the day our indie was born

he goes by indie, but he was born henry indiana. 

yes, we are indiana jones fans. no, we didn't intentionally name him after the movie character. henry is a family name & was our chosen name for him. coming up with a middle name (that we both agreed upon) was more of a challenge. and his name changed a couple times. like entirely. 

when we were on our trip to the mountains this spring (click here for more on that), we were trying out every street, city or historical landmark name to see if we liked any of them with henry. after many failed attempts at finding a middle name, i (jokingly) suggested that we should just name him henry indiana since that was indiana jones's given name. and that was it! we both kept saying it over & over & it stuck. his siblings have all since adopted the nickname indie for him & i love that just as much. 

enough about the name! how'd that sweet sweet baby boy get here...

 

what a difference 24 hours can make!

and how quickly  e v e r y t h i n g  can change.

the waiting

if you would have asked me, actually many of you probably did, i would have SWORN i would have had this baby by 38 weeks-no doubt about it. all four other babies were born by then. half of them naturally. first two by induction. quick labors with all of them. like between one to four hours with each of them. this time though? this one decided to stay in.

and so we scheduled our induction.

39 weeks. per the new prenatal law. we came in (late because hey we have four other kids at home who were still in school) on the morning of may 25. it was a thursday.

may 25. the last day of school for everyone. hubs was on-call as principal of the local middle/high school. our oldest didn't want to miss the last day with friends. the next two littles had awards assemblies. child number four is two...need i say more. thank you, God, for grandparents!

by 7:45 a.m. we were finally situated in our delivery room. 

it was like he knew it was his day to join us, my contractions naturally began coming every seven minutes. then every five. the nurse was impressed. oh! our nurse! it was like a sweet homecoming, coming back to the maternity ward & seeing the veteran nurse that has been there for all but one of your other births. she laughed seeing us...again.

 by 10:30 a.m. i was dilated to 4 cm. my doctor arrived & broke my water. 

per the norm with me, things moved quickly.

from the moment i arrived, i told my nurse how this was going to go. FAST. and i wanted an epidural. the last two babes came too fast & i wasn't able to get anything & i really wanted to be able to be present & relaxed with this delivery. so she agreed this would be her mission. GET MAMA AN EPIDURAL. and boy did she deliver (buh dum dum). 

soon, the anesthesiologist came & after many attempts (and prayers), mama was finally numb & feeling good. now to wait. 

during this (short) waiting time, my grandma had already arrived (no doubt tell this baby boy to hurry up). my mom, dad & sister arrived. hubs was busy replying to emails, stepping out to make phone calls & i began to worry he might miss the whole thing. at one point, i remember yelling to someone to find him because it was about to go down (buh dum dum). we also got a phone call from the other grandma, who was getting our middle two from school, that one of them was sick with a fever. SERIOUSLY?! so while i was upstairs having one baby, another one of ours was downstairs being seen for what turned out to be a virus. and to further break my heart, she wasn't allowed anywhere near any of us for a couple of days. waaahhh. 

it's now 1:30 in the afternoon & i am feeling something. 

find the husband.

it was time to push.

three pushes later...

a red haired squish breathed his first breath earth side at 2:14 on that thursday afternoon.

and i could barely see his sweet face through all my happy tears.

bring in the fam!

meeting the family

henry indiana shamblin. 

7 pounds & 14 ounces of perfect, newborn deliciousness. the biggest of our babes by over a pound. (they tell me that is probably because of the gestational diabetes. big yummy babies, y'all.) he measured 20 1/2 inches long. also long for me.   

a room with a view

our first night

hubs took one day off. one day & one night to be at the hospital with us. (the next day was high school graduation & he kiiiinda had to be there for that.) our original plan was to keep baby indie in our room with us that first night. and for a while we did. we enjoyed a double viewing of o brother where art thou. then a stimulating episode of keeping up with the kardashians. it was about 12:30 that night when our nurse came in & sweetly suggested we let her snuggle baby boy through the night so we could get some sleep. "this is your one chance, you guys. before you head home tomorrow to the rest of your crew." she was right. and it was the best decision (after the epidural...and maybe the induction).

day two.

spinal headache.

again.

(this also happened with olive.)

due to complications from my epidural, i had to deal with a spinal headache (that lasted for the next week and half). don't know what that is? look it up. not fun. apparently it's quite rare to get one from an epidural but, hey, i was always one for a challenge. (rolling my eyes.) cue pain medication, lots & lots of fluids, lots of caffeine, more fluids, a spinal wrap & lots of horizontal positioning.

epidural still worth it.

heading home

24 hours later...

what a whirlwind. 

we brought home an 8 pound 6 ounce baby boy who obviously enjoys a frequent swig of milk.

all the kids were home with us. hubs was back to work. 

a couple days later, big sister kennedy was feeling better & FINALLY able to come around new baby brother. she hasn't left his side since. olive is suddenly immensely interested in all things baby. like maybe she should give binkies one more try or baby formula might be a nice alternative to her milk. regress much? our oldest checks in on him & lets him know he's the cutest baby ever. and his brother...well, his brother can't wait for him to be old enough to throw a football with him & wants to know why i didn't have another boy sooner.

so he's here. 

we're four weeks deep.

and we have five kids.

and that's still weird to say.

and we're still figuring out how all this works for our new family of seven.  

welcome to earth, baby indie.

i promise to never forget you...in the car, store or otherwise.

godspeed baby number 5.

may the odds be ever in your favor.

xo


follow his story on instagram with our tag #henryindianas