It only took me six weeks to find the time to sit down and write this, ha! Life with three kids is no joke. So busy! But we have been loving every minute with our newest addition.
Kannon’s Birth Story
Like I said above, life with kids is BUSY. I am definitely a planner and having been induced with my second baby I really wanted this one to be similar. Even more so since I heard sequential babies come faster (I’m foreshadowing here) and I had to make arrangements for my older two girls while we were going to be at the hospital. My induction was scheduled for Sunday, May 23rd.
Around 5am on Saturday, May 22nd I woke up to period-like cramping and just felt like something was off. I wasn’t having contractions or anything and didn’t feel the need to wake my husband up. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t get comfortable. Around 6:30am I started having slightly more intense cramping, definitely not painful, and decided to use a contraction timer app on my phone to monitor what I still thought were likely just cramps. They were all over the place, from a few minutes apart to 20 minutes apart. I decided to stay in bed that morning, watch some TV, and rest. Over about the course of an hour they started to come in more regular intervals. Then at 8am, while still laying in bed, I got a contraction and during it I heard a loud pop. It sounded like someone through a water balloon on the sidewalk. My water had broken, however there was no gush of liquid or anything. This was actually something new for me as with my first two the hospital staff had to break my water.
I immediately called my mom to let her know and to have her come get the girls. I told her not to rush since I was still only having very mild contractions. I didn’t want to go to the hospital too early and be sent home. I was actually very calm at this point and slowly started getting dresses, brushing my teeth, etc. However my husband was running around like a maniac throwing things in the car and trying to get me to hurry up. He was worried since my water had never broken on its own before and this was new to us. We ended up leaving for the hospital around 9am.
The hospital is about a 40 minute drive for us and once we were almost there I started having very painful contractions. It’s like they went from mild to straight up intense! We parked the car and I could barely walk from the parking lot to the entrance. I had to stop multiple times and hold on to the wall through contractions. Good thing he rushed me earlier to go!
By 10am I was checked in and 5cm dilated. This might be TMI, but when I walked from the wheelchair over to the bed I noticed quite a bit of blood gushing out of me. Obviously I was very concerned and remember asking my nurse if that was normal. She said I was dilating so fast that blood capillaries were pretty much just ripping open and its common for moms of multiples. By 11am the contractions were coming about a minute apart and felt unbearable. I had asked to get an epidural and the anesthesiologist was there right away. Within minutes all the pain was gone and I could only feel slight pressure during contractions.
At 1pm the nurse checked me again and I was 10cm dilated. However baby was still pretty high and she gave me the option to either start pushing or wait and see if the contractions bring her down more which would be less work for me. I pushed for 2 hours with my second baby so I opted to wait, especially since I wasn’t in any pain. At 2:05pm the midwife came in and I started pushing (this is a new thing my hospital is doing, I didn’t elect for a midwife but I didn’t mind either way). Based on the position baby was in she actually had me deliver on my side to avoid tearing. It’s basically the same as when you are on your back and bringing your knees to your chest, just on your side instead. By 2:30 our little girl was born!
She came out screaming her head off and she continued to cry when they put her on my chest. I remember both Jeff and I looking at each other like we were in for it! She didn’t stop crying for 20 whole minutes and we ended up Facetiming my mom and the girls anyways. As soon as baby heard the girls screaming with excitement, she stopped crying and opened her eyes to look for them. She had been listening to them from inside the womb and recognized their little voices, It was the sweetest thing ever!
Kannon Rose Konicke
8 lbs 1 oz / 19.5 in long
The Meaning Of Her Name
Kannon: A few months ago, Jeff and I went on a date night. We drove along the coast to the restaurant and decided to go by the very first house we lived in together. We were reminiscing on life before kids, living a block from the beach, and just how care-free we were. It was such a great time in our lives. That house is right off the main street which is called Cannon Road in Carlsbad, CA. I told Jeff I really liked the name of this road and he did too, which is rare because we don’t agree on any baby names! I ended up googling it and realized it’s a common boy name (we love boy names for girls, our first two are Gracyn and Hayden) and it is the name of the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion. We switched out the “C” for a “K” to make it more feminine and it just stuck.
Rose: We went back and forth on so many middle names. I definitely wanted something feminine since Kannon is such a strong name. It stemmed from Jeff’s favorite photo of his late grandmother bending over to smell a rose. He actually has a huge rose tattooed on his arm for her. Also, Jeff’s family lives in Portland, OR which is known as “The City of Roses”.
Thank you for all the love and support you have shown us over on Instagram. I promise to be back to blogging and posting more often once we get into a routine, but for now I am soaking up all the newborn snuggles!