A Day with the Bachicha's: Happy Birthday Stella!

On August 13, 2013 at 11:13 a.m. we welcomed our third daughter Stella Anne Bachicha into this world with loving arms! She weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz. and was 20 inches long. She looks a lot like her big sisters! We could not be more excited to begin our new journey as a family of five (plus a dog and a turtle of course :)

The delivery of our first two girls were extremely different, so we were so curious as to how our third princess would make her arrival. With our first daughter I was on modified bed rest with preeclampsia, induced with pitocin at 39 weeks, given an epidural (which the anesthesiologist had trouble administering and reinserted three times over two hours before she finally got it to work), but after pushing for almost 2 hours, ended up delivering via c-section.

With our second daughter, I started dilating at 35 weeks and by 37 weeks I was already 4 cm. At 38 weeks, I went into labor VERY quickly at midnight, my water broke at home at 12:45 as we were getting in the car for the hospital, arrived to the hospital around 1:45 fully complete and delivered naturally via VBAC (Vaginal Birth After C-Section) at 2:30. (Let's just say there were moments we thought she was going to be born in the car!)

Needless to say we were also a bit nervous about how and when I would go into labor this time. Especially since at my 36 week appointment the midwife checking me said, "Holy cow this baby is low! Holy cow you are already 1-2 cm." and by 37 weeks I was 90% effaced and almost 4 cm. dilated. We had our bags packed and tried to do our best to have plan A, B, C, and D in place for the girls and myself.

Sunday night I was super restless for a few hours and kept thinking I was going to go into labor, but never did and Monday day and night I felt and slept better than I had in a few weeks. When we woke up at 6:30 Mike asked how I was feeling and I told him I felt better than I had in a while and hoped it didn't mean my body was going to stall the process. Well 30 minutes later as he was getting out of the shower I started to feel some cramping and stronger contractions. I told him I thought we needed to watch them and maybe he should work from home for a while....but by 8:00-8:30 we decided it was best to go to the hospital. Since the contractions were still bearable (and not like it was with Layla yet), we decided to just call my cousin and have her meet us at the hospital to stay with the girls......with the hopes we would have a quick delivery and the girls could meet their new sister soon too! (Our other plan was to have one of my stay at home mom friends in our neighbor stay with the girls until Sheri could get to our house to get them).

One of our worries was getting stuck in traffic.......which we did!

But fortunately my labor was not as quick as it was with Layla....so while my husband was a nervous wreck....I kept reassuring him I was okay and able to breathe through the contractions!

And it allowed me to take these cute videos of the big-sisters-to-be:)

What will she look like?

Where are we going?

Once we got to the hospital and in a room and checked, it was 9:00 and I was 5-6 cm and contractions were 2-3 minutes apart....since labor had already started my doctor said if we wanted she could break my water and see if it sped up the process. I of course said, lets just go for it:) ......so she broke my my water and within an hour I was ready to push. I requested a natural delivery (without epidural or any drugs because I felt it was better for me in attempting a vaginal delivery again) and fortunately only pushed for about 15-20 minutes and she arrived!

My OB-GYN is in a group of doctors and I basically have a 1 in 10 chance of her actually being on call for delivery! Well my babies must know when she is on call because I was blessed she got to deliver both Layla and now Stella!

My doctor was so funny and said I was not the "normal" patient at Northside Hospital (which is nicknamed the "baby factory" because they deliver so many babies each year). She said because 1) I had a VBAC 2) I didn't have any pitocin and 3) I did it naturally without any drugs. So she thanked me for helping their statistics and making her look good....lol! (she is really sweet and incredible)

The girls got to come in the room and meet Stella right away!

And they got to watch her get her first bath!

Aunt Sheri is our angel and was there for us again to help with the girls during the birth of Stella. While they were waiting Evie colored this picture for Stella and couldn't wait to give it to her!