Introducing.... Caleb Raider....

That's right, our precious 4th baby entered the world yesterday, December 18th at 1:47pm! He's a healthy little guy, weighing in at only 6 pounds 15 ounces (I know it's not really THAT small, but when your last one was 8 pounds 10 ounces, he looks really tiny!) and is 18 inches long.

Everything went really, really well and he's doing great now. I'm still at the hospital (yeah to Jupiter Medical Center and free Wi-Fi!!!) and will be here till tomorrow afternoon and am totally enjoying the peace and quiet that only one child brings for just a little bit longer before I enter the mayhem of 4 kids! I can't believe that I have 4 kids.... wow, I never thought I'd have this many but am so blessed by them all. Jeff and his mom, Lee, (she's staying with us for almost a month, which I'm so very thankful for!) brought the 3 big kids by last night to meet their new little brother and absolutely loved him. It was so cute watching them hold and cuddle Caleb. Even Luke actually noticed him and kept trying to "tickle" him. They all did exceptionally well and kept making such cute remarks. I was pretty tired so all those remarks I don't really remember, but thankfully it's all on video so we can watch it back and "remember" it that way. Although I do remember Noah holding Caleb (with Daddy's help of course) and saying. "Hi, Caleb, I'm your big brother and I love you." It was so cute because it was totally unprompted and just from his heart. He actually said something to that effect a couple of times while holding him. Sydney was just so excited to see baby Caleb and couldn't wait for her turn to hold him. She kept asking and begging Daddy for a turn until it finally calmed down enough for her to have a chance. And Luke, well, let's just say that for an 18-month-old he did really well. Actually, he did a lot better than Sydney did when Noah was born (there's the same age difference between Sydney and Noah as Luke and Caleb). He was very interested in Caleb and kept going back over to him to see him, poke him and "tickle" him (Luke actually says "ticka ticka" when "tickling" so that's how I know it wasn't just hitting or poking or something else). They kids were just adorable and were so excited this morning when Jeff told them that they were going to get to come back here this afternoon to see Mommy and Caleb again. According to them, "today is the best day ever". But then, yesterday was the best day ever because they got to meet Caleb and the day before that was the best day ever because they got to bake and decorate Christmas Cookies and I'm pretty sure most days that we do anything fun or special is the best day ever. But tonight should be fun.... Jeff will bring them by for a visit and they're bringing McDonald's with them for their dinner, which is a special treat that doesn't happen too often, so they love it (my dinner will be hospital food, which again, another shout out to Jupiter Medical Center, has been amazing, way better than St. Mary's, sorry St. Mary's). Then after they get their fill of Caleb, or Mommy and Caleb get their fill of them, they'll head home for baths and bed. Not a bad night for them!

As for yesterday and the labor and delivery for those who care... it went pretty good. Jeff and I got to the hospital just after 6am and got all checked in and everything. At just before 8am my midwife came in and broke my water and started my pitocin. Pretty quick after that the contractions started and they picked up pretty decently. By around 10 they were getting decently intense but not too horrible. By eleven they were getting pretty strong and taking a fair amount of concentration to work through and were coming every 3-4 minutes. Figuring that I was progressing pretty quickly I decided to call for an epidural because, hey, why be in pain longer than I had to and I didn't want to miss my opportunity to get it. So I called for it and sadly it took over an hour and a half for it to finally be done. That was a pretty long hour and a half, but it could have been worse, I guess. When I got the epidural I was only 4 centimeters (I was so sure that I was going to be a lot farther along than that, but no) so I figured we were in for another long haul, like with Sydney and Noah, rather than the short and relatively easy labor with Luke. So I was very, very glad that I had gotten the epidural when I did. Let me tell you, I loved my anesthesiologist when she was done! It took a couple tries to get it right but man did it ever feel good when I couldn't feel anything any more. It only took a couple contractions (maybe five minutes) for it to totally kick in and I was in heaven. I could still feel "pressure" but absolutely no pain, so great! So that was around 12:30pm when all was said and done and I was back in bed relaxing and letting things roll. And boy did things get rolling. I guess the epidural was what my body needed to relax and let things go because things went pretty quickly after that. At about 1:15 I told Jeff that if he wanted to head out and pick something up to eat for lunch that he could do that and that I'd just call if things started to get moving, but I didn't think it would be for a while. He was afraid to go before I got checked again (the last time was just before the epidural about an hour before and I was as I said before, only 4 centimeters) so decided to hang for a bit and see how things were progressing before he went. And boy am I glad he did. My midwife came back to check on me and we were in for a bit of a surprise. It was 1:30 and I was complete and ready to push! I totally had not expected that and thought the pressure that I was starting to feel more and more was just normal and nothing special, but nope, the baby was ready to come. So after a couple of minutes of getting the room prepped I pushed for a total of two contractions, I think maybe 5 pushes, and out he came. It was way to easy and pain free. I must say, I loved my epidural this time, it's so nice when it works the way it's supposed to and not run out (Syd's labor) or only take on half your body (Noah's labor) or not even have time for one (Luke's labor). It was just so smooth and easy. Now Caleb is by far my smallest, so I'm sure that helps a lot with how easy it was, and he's also my 4th so that has something to do with it too, but it was all just so great and easy. If it wasn't for the hour and a half of waiting for my epidural this labor would have been crazy easy, and as it was, an hour and a half of pretty intense pain is nothing compared to the other kids deliveries. So that was it. My midwife was in my room for about 15 minutes, planning to just come and check on me in the middle of her day of office appointments, but ended up delivering Caleb instead. All in record time. He came out perfect and has been doing great ever since. Now I have to go and wake him up to feed him, so far he's done okay with eating but he's been really sleepy. It makes me a little nervous because Syd was a poor eater and ended up getting really bad jaundice and having to stay in the nursery under the bili-lights for a day and I don't really want to go down that path again. So off I go to wake a sleeping baby, something I won't do too many times, at least on purpose. I'll try and post some pictures when I get home in the next couple of days. Thanks everyone for all your prayers and thoughts, we really appreciated it!