Wallace Family

On Thursday, December 7th, Chad and I got to the hospital at 6 a.m. for me to be induced. I was 39 weeks and 1 day along. Dr. Lowder decided to induce me early since we live 45 min. away from the hospital and 3rd labors can go fast and he didn't want me to go into labor on the freeway.  They gave me the pitocin at 6:45 a.m. and Dr. Lowder broke my water shortly after that. It didn't take more than 10 min. for my contractions to start and they started out coming every 2-3 min. They weren't miserable, but they were getting hard pretty quickly so Dr. Lowder said to go ahead and get the epidural right away. We first had to wait though for me to get a whole bag of fluids through an IV to help keep my blood pressure up since epidurals can make your blood pressure drop. The epidural was a little tricky to get working. The first time I felt it in my face and arms so they had to try again. Then I felt in more in my legs, especially on the right, but it wasn't really working on the contracts in the middle. They tried giving me a little more medicine and that didn't really help, so then they ended up taking it out and doing it again. That third time it worked. It was about 9:45 by then and I went to sleep. I woke up around 10:45 and was starting to feel pressure every time I had a contraction and some pain in my back again in just a small spot. The nurses asked if I felt like I needed to push and I said I didn't know because I couldn't really feel anything down there. Then Dr. Lowder called at 11 to see how dilated I was. They checked and they could see the head and I was at a 10. Dr. Lowder came and when he got there Chad stepped into the bathroom in the room real quick. Dr. Lowder checked me and said it was time to push. This was around 11:15. He asked me to do 1 push and then he said to stop and told Chad to hurry up and get out of the bathroom because the baby was almost out. I did 1 more push and the he said to stop again and told Chad he really better come out of the bathroom or he was going to miss the baby.  Then we waited for Chad to come out of the bathroom and I did 3-4 more slight little pushes and Logan Michael was born at 11:23 a.m. It was the fastest and easiest labor (especially pushing) that I have ever had. With Mason I had to push 2.5 hours and with Ethan about 45 min. It's amazing how much better I feel and how much easier it was to only have to push a few times! Logan Michael was 7 lbs. 4.8 oz. and 19 3/4 inches long. He is adorable. I felt great after having him as opposed to feeling so exhausted after having Mason and Ethan. It was such a nice change! I got to hold him skin to skin for over and hour before they took him and cleaned him off and that was nice. My parents, Linda, and the boys came up to see us around 2:30. The boys were really excited to see Logan. Ethan wanted to hold him and wrapped his arms around him tight. It was really cute. Mason didn't want to hold him. I think he was a little nervous. They stayed an hour or so and then went home. The first night went well. I had to wake up every few hours of course to feed Logan, but I didn't feel nearly as exhausted throughout the night or in the morning like I remember feeling with the other boys. Chad also got a call that night that he had made it onto the Mountain Home Volunteer Fire Dept. team. We were really excited because he had been a "candidate" for that for 6 plus months. He also found out that he had a meeting with the fire chief and the mayor the next morning. He stayed the night with me that night and then left around 10:30 a.m. to go back to Mountain Home for his meetings. My mom came to the hospital to stay with me for the morning while he was gone and part of the afternoon. We enjoyed spending time together and bonding with baby Logan and my mom held him and watched a movie for 1.5 hours while I took a nap, which was great! When Chad got back that afternoon my mom left and Chad and I had some time with the baby while Grammie Linda took the boys to Pojo's. Then the boys and Linda came to the hospital to eat dinner with us and we watched Frosty the Snowman and ate cookies. They stayed for a couple of hours and we had a really good evening together. At about 8 they all went back home and Chad went home with them too because they had a hard night without him the night before and I knew I would be fine with the nurses to help me and I was sending the baby to the nursery at night anyway. The night went well. I felt more tired than the first night, but I brought ear plugs to the hospital which made a huge difference and I was able to sleep pretty soundly in between feedings. Chad came back to the hospital around noon the next day and then we were released at around 3 p.m. It's  been good to be home. The boys are excited and Ethan and I are doing well and feeling well!

Logan at 1 month:
9 lbs. 14.9 oz (he gained 2 lbs almost in weeks 2-4!) (60th percentile)
22.5" long (93rd percentile)

Logan is a really good baby! He is super laid back and hardly ever cries! He likes to look at his owl that Grammie got him, sit in the vibrating rocker and look at the toys, and cuddle up into our chests (which I love!). He sleeps a LOT still. He is a VERY noisy sleeper. He makes all kinds of grunts and loud sounds when he is sleeping. It sounds like he is going to wake up crying any moment, but he just sleeps away. He also has a particular grunt he does when someone moves him when he is trying to sleep. Mason and Ethan really love him. Ethan loves to show him books and bring him toys. He loves to touch and kiss him. He gets SO excited when his eyes are open and runs over and says he's awake, he's awake. Mason loves to sing to him, show him what he's playing with, hold him, touch him, spend time with him...Logan actually gets a little smothered by the 2 of them on occasion, but it is really cute how much they love him and want to play with him and do things for him. Mason also loves when Logan holds his finger. Logan is really strong and already doing a great job holding up his head. He is pretty good at tummy time and can push off our chests pretty far and hold his head up and look at us.