Good morning, here's the news, and all of it is good!

That's a fantastic song called "The News" by Carbon/Silicon. Look it up, give it a listen. Worth it.

So hey! Lots to share. Easiest way to do it is chronologically, so here goes.

Friday, Oct 29 - Romelie and I did go cheer on BSM's volleyball team, but Romelie got fussy and we left after the second game and didn't stay for the Halloween stuff. S'okay.

Saturday, Oct 30 - Carved one pumpkin, painted the other. It was pretty awesome - Romelie painted a smiley face, which I didn't know she could do (I've only seen scribbles and dots before, so this was pretty advanced art to me). Ended up skipping the leaf crawl because it was too close to the start of Kaelin's birthday party. Heard it was fun, though! Kaelin's party was pretty fantastic. Nothing like watching a dozen toddlers in a Build-a-Bear Workshop. All in all, a tiring but fun Saturday.

Sunday, Oct 31 - Happy Halloween! We went to church in the morning then went home to watch the Vikings lose again. Boo. After her nap, my mom and I got Romelie dressed up in her Tinkerbell costume and we went Trick-or-Treating for the first time! We went to my Grandma Hurley's house and around her neighborhood, then to my Grandma and Grandpa Schwantz's house and around their neighborhood. Romelie was really well-behaved, very polite, and super excited to say "trick or treat" or "happy halloween" to all the neighbors. Good times. Went home, went to bed around 9:30.

Monday, Nov 1 - Woke up shortly after midnight with horrible stomach pain. Felt like the stomach flu. Watched a movie since I couldn't sleep. Finally threw up all of my dinner (ew) around 3:00 am. Tried to sleep through stomach pain. Threw up again around 5:30. Tried to eat a piece of toast and drink some water and blue Gatorade. Threw up again around 7:45. Hmm. I had a doctor's appointment at 9:30, so my mom drove me there about 30 minutes early to see if I could get in to see someone sooner. They hooked me up to the fetal heart monitor to make sure baby was okay (she was). Around this time, I also started to have contractions. Hmm. I then spoke with all three of the doctors I had seen throughout my pregnancy and they said that because I was scheduled to be induced on Tuesday anyway (I was? News to me!), they were going to send me over to the hospital immediately to (a) monitor me and the baby, (b) give me fluids if necessary to make sure I wasn't dehydrated, and (c) see if they could get me in to be induced a day early. Called Chason at work, told him to go home and gave a huge list of stuff I needed him to gather together to bring to the hospital since I hadn't had any warning to pack a bag first!

To the hospital. Got checked into a sort of waiting room with a bed around 10:00. They started monitoring my contractions as well as baby's heart rate and told me I was about 1-1/2 cm dialated. Chason arrived around 11:00, and we hung out until about 3:00 not knowing whether I was in early labor or whether a room would open up for me to be induced or whether they would eventually send me home. Meanwhile, contractions are starting to occur every 4-5 minutes and getting a bit more intense. Finally they saw that I had progressed to 3 cm and was about 70% effaced, decided I was actually in labor, and moved us to a labor & delivery room. It's happening all on it's own - yippee!

Once in the room, contractions slow down. We watched nearly all of season 3 of "30 Rock." I paced. I waited. Maybe around 7:00 or so, contractions start to pick up and get pretty intense. My mom brings Romelie by to see us, but I'm not doing so well at this point and they don't stay long. Around 9:30, they check my cervix again--still 3 cm, 70%. What? Yup. So now my doctor suggests that because I really haven't had any sleep, I should try to sleep and they can check me in the morning and maybe start pitocin then if labor isn't progressing on its own. Um, you want me to sleep through these contractions? How? They had me take a bath to try to relax and then gave me three drugs around 11:00 - a sleeping pill orally, something in my IV (maybe that was morphine?), and some other shot in my butt. I didn't ask; I was in pain. Well, that lessened the pain just a smidge and definitely made me woozy and out of it, so I laid on my side for a couple of hours...but the pain was only slightly less intense, definitely noticable enough that I couldn't sleep through it, and finally got back up to the point where I was in some serious pain. So they checked my cervix again - and I was at 6-7 cm. Whoa! Guess we're not waiting until morning!

Tuesday, Nov 2 - Now here comes the big decision that I regret, but with understanding that in the end, it doesn't matter. Would you like to (a) get an epidural to deal with the horrible pain, or (b) have the doctor break your water to speed this thing up, but then no possible pain relief? I moaned through half a dozen more contractions, debating that decision with myself. No I don't want an epidural. Also, I don't think I can handle greater pain than this. Finally, mid-contraction, I gave in - fine, get me an epidural! They page the anethesiologist, but it takes about 10 minutes for him to arrive. By this time, the pain is pretty unbearable (and I'm at 7 cm). It takes another five minutes for him to actually get the epidural in, and then he says that it'll probably take another five minutes for the effects to kick in. I lay down and moan my way through another contraction, sit up - and my water breaks. Wow. With Romelie, my water broke after the epidural. I neither saw nor felt it. This I saw, I felt, and I started to panic. It was excessive. After 2-3 contractions with no pain relief, I started to get really scared. It's not working, it's not working, when is it going to work? I was so ready for that complete absence of pain I remember from my first delivery, when it didn't happen, I got scared. Finally, I had a horrible, horrible contraction that actually started forcing my body to push before I'm allowed, and I LOST it. I mean, I'd been moaning and crying until this point, but I screamed and screamed HELP! over and over. I knew I was losing it, I knew I was probably scaring Chason (not to mention any other patients unfortunate enough to hear me), and I knew the doctors were trying really hard to calm my crazy ass down, but I had lost control of my body and it scared the heck out of me. I'm telling you - I know lots of women do the whole childbirth with no pain medication at all, but I now know that I should not have been one of those women. Unfortunately, I had made the decision about the epidural too late, so I never got any pain relief from it.

Course, I'll still have to pay for it. Stupid!

Anyway...that was the worst point. The contractions over the next 10 minutes or so were just as bad as that, but I was (mostly) able to force myself to stay (relatively) calm(er) and breathe through them. And suddenly - 10 cm! Time to push? No!

What?

The supervising doctor had been called in but she wasn't there yet. Since Dr. McEvoy is a resident, we need to try to wait until the doctor arrives. Seriously? Screw that. Fortunately, while my body continued to push against my will, and I tried to prevent that and breathe through it, I also knew that it wasn't as dangerous as before so I wasn't panicking about it. And the doc arrived probably 5 minutes later, and they had me push - and it only took 3 pushes! Well, 3 sets of 3 - each time you have a contraction, you do 3 pushes total. First set I wasn't pushing very hard at all - I had to kind of remember how that worked. Second set I pushed super hard - and then had to stop with baby's head partway out. Gross and ow. Everyone's telling me she has hair. Who cares? Get her out!! Third set I push and push and push again, and out she comes. Oh my God. It's over.

We have another baby girl.

Coraline May Dancer was born at 2:48 am. She was 7 lbs, 8 oz, and 20 inches long.

Let's now zoom through the events of the last 6 days. My mom and my dad got to visit Cori, as we call her, in the hospital, and my brother actually flew home from Chicago for 24 hours so he could see her, too! Romelie came to visit and seemed ambivalent-to-friendly towards her baby sister. My pastor Jamie stops by as does my old classmate, now doctor himself, Greg Dukinfield. I had very little tearing and no stitches and Cori's very healthy, so we get permission to leave Wednesday around noon. My mom helps take care of Romelie (not to mention our home, which she cleaned from top to bottom - thanks, mom!) while we adjust to life with a newborn again. Friday we go in to the breastfeeding clinic because nursing hurts just as much as it did with Romelie and it's getting worse instead of better. I get a few helpful tips as well as a magical, though inconvenient, tool called a breast shield. I now use it nearly every time we nurse, though I hope this isn't a permanent problem.

As for Cori, she is a very chill baby. She really only cries for two reasons. One is when she's hungry. Easy - feed her. The other is when you lay her down. More problematic. She sleeps in your arms, but she won't sleep in her bassinet. So we're co-sleeping currently. Which makes me nervous, but we both need to sleep, so we're doing it for now. Bronwyn and Shane co-slept with Greta and apparently there's something you can buy to help keep her safe and make sure no one rolls over on her, so we're looking into that.

As for Romelie, she seems to like her sister well enough, though her behavior in the last week has been pretty whiny and defiant. Since she's been acting this way for a while now, it's hard to tell if it's baby-related or just 2-almost-3-year-old related. Time will tell.

Gramma Carol just left for home, but Grandmommy Diane arrived yesterday, so we've got great help and support. We've made visits to Great Grandparents' homes the last two nights, and we will be heading to see Dr. Mike Dukinfield in about 20 minutes for her one-week check up. So even though there's plenty more to share and lots of things I've missed, I think this is officially my longest blog entry to date, so I'm signing off so I can go give that sleeping baby a big smooch.