) and then take the other kids to a park to play around until the first game starts.

It also helps to have good friends to play with during the games.  A few families in our ward have kids on Oliver's team, so during Ollie's games, the kids have great buddies to play with. 

Henry has gotten good at entertaining himself in the stroller:

Watching the game from the sidelines (about 2 seconds after this picture was taken, he made a break for the field.  He so wants to be a football player).

Mostly so he can wear a helmet.  The two things he always mentions when he talks about his plans for when he's "big" are being a football player with a helmet, and jumping off the bridge in Yosemite.  He thinks his life will be complete if he can accomplish those two things. 

The girls also think they are football players:

But that's okay, because Henry also thinks he is Sleeping Beauty.  Seriously, this is his favorite dress.  He always accessorizes with weapons of some sort, but it still makes the boys of the family too uncomfortable to allow it for much longer than the time it takes me to take a picture.

There, that's better. (He's still a little pouty about the fact that his brothers took away his Sleeping Beauty dress, though):

Another day, another popular look for Henry - all dressed up, minus the pants:

And minus everything else:

Other September things:

Oliver usually makes his way home from school a little later than everyone else, and it's almost always because he's been combing the woods for some sort of creature to bring home.  Henry has started waiting by the window with excitement to see the lizard that he's just sure Ollie's bringing home for him:

Rachel's dance class had a "bring a friend" day, and Elizabeth, in quite possible the most exciting day of her life, got to be the honored guest:

I started looking through the dress-up clothes with the kids to get ideas for possible Halloween costumes (normally it's the week of Halloween that we're scrambling to do this, but I know that once this baby comes I will be of no help, so I wanted to get it out of the way beforehand).  Henry's pretty sure he wants to be Darth Vader (of course), but he had fun trying on all the costumes.  Here he is as a dashing pirate, although for some reason he thinks he's a king (see video clip):

Rachel in one of her costume creations:

(She has since changed her mind, and I think she's going to be a fairy.  I never know, though - I always have to plan on much changing of minds with the girls.)

So is there anything else I should be doing to get ready for number 6 (due in less than a week now!) besides get Halloween costumes all set?  That's the most imporant thing, right?  I feel like I have a to-do list a mile long, but instead of actually doing things I need to be doing, I'll spend time on random projects like cleaning out and organzing all the toy buckets. Or the medicine cabinet.  Seriously, I did both these things this week before I even brought in any baby girl clothes from the garage. 

At least Henry is getting prepared.  He has never shown any interest in babies, so I introduced him to one of the girls' dolls.  He has been practicing carrying it around softly and patting it and saying "sh, sh, sh" before tossing it to the ground and abandoning it.  I'm sure this will translate into super big brother skills in real life, right?

We are all getting excited for our new little girl to get here - I'll keep everyone posted (hopefully).