Welcome Baby Isla!

She really is a girl!  And she's finally here!!!  I shouldn't say finally since she was actually very prompt and came on her own due date.  I was scheduled to be induced at 7am on my due date- mostly because Taylor's sister's wedding is in 9 days and then partly because Miles was 10 days late and that was a rare form of torture I didn't want to relive :)  So my doctor was nice enough to agree to induce me on my due date.  

And then Miles happened.

Wednesday afternoon my mother-in-law called some sprinkler repair men in to fix some thing in her backyard.  Unfortunately our yards are connected so when they left her gate open, it was open for our yard too.  And of course Miles discovered that.  Cause he's 2 and he does that.  And then he decided to go explore the neighborhood- by himself.  Luckily Isaac noticed he wasn't outside and came to tell me and I (fully 40 weeks pregnant) ran up and down the street and through people's backyards looking/yelling for him before the next door neighbor kid brought him out to us.  Good times.  

Of course after running for 10 minutes my infrequent braxton hicks kicked into fully consistent contractions that never left.  So by 2am I was waking Taylor up to take me in to the hospital instead of waiting to be induced at 7am.  

Labor went well if just a little slowly- but who really cares if you're on an epidural :)  I was a 3 for 2 hours, then a 4 for 2 hours, then a 5 for 2 hours.  Then we were approached to be part of a trial for a new baby monitor.  Currently while you're in labor the only way the doctor has to tell how the baby is doing is a heart monitor they stick on your stomach.  So at our hospital they're part of a trial for a new device that they stick to the top of the baby's head (your water has to be broken to do this) but it gives them accurate read outs of not only the baby's heart rate but their blood oxygen level and a few other things I've forgotten but sounded useful if there was a problem.  This new device is supposed to help cut down on C-sections since they'll be able to better judge if the baby is truly in distress.  So we went ahead and participated.  I was a 6 when we got started and a 6 a half hour later when we were all hooked up and ready to go.

And then my epidural wore off.  Not a big deal- I just asked for another dose and it arrived very quickly and all was well.  I figured if it'd taken me 2 hours to progress to each number I'd rather have more drugs than be in pain another 4 hours.  After that the nurse left us in peace.

Less than 10 minutes later she came back in the room because the new monitor thingy had had a small valley and then a huge valley and then wasn't registering the baby.  So she came "just to check that it was still attached".  She pulled the sheets back... and then screamed.  Cause apparently the baby's head was already out.  She moved my leg to the side (which I couldn't feel at all cause I was totally numb) and the rest of her fell right out too.  By this point Taylor had jumped up off the couch and we were in full freak out mode.  I mean seriously, we both missed her birth.  And of course then the nurse's call button didn't work so she left the baby just laying there on the bed with Taylor watching that she didn't fall off and she ran screaming into the hall to get help.  

And boy did the nurses and doctors descend.  They toweled off the baby and threw her up onto my tummy while they worked on me and promptly forgot that she was even there until Taylor announced to them that she was turning blue.  At which point they decided that that was because I was "holding her wrong".  Right.  You haven't checked her or suctioned out her mouth or airway, haven't done an Apgar, you've just toweled her off and thrown her up on my tummy and it's MY fault she's blue because I'm "holding her wrong".  

So they finally wisked her off to the corner, did their normal cleaning/tests and warmed her up.  She was fine thankfully but I think she deserved a little attention.  But apparently they were sure something had gone terribly wrong with me for a baby to just fall out 10 minutes after being at a 6.  I'd like an explanation on that one too actually!

In all the chaos this is the only photo that got taken in the delivery/recovery room and really only because Taylor took a picture with his iphone to text people the news and I insisted he use the real camera.

I guess all's well that ends well.  I literally couldn't move my legs for another 7 hours after she was born but that was more of an annoyance and actually nice to not have pain during or after her birth.
Baby Isla was 7 pounds 11.5 ounces and 20.5 inches long.  I'm still waiting on head circumference cause I'd like to know if her head is exceptionally small and that explains things or not.  She does seem very tiny to us- and pink- and cute!  Practically perfect in every way.  She gave 2 or 3 good cries when she was fully out and then calmed right down and really didn't cry much at all.  And she's kept that up- Hallelujah!  She's the most mellow child we've ever had.  Very sleepy and even if she's hungry or mad about something she'll give one cry (which sounds more like a cat's meow) and then she just looks at you. She's fabulous!!! We'll keep her!  Taylor is smitten!  Can you tell?  He keeps saying how it's so different with a girl and how he kept rolling his eyes at my love of the cutey girl clothes but now he admits this baby is SOOO much cuter than the rest in all the little pink frilly outfits.

Looking back I mostly picked all 3 of our boy's names.  Taylor gave some input but truthfully I vetoed a lot of his favorites and he didn't really have a strong opinion so I got to pick.  But with this baby for whatever reason, he really had a strong opinion.  Plus I'd promised him for the last few babies that if he managed to get me a girl I'd happily let him name her.  So I did.  

He fell in love with the name Isla a few months ago and then we've just been discussing the spelling and the middle name since then.  In case you're wondering it's pronounced eye-la like island with a silent s.  We know it's a bit confusing and have had several people ask if it's iz-la or ees-la like you'd say in spanish.  And maybe we've just made her life harder and she'll hate always having to explain it but we think it's a beautiful name and it ends in "a" which makes Taylor's mom happy so we're going with it.  And apparently the name is becoming more popular so hopefully it won't be that foreign to teachers by the time she gets to school.

For a middle name we really wanted a family name.  Ethan's named after Taylor's grandfather who he'd done a memoir for and really admired.  Isaac has my dad's name for a middle name because I think my dad is more than amazing.  Miles has Taylor's great-grandfather as a namesake and he was a pretty impressive guy even if Taylor never knew him (gave one of the prophets his patriarchal blessing, served in the temple for decades, etc.).  Isla is our first girl so we had a lot to choose from.  And since she's our last (we think) I really felt like I wanted to choose the right person.  Ethan's middle name was going to be Giselle (when we thought he was a girl :) because one of Taylor's ancestors way back saved her aristocratic family from the Russian revolution because she had served and been the midwife for all the town's women for decades and was beloved by them.  A good story I think but I kind of wanted more for our little girl.  So after much discussion we settled on both of our mothers who we think are pretty amazing women.  My mom has overcome some amazing hardships in her childhood and has been a rock during her adult life.  She is such an example to me of forgiveness and healing and faith and perseverance.  Taylor's mom is an amazing example of service and loving others.  She is the most non-judgmental person I know.  So we're honored to give Isla their names but we didn't want to give her 3 names so we combined their two middle names into 1.  May is Taylor's mom's middle name (plus both she and Isla have May birthdays which I think is cute) and Evelyn is my mom's middle name.  So we squished them and named her Maylyn.  Again we debated spelling but in the end settled on just using the mother's names as it (chopped and squished together of course).  

So here she is:  Isla Maylyn.  We can't believe how blessed we are and we're loving every minute with her!