“This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”
-Psalm 118:24
We welcomed sweet Hallie Rae Paulovkin into the world on October 26, 2018 at 9:02pm. This little girls labor and birth experience was very different from Payton’s! So many people told me during the last few weeks of my pregnancy that the second baby usually comes earlier than the first baby. I was excited about this because I started feeling super uncomfortable towards the last few weeks. With Payton, my water broke 5 days early in the shower and I had a 6 hour labor with 45 minutes of pushing. Payton’s birth was a great experience and I was hoping for something similar with Hallie! Little did I know this babe was so comfortable and ended up being 5 days late after being induced!
Since my water broke in the shower with Payton and it was a trickle rather than a gush, I was expecting the same thing with Hallie. At 37 weeks I thought my water broke and we went to the hospital, but unfortunately, it hadn’t broken yet. At my 37 week appointment they checked me and I was 1cm. This made me think that hopefully I would be going into labor in the next few days/week. Another week went by and at 38 weeks I went to the hospital again thinking my water had broken. Apparently you are much more leaky with the second baby! I was very frustrated after we went to the hospital for the second time, because I thought I would never go into labor and it would be forever before we would meet our little girl. I had my checkup appointment the next day and they did an ultrasound to measure how big the baby was since Payton was a big baby. At 38 weeks Hallie was measuring around 8lb 11oz which was already bigger than Payton was when she was born. The doctor told me that if I wanted to get induced in the middle of 40 weeks it might be a good idea since by 41 weeks she would probably be over 10lbs. I did not want to have a 10lb baby so getting induced sounded like a great option! We made the appointment for October 26th because my favorite doctor out of the 6 doctors at our practice was going to be working at the hospital that day. At my 39 week appointment they stripped my membrane and I hoped that would help get things moving.
I was hoping that Hallie would come on her own time before our induction day, but she was cozy as could be. Raspberry tea, long walks, sex, eating dates, bouncing on birthing ball, spicy food, induction oils; none of them worked! Thursday night the 25th we dropped Payton off at my parents house to spend the night and went home to sleep for the last time before Hallie was born. We got to St Joes at 7:30am for our induction appointment and it was so strange getting to the hospital not having contractions. We filled out some paperwork and they took us to our room! The nurse put the IV in (I absolutely hate this part so much!!) and told us they were waiting on some paperwork from my OBGYN’s office before they could start the Pitocin. At 9:15am they started the Pitocin and I was so nervous because I have heard horror stories about Pitocin. Thankfully it started off light and by the time the contractions started getting pretty painful it was time to get the epidural. I got the epidural around noon and I completely forgot how much it hurts to get! However, after I got the epidural, I was a happy camper and couldn’t feel the pain of the contractions anymore. Praise Jesus for the epidural!!
An hour later around 1pm Dr. Duke came in and checked me and I was still only 1cm. I was so frustrated that I hadn’t made any progress in that 4 hour time period of having the Pitocin. I started to get nervous that I was going to have to end up getting a C-section later that day because I wasn’t making any progress. Dr. Duke broke my water and I was hoping this would progress labor quickly since during my labor with Payton I went from 5-10cm in 1 hour! She came back to check me around 4:30pm and I was 3cm so I was making progress but not very quickly. After she checked me, my whole body started shaking and Dr. Duke thought I was possibly starting to go through the 4cm transition. She said this was the start of active labor and hopefully things would start to move a little quicker!
A few hours later around 6:30 I started to shake again which made me think it was almost time to push. Dr. Duke was hesitant to check me again since she had already checked me once after my water had broken. But she checked me a second time and I was 6cm. I was thankful to finally be making a little bit more progress! She said she thought I would probably be ready to start pushing around 7:30/8pm. About 30 minutes later I started having horrible pain in the birth canal of my pelvis and it brought me to tears. At this point the Pitocin was at 22 out of 25 being the highest and the epidural meds weren’t strong enough to help with the pain of Hallie descending. The anesthesiologist came in and gave me some higher meds in the epidural. After they added more medicine it was still very uncomfortable and there was a lot of pressure but it wasn’t excruciating pain anymore.
At 8:45pm Dr. Duke came in to check on me since we had thought I would have already felt the urge to push but I hadn’t felt anything yet, only a little bit of pressure. She checked me and I was 10cm and it was time to push! The nurse rushed around to get everything ready and Allie came up to the room to take photos for us. I pushed during the first contraction and was glad I could feel my legs a little bit to know what was going on. During the second contraction of pushing, Hallie was born and there were many tears of joy. I was so happy to have her out and meet our beautiful baby girl!
As soon as they placed Hallie on me everyone was saying that she looked so big and we were all interested to see how much she weighed! After a few minutes of me holding her they took her over to get weighed and measured. Hallie was 9lb 8.8oz and measuring 21.25” long. She was a whole pound bigger than Payton! I was so happy I made the decision to get induced because she was such a big baby. When you get induced you aren’t allowed to eat 8 hours before you appointment, so I hadn’t had anything to eat in 24 hours by the time she was born. My parents saved the day and brought us dinner at 11pm and got to meet our sweet girl!
The next morning, Payton came to the hospital to meet Hallie and I had no idea what to expect. She came in and Hallie was in the nursery so it was nice to have Payton sit on the bed with me and talk to her for a little bit before the baby came in. The nurse brought Hallie in and Payton was so confused; poor thing. But then we gave her a baby doll set and she was excited after that! Since she is only 20-months-old it was hard for her to understand what was going on. I was holding Hallie and she started getting fussy after that so Kevin took her back to my mom to play with the stroller and her new babydoll. Payton came back a few hours later to get a few fresh48 photos and she was still a mess. Poor girl had never been to a hospital room and I couldn’t pick her up and carry her around after having the baby which made her upset. Payton didn’t want to be in any pictures so we had to resort to letting her hold my phone. This happens in many of my family shoots as well so I wasn’t too surprised, but it was still frustrating! I am happy we were able to get a few cute ones even though the phone is in the photos. Allie did a great job capturing the moment!
Some family and friends visited to see the baby including Kevin’s sweet Nana! At first it was so strange holding another baby that wasn’t Payton but looked like Payton did when she was little. Having two kids has definitely been a big adjustment, but each day gets a little bit better. Payton is bonding more with Hallie and trying to help when she can. She likes to hand me burp cloths when I am nursing and tries to put the binky into Hallie’s mouth when she is crying. The hardest part has been knowing where to direct my attention when they are both crying and need me. It is a learning process and I am trying to give myself grace and have patience! We are so thankful for Hallie and enjoying all of the newborn snuggles. Nursing is going much better this time than it did with Payton which I am thankful for. Right now Hallie is still cluster feeding throughout the day but its doing 4 hour stretches of sleep at night. So far, Payton has only woken up once from Hallie screaming in the middle of the night so I am also glad for that! I am not, however, happy about daylight savings time happening and Payton waking up earlier. So many changes in a few weeks!
We are so thankful for our new addition and praise God for her life. We love you Hallie Rae! Thank you for taking pictures of the birth and fresh48, Allie. We love them!
So thankful for our precious baby. God is faithful! We are so excited for this new season as a family of four!