Announcing a new little girl- with a name!

Well, I jokingly will say that the hardest part of the whole hospital experience has been the deciding on a name...

It began very unexpectedly with my water breaking on Sunday evening around 9:40ish.  It was not the original gush that came with David, but it was sudden enough and enough liquid that I was pretty certain what was happening.  No contractions yet, but I knew we would have to go to the hospital anyway and did not want to rush things like with E.  We gathered up our stuff and headed out the door.  We arrived at the hospital at 10:25 pm. I had a second gush of water and was quite soaked at this point...which makes it all the funnier that we waited in triage another 45 minutes to convince the nurse (Tonya, the same as with E--laugh at the issues we had before in this post) that I was actually in labor.  Backtracking a minute, the registration this time took no more than 5 minutes with no pre-registration (which had taken 20+minutes with E and preregistration, while in VERY active labor). 

I got my first contraction at 10:58 pm.  They were very sporadic and mild for quite a while.  At 11:15ish, I was only 1 cm dilated and hardly effaced.   I was moved to a room at some point and continued to labor there for a bit until I received my epidural at about 1:30 am.  I had been having contractions up to that point but still hardly any stronger than I had been experiencing at nighttime for the past week.  Do I regret getting an epidural so early?  No...I had experienced some strong contractions and pain before epidural with D and excruciating pain and no epidural with E.  This was by far the most relaxed, comfortable and enjoyable delivery of the three!  In fact, I was more comfortable in the next waiting hours than I had been in bed at night the whole previous week, due to non-stop contractions.  At 1:45 am my labor nurse Ali checked me and declared me to be 3 cm and about 50% effaced.  Some progress.  I did experience extreme chills and shaking around 2:00 am for about 15 minutes--I think in response to some meds that were given to raise my blood pressure a bit.  I snoozed off and on for several hours and at 5:00 am was checked again, only to hear that I was only 6 cm and about 80% effaced and the baby had dropped a bit.  By this time, my contractions were steady at about 2 mins. apart.  I was expecting another many hours until push time but was surprised to be checked again at 6:30 am and be told that I was at station zero (10 cm, 100% effaced)!  I was completely unaware of this, except still feeling a bit of pressure at each contraction.  (could still control my left leg but the right was completely asleep) 

The baby was apparently still a bit high, but by 7:00 am, she had completely dropped and I was ready to push.  My doctor was not on call for the weekend but was expected in that morning at 7:00 so we waited to see if he would arrive.  At 7:30 the decision was made to start pushing with Dr. Chang (dr. on call).  I pushed (pretty lightly) 3 times and then Dr. Sam walked in the door.  After pushing 9 more times (only 6 of which were "real" pushes) was shocked it was all over! 

Little Girl Weyler was born at 8:05 am on July 2, 2012 (one day early!).  She weighed 7 lbs and was 19 1/2" long.  Still no name...

I had torn a tiny bit and was struggling with recovering from the epidural and a bout of nausea (from the prescription pain med).  In the midst of all this, I found my lack of sleep from the previous night and the intensity of the delivery (in spite of the epidural) catching up with me.  I was completely worn out!  I could not focus on a name...still under debate.  M and I had mostly narrowed it down to two names, Abigail Joy and Katherine Joy.  No decision was made.  As the day wore on, we were moved upstairs to the pediatrics wing (between a very busy hospital and a serious fire in another wing, they were too full in the regular postpartum care).  I had pokes and prods by all sorts of nurses and tried to catch a snooze in between as I still felt like a train had run into me.  The name decision was put off yet again.  At one point last night we thought we had concluded on a name but decided not to finalize. 

A rough night's sleep (lots of nurse visits and a completely dead right upper thigh 24+ hours after epidural), brought us to this morning.  Prayer after prayer had gone up over this little girl's name.   We finally reached the same conclusion.

Abigail Katherine Weyler now has a name!  Over the months of discussion, I had preferred Katherine and M had preferred Abigail.  We both liked the other's choice but could not decide.  So many other names came up in discussion.  I knew "JOY" would be a part of her name in some way.  We looked up "joy" in Hebrew/Greek/name dictionaries etc...All options were considered.  It was determined we would just name her "Joy" as a middle name.  Meanwhile, Abigail (our first choice years ago, long before children even entered the picture) had been cast aside because of the popularity it has recently acquired.  In the discussions, it came back up again as a possibility.  After all, it is a wonderful Biblical name (admirable Abigail, wife of King David) with a wonderful meaning.  It means "Father's Joy."  After birth, Michael and I flipflopped on the names.  I leaning toward Abigail, he Katherine.  We ultimately decided to name her Abigail Katherine (since Abigail encompasses the Joy).  God prepared this very name for this special little girl.  She is her "father's joy" (and mother's) and ultimately, hopefully, her Heavenly Father's joy!  Our special little surprise #3!  Katherine, meaning "pure," is another desire of our heart for her.  And so it was, when the birth certificate lady came by, we told her we were minutes from deciding and would call her back.  About 5 minutes later, Abigail Katherine Weyler was made official!  Thank you, Lord, for this precious new life!