The Barrons: It's a GIRL! The birth of our Chandler Rose

What an exciting and bittersweet moment, the birth of our last baby! Our sweetest Chandler was born at 1:23 am on October 19th. Here is the story of her very special day!

Brayden had his soccer game the morning of Saturday the 18th. So like we always do, all four of us loaded up and spent the morning at the soccer field...Not knowing this would be our very last outing as a family of four! Sterling is at a fun stage where she too enjoys playing soccer and often runs out onto the soccer field in the middle of play. We often have to dart out onto the soccer field scooping Sterling up to avoid her getting pummeled on the field. This morning was no exception and near the end of the game I darted up and out of my seat and grabbed Sterling faster than any pregnant woman has ever done! Many parents laughed and joked saying surely that was going to be what put me into labor...little did we know!
We spent the rest of the afternoon at home, we all got in a little afternoon nap (a ritual I had fully embraced during this third pregnancy) and throughout the day I had been having some pretty noticeable contractions. Earlier in the week, on the 14th I saw my OB for my 38 week appointment. We went ahead and scheduled an induction date for Friday, October 24, a little early with my original due date being the 29th. At my appointment she told me I was still dilated 2 cm (same as last week at 37 weeks) but that my cervix felt much different and that she thought I probably would not make it to my induction date. SO, labor was definitely on my radar and I was taking the contractions a little more seriously. The night before I had some pretty consistent contractions, so much that I spent much of the night timing them and wondering is this it?! Needless to say I didn't get much sleep and sleep was already hard to come by at this point. So, when my contractions continued into Saturday I wondered if I ought to just go get checked "just in case" so I could maybe rest a little easier at night. Now, I never wanted to be "that pregnant lady" who goes to the hospital only to be turned away with a false alarm especially something dramatic like in the middle of the night! At about 5:00 Brian and I agreed I should just go and get checked and I decided (and convinced Brian) that it probably was nothing and that he didn't even need to bother coming with me. SO, I put the finishing touches on my suitcase (just in case!) and left Brian feeding the kids dinner and drove my self over to the hospital and got checked in at labor and delivery. I told the nurses what I was experiencing and again said it was probably nothing but I just wanted to be sure and being that it was a Saturday evening they weren't very busy and went ahead and just put me in a room to get checked. After being checked they told me I was not quite at a 3 but monitoring my contractions they were pretty consistent and some of them were quite big. That being said, I was not 39 weeks yet so there was nothing they were allowed to do to progress labor. The on call doctor (Dr. Farhart) came to see me and suggested that I spend a couple hours there, let them monitor me, walk around a bit, and that he would come back and check on me and send me home if I wasn't progressing. I called Brian (who was on pins and needles at home) and told him again it probably wasn't anything and that I was probably coming home but I was going to walk some laps on the labor and delivery floor and would call him as soon as I knew something. He called his parents and they were on call just in case we needed them to come watch the kids and they decided to just head over to our house. After a couple of hours waiting and doing some laps on the labor and delivery floor Dr. Farhart came and checked me again, I had made quite a bit of progress and he said they were going to go ahead and admit me! Within minutes he was back in my room and was breaking my water (even before Brian had arrived!) I inherited difficult veins from my dad and inserting an IV is always a painful ordeal which usually also involves me fainting or getting close to fainting. This time was no exception and the nurses finally got the IV in on the fourth prick-ouch!! My hands and arms were bruised for days! Lucky for Brian, all of the needle fun happened before he arrived! My last two deliveries I went the natural route not using any kind of medication except the local at the time of delivery. My labor and delivery with Sterling was quite painful and even though time had softened the memory of the pain some, Brian and I both remembered it being a tough experience! With that being said I was still on the fence whether I would get an epidural this time around. After Brian got the the hospital we talked about it some more and even though I am terrified of needles and hate the feeling of being numb I decided to go ahead and get the epidural. The epidural itself was fine, not near what I was expecting. A little while after I got the epidural I was still feeling the pain from my contractions and was thinking "I didn't do this epidural for nothing!" so when the anesthesiologist came back to check on me he upped the dose of the medication and I had NO feeling after that. Sadly, the numbness was exactly what I feared-it feels so disgusting and I hated not being able to feel or lift my legs!!! My lower half was completely and utterly numb and for some reason it freaks me out! A little while after receiving the epidural my blood pressure kept dropping which kept making me feel like I was going to faint (oh joy) so I spent most of the time with an oxygen mask-never a dull moment around here! But luckily I no longer felt any labor pains and I progressed pretty quickly after that.

Just after Brian got to the hospital about 10:15

Getting ready for my first epidural! 11:00

Embarrasing at the time but laughable looking back!

At 1:23 AM on October 19 we welcomed our third child, our baby girl Chandler Rose Barron into the world. At 7.9 pounds and 19.5 inches long she was perfect and the perfect addition to our little family. We didn't know the gender of "baby barron" until she arrived and it was a fun and exciting surprise for us all!

Proud Daddy!

Remember our other kids?! Well GaGa and PaPa put them to sleep and went ahead and stayed at our house for the night. I don't think either one of them were able to get much sleep and we were so thankful they were able to be there for Brayden and Sterling during Chandler's birth. Unfortunately they weren't both able to come and meet Chandler when she was born but PaPa was our first visitor and the very first family member to meet sweet Chandler. Here is PaPa at about 2:30 am meeting Chandler for the very first time:

Brian took this picture right before he left the house to meet his newest baby girl!

Very sadly our "good camera" somehow got stuck on a strange setting and all of the pictures we had taken in the hospital after Chandlers birth were pitch black. So unfortunately all of our pictures of the kids meeting their baby sister are not there along with most of our visitors and some of our first hours and day with Chandler. Thank goodness for our iPhones though and we luckily have some pictures and videos we took those first couple of days!