Our sweet boy has been with us for one full week. What a blessing! We have been soaking up his snuggles, his cute little noises and his very fuzzy head. With each child I have tried to type of a quick little blog of their birth story so that I can remember the details of the day they were born. So, here I am sipping my cappuccino with a sleeping Gabey Baby next to me, reading through all of my old birth stories and feeling so sentimental, so grateful and just in awe of the God who created these little human’s lives.

I found out I was pregnant in March. We knew we wanted one more sweet kiddo, and I was ecstatic to find out. Now usually I tell Nathan right away because I am the world’s worst secret keeper, especially when it comes to my husband, but we were leaving for a vacation to Vietnam in a week, and I thought that that would be a super fun way to tell Nathan the news. I daydreamed about taking him out to our favorite restaurant and having the waiters write it in Vietnamese on our bill, or telling him at the top of the tallest building in Vietnam, I had these wonderful ideas planned out. Instead (again, I’m bad at keeping secrets), as soon as we got on the airplane I panicked and took out the pregnancy test I had kept in my carry-on. It was so unexpected that Nathan was truly shocked. He was very caught off guard, but was so excited. I truly think he had no idea, although he says he had suspicions after I got mad at him a few nights earlier because his breath stunk so bad—I get very sensitive to smells when I am pregnant. Bless that man.

Anyways, our trip to Vietnam came at the perfect time, as I hadn’t really started to feel any morning sickness yet. We spent the week riding motorbikes, drinking Vietnamese iced coffee (I limited myself to one cup a day due to the ridiculous caffeine amount), and spending time with friends.

Coming home, we were whisked back into normal life. I was working full time (which I hadn’t done since I was pregnant with Hezzy), and I spent a lot of time in line getting food and figuring out the best foods at the hospital to fulfill my cravings (ask my coworkers, I ate SO much).

During the summer we spent a lot of time at the pool, took a vacation to Disneyland (where I used my pregnancy as an excuse to skip the walk back to the hotel and took an Uber instead), and a lot of time spent outdoors with the kiddos.

Fall came around, and I began to feel a lot bigger. Each week of pregnancy felt like it was a month. I knew with my fourth kid that the symptoms would be a bit exacerbated, but it still felt like a bit of a shock. It is true though, when you’re going through it, time seems to go by so slowly, and now I look back and think, “that wasn’t that bad” and “it went by so fast”. It truly is amazing how quickly you forget about the hard things.

As my due date neared, I began to really think about an elective induction vs. waiting to go into labor. Y’all, this is a hot topic according to the instagram. Everyone has opinions and it is so hard to differentiate what others think, and what I think. With all of my other kids I was induced past my due date, and showed pretty much no signs of labor. My babies are content to stay cooking for a while, I guess, and I am grateful for that. However, I was uncomfortable, and figured that if I wasn’t going to into labor on my own, I would rather have an induction earlier than waiting a week or two just to still be induced.

I scheduled my induction for Monday, November 25. We had family in town, and it gave me a lot of comfort to not have to worry about childcare. Also, I figured I could have this baby and be out of the hospital on Wednesday to spend Thanksgiving at home with family.

We pulled up to the hospital in the morning. It’s funny, with each induction Nathan and I have become more and more prepared. With Hezzy, we packed oatmeal cream pies and redbull. This time I packed some snacks that actually have some nutritional benefits. My midwife checked my cervix and I was dilated to a 2! Now to some, this is probably nothing, but to me this was a BIG celebration. I have never dilated that far on my own and I was really hopeful that the day would move quickly and our baby would be here soon.

We started some pitocin, and I was contracting somewhat regularly. Nathan and I watched Jumanji and the Barbie movie, and we also had a great view of the parking garage and had a good time watching the chaos of people looking for a parking spot in a full garage (we don’t take much to be entertained).

My midwife came back in and was either going to break my water or continue pitocin depending on how I was progressing. I decided that either way, I wanted some pain control. With my last two deliveries, my epidural took a long time to work and so I wanted to make sure that I didn’t wait too long this time. I told the anesthesiologist all of my doubts and fears about the epidural not working and he seemed very confident that it would work this time. I was a little nervous about getting it so early, worried it may stall things out, but it was a game changer to not be in excruciating pain while they’re sticking a needle in my back. It worked almost immediately, and it was lovely. I am so grateful for modern medicine. I am so grateful for anesthesiologists.

Anyways, once I was epiduralized my midwife broke my water, which is always so fun, and then my wonderful nurse Abby was so great and helping me reposition every so often.

Side note: I met Abby her freshman year of college, and she used to babysit our kiddos. Now we get to work together, and it was such a joy to have her as my nurse!!

After a few hours, I got a sudden onset of nausea and puked up all the nerds clusters I ate (I was really worried this would give me an aversion to nerds clusters, but don’t worry, I can still eat them just fine). I knew this meant that baby time was getting closer, but I felt so great I couldn’t really believe it. I kid you not, less than fifteen minutes after that and Gabriel was born.

My midwife came in and checked me and I was ready to push. I pushed on my side this time and really enjoyed it. He was coming fast, and lets just say my epidural continued to be the MVP of the day. I was literally laughing while he was born, and I love that I can look back on his delivery with memories of joy! He was born and placed on my chest at 4:21. He was mad and chubby and had so much hair compared to our other baldies. His skin was so soft, and Nathan and I just got to admire our sweet new son. Shortly after birth he started grunting and showing a few signs that he was working hard to breathe. As a nurse, you tend to be hyper-aware of anything that could go wrong, so as soon as I heard him grunting I was fixated on it. However, he was crying loud and his oxygen saturation was fine. My nurses held a little bit of CPAP on him, and we continued to watch him. When we transitioned to the postpartum unit, his grunting continued, and after sixish hours my nurse called the NICU to come assess him. He was eating okay, but anytime he wasn’t eating he was either screaming or grunting. After looking him over, they were going to take him to the nursery to try holding some more CPAP to see if that would help. About thirty minutes later, when they hadn’t returned, I looked at Nathan and knew he was probably going to have to go to the NICU. Because he was showing signs of respiratory distress for so long after birth, they needed to take him down to help give him some support, as well as make sure he didn’t have any infections that were causing this. Nathan and I headed back to my room without our sweet baby and that is something I had never experienced before. I am so grateful we got to spend his first six hours with him, and I feel so much sympathy for any parents that have their child in the NICU.

We got back to our room and figured while they were getting Gabe settled in the NICU we would try and sleep a little bit. I couldn’t fall asleep, but Nathan was able to sleep for a few hours. After a while, I woke him up and we went down to the NICU to see him. He looked like a little cinnamon roll all comfy and swaddled, but it was definitely an adjustment to see him hooked up to so many things. I thought that maybe I would be used to it since I work in the NICU sometimes, but nothing really prepares you for it when it’s your own child. It was great to see him finally resting though, and we decided to head back upstairs to get some more sleep.

He received respiratory support for about twelve hours, and once they discontinued it, then I could begin breastfeeding and holding him as much as I wanted. He was snuggly and took to breastfeeding very well, which was such a relief.

Later that afternoon, the kids came to visit with their grandparents. They brought some pizza and we watched frozen in the hospital room, and then the big two could go in and visit Gabe. Hezzy was so excited to hold him, Naomi didn’t want to hold him but did think he was cute. Reya was just mad that she was too young to go and visit.

Wednesday morning we waited for the doctors to round, and they wanted to recheck some of his labs and just continue to make sure that he did alright off of the respiratory support and so the plan was to room-in Wednesday night. Basically that just means that while I had to be discharged from the postpartum floor, they would give us a private room in the NICU where I would be responsible for all of Gabe’s cares. In between, I went home for a little bit, took a shower and tried to take a nap, and then headed back to the hospital. That night all went well, except for one stinky little low blood sugar, but after checking a few more in the morning, he was discharged! We made it home right in time to eat a wonderful thanksgiving meal.

We feel so immensely thankful for everyone who took care of us during our hospital stay. From my friends who brought me Starbucks and bagels, to everyone who checked in on us, to everyone who gave Gabriel lots of snuggles, to the doctors who were diligent in making sure he was healthy and ready to come home. We felt truly taken care of.

The last week has been full of baby smooshes, lots of time spent feeding, watching movies and snuggling up with the big kiddos while it snowed. The kids are all in love. Reya frequently runs over to me while I’m feeding him and goes “Oooh, baby boy” or “cute baby”. She loves to kiss his head and give him gentle pats. Naomi and Hezzy love to constantly see what he’s doing, and are going to be the best big brother and sister.

Gabriel means “God is my strength” and Benjamin is Nathan’s older brother’s name. We pray that Gabriel would grow up to know that God is his strength. We pray that he would rely on God and know how deeply and truly loved he is. He is the sweetest gift we could have asked for this Christmas, and are so grateful that he is here and he is healthy!