The Sweetest Surprise

Introducing Ada Scarlett Mosey, our sweet daughter born May 20th at 6:50am. She weighed 6 pounds 2 ounces and was 19.25 inches, and basically stunned us by being a girl instead of the boy we kind of thought she would turn out to be!

Down to details! My labor story with Ada was very much like Jude's--fast and furious. We went to our 37 week appointment this week and I was 2 cm. dilated and 70% effaced. My Braxton-Hicks contractions were kicking up more each day and I'd been kind of expecting (hoping?) that this baby would come early like Jude. Wednesday I ran errands for Jude's birthday party and was having painless contractions about every 15 minutes or so throughout the afternoon and into the evening, and Ted had to work late that night so Jude and I went to "house church" Wed. night. I told Ted about them when we got home but said not to get his hopes up and that it could still be weeks away. We grilled out and went to bed around 11.

I woke up at 1:30am to a rather ouchy contraction. I tried to go back to sleep but woke up every few minutes when another one came, so I woke up Ted, who mumbled something about telling him if it got worse and went back to snoring. I waited through 2 more (about 5 minutes apart) and then told him, politely, to get up and pack a bag for the hospital NOW! Jude came quickly and there was no way I was going to dilly-dally getting to the hospital this time! So we got dressed, packed some things, and called Ted's dad to come over and stay with Jude. We hit the McDonald's drive-thru for a large coffee for Ted (because why WOULDN'T you drive though McDonald's while in labor!?) and got to the hospital at 3:30am. I put on a gown, got in bed, and they said I was 5 cm. dilated. The contractions started coming much closer together about an hour later and getting pretty awful, when I was around 7-8 centimeters. Ted and I kind of stopped talking at that point and I guess I went into the glazed-over labor "zone" where you can't really respond to questions or notice what's going on around you and you sort of even freak yourself out, and then the doctor came in to break my water since (just like with Jude) it hadn't happened by 9 cm. The weird thing about unmedicated births is that you can feel the baby sliding down the birth canal with each contraction near the end, and um, it hurts! When the urge to push came I told Ted (or made some kind of dramatic arm motion) to get the doctor and we got her out in 5 contractions. I definitely felt more pain during the pushing phase with Ada than with Jude, but luckily that wasn't a long phase! She was posterior just like Jude (facing up when she was born instead of looking down at the floor, which causes some KILLER back labor) and when she came out and I looked at Ted (who was holding my legs with the nurse and reporting to me what it was looking like down there with every push) he completely choked up and said, "It's a GIRL!" and we just blinked at each other and started laughing and crying at the same time...we had ourselves convinced it was going to be another boy, and boy were we wrong! So, labor was right around 5 hours and we delivered a sweet, perfect, dark haired little girl that we are so anxious to love and mix into our family:) Not to mention looks SO much like her big brother! No special meaning behind the name, we just think Ada is a beautiful, simple, clean name and Scarlett is a little nod to Mama's Southern roots! We're home with her now and settling in. Much, much more to follow....