Finley Kate

Since Susan was going to be a full 40 weeks on April 19, her doctor scheduled her to come in on Monday, April 20 at 6am to begin inducing. Finley had different plans however. Saturday night, Susan started getting contractions. They were fierce. After consulting with the on call doctor, we loadeded up the pre-packed bags, dropped the kids off with grandma, and headed to the hospital to have Baby #3. When we arrived, the nurses hooked Susan up to the monitor and quickly concluded she was not in labor. We''ll keep you here overnight, just in case, but said we''d likely be going back home in the morning. Less than 24 hours before our scheduled induction. Just as they said, nothing happened overnight and Sunday morning we were back at home. For a few hours.

Just after midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning, the contractions came back. They were identically as fierce to the previous night (or so I''m told). After a rough few hours, we decided to go head into the hospital early. Colt and Sadie were already at their Nana''s, so we were able to go straight in. However, with Susan dealing with the contractions, we still didn''t get to the hospital until around 5:45am. Once we arrived, Susan was quickly placed in a room as the nurse started preparations to begin inducing. It took them a little while to realize instead of arriving to be induced, Susan was already in full blown labor.

The nurses weren''t able to authorize an epidural until her doctor checked her and signed off, but because she was much further along than planned, there was a delay in getting the epidural authorized. Finally, around 7:15am, a senior nurse came in, checked Susan, and within minutes had another doctor in the room to perform the epidural. As I waited in the hall, the senior nurse told me that Susan was already at the 10cm mark, so even though she was getting the epidural, she had done most of the hard work already. With the epidural completed at 7:20am, it was time to start pushing.

At 7:21a, Susan started pushing.

At 7:27a, we had a brand new baby girl: Finley Kate.

This delivery was so different than the first two, and probably much more typical than the super smooth, like clock-work deliveries of Colt and Sadie. Which is probably a sign of the chaos awaiting us with 3 children. It''s going to be awesome.

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