The next one you have been waiting for.

I haven't blogged in a very long time and I am finding that chronic sleep deprivation makes my memory fuzzy so I better write down what I remember now while I still can. So without any further adieu, here is the story of Maren Elizabeth Pederson's first day, 05/15/2015.

After having one baby a week late and the next baby a week early I had no idea what to expect. It is no secret though that I wished and hoped that she would take after her sister and be early and petite than late and large. When the one week early mark came and left, I began to prepare myself to be in this for the long haul. If I expect to go a week late, then I won't be disappointed if I don't go early. However, this way of thinking is logical for anyone other than a pregnant lady in the final weeks. I went to see my midwife the morning of 5/15, a Friday. I was dilated to a 4 but had no contractions. I happened to mention that this weekend would be really convenient to have a baby because my older two kids were having a sleepover that night at their cousins house (thanks again, Christina).  Then my midwife's attitude shifted, "oh, well then let's get you to have this baby!" so she stripped my membranes, giving me a harsh refresher course of the beating my lady parts were up against in the coming hours.


I left the office and sent a "heads up text" to Mark, Melody and Christina but didn't really expect anything to happen. My mom was watching the kids that morning and when I got home we all went to lunch.  I started to have mild contractions during lunch but tried to hide it because I really just wanted to labor at home for as long as possible without an audience. My mom left, Mark came home from work a few minutes later and I was doing my best to chill out and track contractions. Melody was really eager to help so she showed up at my door about 3:00 and began to clean my house. While Mark dropped the kids off at Christina, Melody and I got our waddle on and did some laps around the old Granite High School Track. We all got back to the house about the same time and decided to head up to LDS hospital about 6:30pm.


The next few hours went by quickly. I remember looking at the clock about 9 pm and one of the nurses commenting, "How cool is this? Your baby's will be born on 5/15/15!" I was skeptical because  1. I was sure that my labor was going to go on forever, and 2. Alena missed being born on Thanksgiving day by a few hours and somehow in my mind it made sense for that little fact to influence when her sister was to be born.  However,  after 40 min and a few curse words later, our baby was born. She weighed 7lbs 13 oz, 19.25 inches long at 9:43pm on 05/15/15.

Now...for the photo dump.